This preface addresses the critical interplay between the Earth's unique potential for sustaining human life and our complex relationship with the environment. It emphasizes how humanity, acting as stewards of nature, is contributing to environmental pollution and the subsequent threat it poses to human existence.
The preface underscores several pressing global environmental challenges, including the excessive consumption of limited resources, the proliferation of immense amounts of waste, the issue of acid rain, deforestation, desertification, global warming, ozone layer depletion, radiation exposure, and species extinction. It asserts that environmental pollution and climate change are the foremost health risks of the 21st century.
Highlighting the immediate consequences of these challenges, it points out that rising temperatures and extreme weather events directly result in loss of life, increased transmission of infectious diseases, and the undermining of crucial determinants of health, such as clean air, water, and an adequate food supply (as stated by WHO in 2015). Shockingly, an estimated 12.6 million people lost their lives in 2012 due to exposure to an unhealthy environment, with nearly 1 in 4 global deaths attributed to environmental hazards (as reported by WHO in 2016). The preface underscores how environmental risk factors, including air, water, and soil pollution, chemical exposures, climate change, and ultraviolet radiation, contribute to over 100 diseases and injuries.
Moreover, it references a 2012 report by the World Health Organization, revealing that approximately 3.8 million deaths occur annually in the South-East Asian region due to environmental crises. These facts serve as a stark reminder of the severe degradation of our environment and its profound impact on human health.
The preface also focuses on India as an example, illustrating how population growth and environmental degradation are concurrent challenges. Consequently, it points out that precious natural elements like air, soil, and many of India's rivers have reached dangerously polluted levels. It cites Mohan's 2017 report in the Times of India, which claims that worsening air pollution in India led to approximately 1.1 million premature deaths in 2015. Chan's statement in 2016 underscores the critical importance of a healthy environment in supporting a healthy population, emphasizing that failure to take action to create healthy living and working environments will continue to result in illness and premature death for millions.
