Dirty energy threatens health of 2 billion: study
LONDON, ENGLAND - The health of about 2 billion of the world's poor is being damaged because they lack access to clean energy, like electricity, and face exposure to smoke from open fires, scientists said recently.
Dangerous levels of indoor air pollutants from badly ventilated cooking fires are a common hazard, while lack of electricity deprives many of the benefits of refrigeration.
Paul Wilkinson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the world's richest populations use up to 20 times more energy per head than those from poor countries, posing a challenge to improve energy supply without pollution.
Writing in the Lancet medical journal, Wilkinson and colleagues estimated 2.4 billion people worldwide were exposed to pollution from inefficient burning of solid fuels like wood, coal and dried cow dung.
This causes around 1.6 million premature deaths each year - roughly double the level of deaths from air pollution in cities - and many more non-fatal cases of respiratory diseases. At the same time, around 1.6 billion people worldwide have no electricity.
"Paradoxically, the poor are using much less energy but they are getting all the adverse effects," Wilkinson said in an interview.
"We in the more developed countries have access to clean energy and are using much more of it and are contributing to the global problem of climate change, where the main adverse effects are likely to fall, once again, on lower-income countries."
Global warming could trigger a range of health problems including more extreme heatwaves, increases in water-borne and insect-borne diseases, and threats to food supplies.
Lancet editor Richard Horton said the research showed that the current debate on climate change and new energy sources was unbalanced and too narrow.
"It neglects a far larger set of issues focused on energy and health," he said.
Related News

Sierra Club: Governor Abbott's Demands Would Leave Texas More Polluted and Texans in the Dark
AUSTIN - Earlier this week, Governor Abbott released a letter to the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), demanding changes that Abbott falsely claims will "increase power generation capacity and to ensure the reliability of the Texas power grid."
Unfortunately, Abbott's letter promotes polluting, unreliable fossil fuels, attacks safer clean energy options, and ignores solutions that would actually benefit everyday Texans.
"Governor Abbott, in a blatant effort to politicize Texans' energy security, wants to double down on fossil fuels, even though they were the single largest point of failure during both February's…