Tag: world environment day

Is climate change driving rapid shifts in water levels on the Great Lakes?

Rapid changes in weather and water supply conditions across the Great Lakes and upper Midwest are already challenging water management policy, engineering infrastructure and human behavior

Current Affair:-Air contamination, both outside and inside homes, is a quiet and destructive executioner in charge of the unexpected losses of seven million individuals every year, including 600,000 kids, as indicated by an UN Special Rapporteur on condition and human rights.

The North American Great Lakes contain around one-fifth of the world’s surface new water. In May, new high water level records were determined to Lakes Erie and Superior, and there has been boundless flooding crosswise over Lake Ontario for the second time in three years. These occasions agree with steady precipitation and extreme flooding crosswise over quite a bit of focal North America.

As of late as 2013, water levels on the vast majority of the Great Lakes were exceptionally low. Around then a few specialists suggested that environmental change, alongside other human activities, for example, channel digging and water redirections, would cause water levels to keep on declining. This situation prodded genuine concern. More than 30 million individuals live inside the Great Lakes bowl, and many depend legitimately on the lakes for drinking water, modern use, business delivery and amusement.

In any case, since 2014 the issue has been an excess of water, not very little. High water acts simply like numerous difficulties for the area, including shoreline disintegration, property harm, uprooting of families and postponements in planting spring crops. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo as of late proclaimed a highly sensitive situation because of the flooding around Lake Ontario while calling for better arranging choices in light of environmental change.

As analysts spend significant time in hydrology and atmosphere science, we trust quick changes between outrageous high and low water levels in the Great Lakes speak to the “new typical.” Our view depends on cooperations between worldwide atmosphere changeability and the segments of the provincial hydrological cycle. Expanding precipitation, the risk of repeating times of high dissipation, and a blend of both daily practice and surprising atmosphere occasions –, for example, extraordinary virus air upheavals – are putting the district in an unknown area

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World Environment Day 2019: Air pollution claims 7 million lives each year

Hard facts: Four million people worldwide die prematurely each year from air pollution in Asia-Pacific region alone

Current Affair:-Air contamination, both outside and inside homes, is a quiet and lethal executioner in charge of the unexpected losses of seven million individuals every year, including 600,000 youngsters, as indicated by an UN Special Rapporteur on condition and human rights.

Poor air quality is a global public health emergency

David Boyd, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said that over six billion people, one-third of them children, are regularly inhaling air so polluted that it puts their life, health and well-being at risk.

How bad is the current situation?

Every hour, 800 people are dying, many after years of suffering from cancer, respiratory illnesses or heart disease directly caused by breathing bad air.

Outdoor air pollution

Air pollutants are everywhere, largely caused by burning of fossil fuels for electricity, transportation, and heating, as well as from industrial activities, poor waste management and agricultural practice.

Indoor air pollution

Women and children, who in many less wealthy countries spend a lot of time at home, are disproportionally affected by indoor air pollution caused by cooking, heating or lighting with solid fuels and kerosene.

Steps that countries must take to ensure clean air and maintain a healthy environment

Boyd identified seven key steps, which include monitoring air quality and impact on human health, assessing sources of air pollution; and making information publicly available, including public health advisories. Programmes in India and Indonesia that have helped millions of poor families switch to cleaner cooking technologies and states that are successfully eliminating the use of coal-fired power plants are a few examples of good practices. Also, many actions to ensure cleaner air can be designed to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, resulting in a double dividend.

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