{"id":30290,"date":"2018-01-29T07:36:41","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T12:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30290"},"modified":"2018-01-29T07:36:41","modified_gmt":"2018-01-29T12:36:41","slug":"ending-pollution-requires-a-change-in-attitudes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=30290","title":{"rendered":"Ending Pollution Requires a Change in Attitudes"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/01\/29\/ending-pollution-requires-a-change-in-attitudes\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Ending Pollution Requires a Change in Attitudes<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"socialtwo\">\n<div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 a2a_default_style left-social\" data-a2a-icon-color=\"unset\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<p>Pollution has become an everyday affair; a murderous way of life which, according to a report published in The Lancet, is responsible for the deaths of at least nine million people every year. The air we breathe is poisoned, the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans are filthy, \u2014 some more, some less \u2014 the land littered with waste, the soil toxic. Neglect, complacency and exploitation characterize the attitude of governments, corporations and far too many individuals towards the life of the planet, and its rich interwoven ecological systems.<\/p>\n<p>The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, which is yet another cry for urgent collective action, found that pollution is responsible for a range of diseases that \u201ckill one in every six people around the world\u201d. This figure, while shocking, is probably a good deal higher because \u201cthe impact of many pollutants is poorly understood.\u201d The landmark study establishes that we have reached the point when \u201cdeaths attributed to pollution are triple those from Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Our selfish materialistic way of life is having a devastating impact on all forms of life; unless there is a major shift in attitudes the numbers of people dying of pollution will increase; contamination of the oceans will increase, deforestation and desertification will continue, and the steady destruction of all that is beautiful and naturally given will intensify. Until one day it will be too late.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Plastic oceans, poisoned air<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Even climate change deniers cannot blame the natural environment for the plastic islands that litter the oceans, or the poisoned water and contaminated air. Pollution results from human activity, it \u201cendangers the stability of the Earth\u2019s support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.\u201d A sense of intense, life-threatening urgency needs to be engendered, particularly amongst the governments and populations of those countries that are, and have historically been, the major polluters \u2014 the industrialized nations of the World.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ending Pollution Requires a Change in Attitudes Pollution has become an everyday affair; a murderous way of life which, according to a report published in The Lancet, is responsible for the deaths of at least nine million people every year. The air we breathe is poisoned, the streams, rivers, lakes and oceans are filthy, \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[13918,9219,5493,18195,638,18196],"class_list":["post-30290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-attitudes","tag-behaviour","tag-counterpunch","tag-graham-peebles","tag-pollution","tag-the-lancet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30291,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30290\/revisions\/30291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}