Human Health
Environmental problems often lead to bad health, particularly in the poorest populations of the world. At the Earth Summit in 1992, countries recognised that more sustainable development was needed not only to protect the environment but also to safeguard people's quality of life, by improving health and relieving poverty.
Environmental pollution often damages food and water resources, and can lead to hunger, malnutrition and disease. Air pollution can be a major cause of breathing problems, particularly in large cities where there is a lot of traffic. Global warming as a result of air pollution may increase the amount of malaria in the world, which spreads in warm countries by the mosquito. Damage to the ozone layer may increase skin cancers and blindness.
Agenda 21, produced at the Earth Summit, seeks to improve the health of people, particularly in the poorer developing countries. In the long run, it is cheaper and more sustainable to prevent people falling sick than to try to cure them once they have fallen ill. What is most unfair is that currently those worst affected in the world are producing much less pollution than the more well-off in the developed world.
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