Air pollution causes health problems, especially for those with heart or lung conditions. Recent research has shown that it may also be a contributing factor in dementia. There is a statistically-significant association between dementia and pollutants such as soot (e.g. from car exhausts) and nitrogen dioxide (from burning fossil fuels), possibly via inflammation in the brain.
Dementia currently affects over 57 million people worldwide, a number expected to almost triple in the next twenty years. There are causes other than air pollution, but making the air cleaner would be one way of reducing this unpleasant disease.
And yet we know that capitalists treat pollution as an ‘externality’, and preventable illnesses matter far less than healthy profits.
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