The Uninhabitable Earth

Though humans aren’t at risk of suffocating due to lack of oxygen, the changing climate means that people around the globe are ingesting harmful carbon dioxide particles that directly affect cognitive ability, causing declines in clarity of thought of over 20 percent. The planet’s air is only getting dirtier, and deaths from inhaling pollutants are expected to double as climate change seizes the planet. 10,000 people globally already die from air pollution each day—and as the air around the world becomes more toxic, that number will only skyrocket.

Studies have shown that a person’s test scores, labor force participation, and lifetime earnings are all directly tied to the quality of the air they breathe. In significantly smoggy or toxic areas, these numbers are all in decline. From China to California to Delhi, pollutants often prove life-threatening; over 1.3 million people died during China’s “airpocalypse” of 2013. Pollutants affect heart rate, asthma, and pregnancy outcomes, and air pollution has been linked to cognitive issues such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorders. Globally, about 95 percent of the world’s population is currently breathing air that is polluted enough to be dangerous.  

Chemical pollutants and carbon particles aren’t the only things compromising the air we breathe and the things we consume: microplastics, too, are a direct threat. Fish tested all over the world contain microplastics, as do honey, beer, and sea salt. Globally, most human bodies probably contain microplastics as well. By 2050, there may well be more plastics in the ocean than fish.

When plastics break down and degrade, they release methane—yet another airborne pollutant that threatens human life and accelerates warming. Aerosol pollution, too, poses a sinister threat: particles that hang in the earth’s atmosphere reflect heat back into space, keeping the temperature cool. Unfortunately, this places humanity in a terrible catch-22: halting or drastically decreasing emissions rapidly will undoubtedly now result in an even more hastened warming of about half a degree. Pollution is destroying global public health, but it’s also cruelly protecting humanity from something much worse: rapid warming.

Scientists and climatologists have managed to find a potential solution to this “devil’s bargain:” by dispersing sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, the element’s change into sulfuric acid will reflect the sun’s rays back, keeping the planet cool as emissions decrease. This, however, would turn our skies red, create more acid rain, decimate plant life, and result in many more thousands of pollution-related deaths annually. And once humanity begins such a program, it can never stop.