Environmental health perspectives
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Environ. Health Perspect. · Aug 2008
Children are likely to suffer most from our fossil fuel addiction.
The periods of fetal and child development arguably represent the stages of greatest vulnerability to the dual impacts of fossil fuel combustion: the multiple toxic effects of emitted pollutants (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, particles, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, metals) and the broad health impacts of global climate change attributable in large part to carbon dioxide released by fossil fuel burning. ⋯ Consideration of the full spectrum of health risks to children from fossil fuel combustion underscores the urgent need for environmental and energy policies to reduce fossil fuel dependence and maximize the health benefits to this susceptible population. We do not have to leave our children a double legacy of ill health and ecologic disaster.