美国有线新闻 CNN 世卫组织发布最新报告 全球每年700万人死于空气污染

 

There's a good chance that the air you breathe is too polluted to be healthy.

That's ac???cording to a new study just released this week by the World Health Organization, which is part of the United Nations. It says the vast majority of the global population is breathing air that has high levels of pollutants¹. Asia and Africa are the worst continents for this.

But in cities across North and South America, Europe and the eastern Mediterranean², pollution levels are still too high to be what the WHO calls healthy.

The cities in America with the most polluted air included Los Angeles, California, as well as Bakersfield, Fresno and Napa. They also included Indianapolis, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, and St. Louis, Missouri. But none of these places have anywhere near the level of pollution that's seen in Peshawar, Pakistan, Cairo, Egypt, and Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia.

The report says pollution isn't just a city air problem. It's bad in people's homes and poor areas of the world, where wood and charcoal³ power stoves and open fires are used to cook and heat. The upside of the study is that many cities are keeping track of pollution and that can lead to steps to clean it up.

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Seven million people die each year from a manmade cause, air pollution. That's according to a new study by the World Health Organization.

They also found that nine out of every 10 people on the planet breathes air that contains high level of pollutants.

The WHO says it's the world's most comprehensive database on pollution. The organization collected data from more than 4,300 cities and 108 countries. Although air pollution affects people worldwide, low and middle income countries experience far worse.

Many of the top cities on the list are in India. While attention is usually paid to Delhi and Mumbai, the WHO founded the cities Kanpur, Faridabad, and Varanasi are the top of the list.

Environmentalists warn that India is sitting on a toxic⁴ time bomb. The U.S. based Health Effects Institute found that over 1 million people die every year in India alone from the impacts of air pollution.

This pollution is created mostly by car and truck emissions⁵, manufacturing, power plants and farming. The particles in the air are a mix of solid and liquid droplets⁶ that get embedded⁷ into the lungs when we breathe. It leads to multiple health conditions including asthma⁸, lung cancer and heart disease.

Lynda Kinkade, CNN.

1 pollutants   

污染物质（尤指工业废物）( pollutant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Pollutants are constantly being released into the atmosphere. 污染物质正在不断地被排放到大气中去。
• The 1987 Amendments limit 301(g) discharges to a few well-studied nonconventional pollutants. 1987年的修正案把第301条（g）的普通排放限制施加在一些认真研究过的几种非常规污染物上。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

2 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

3 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

4 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

5 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

6 droplets   

n.小滴( droplet的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Droplets of sweat were welling up on his forehead. 他额头上冒出了滴滴汗珠。 来自辞典例句
• In constrast, exhaled smoke contains relatively large water droplets and appears white. 相反，从人嘴里呼出的烟则包含相当大的水滴，所以呈白色。 来自辞典例句

7 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

8 asthma   

n.气喘病，哮喘病

参考例句：

• I think he's having an asthma attack.我想他现在是哮喘病发作了。
• Its presence in allergic asthma is well known.它在过敏性气喘中的存在是大家很熟悉的。