Paul Goble
Staunton, June 27 – Russia now ranks in the top ten countries in terms of the number of people who are dying from air pollution; but just how many remains unknown because the Russian government refuses to update old data and may not even be recording the increased mortality independent experts say they are measuring, Alla Yaroshinskaya says.
In a Rosbalt commentary, the political analyst says that this failure is disturbing because such “quiet murders” in many cases far outnumber the violent ones that the regime does at least report. Not reporting these figures means the chances anything will be done are much reduced (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2021/06/25/1908425.html).
And it is a time delayed bomb in many cases because when Russians breathe in such particulate matter, it settles in the lungs where it contributes to a variety of medical problems and reduces live expectancy for the Russian population as a whole by more than a year, a huge decrease from a problem that other countries are addressing more seriously.
Just how much Moscow is neglecting this problem, Yaroshinskaya says, is shown in a 247-page government report on the environment released in 2019 which does not even mention particulate matter contamination let alone describe any action that the authorities might have taken to address it.
If the situation doesn’t change, particulate matter in the atmosphere in Russia, currently running at a rate twice that the World Health Organization says is dangerous, will only rise and with it more deaths. And Moscow will itself be responsible for declining life expectancies, exactly the opposite of what it is saying it is doing.
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