Fossil Fuels Aren’t Just Harming the Planet. They’re Making Us Sick

 

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/12052022/fossil-fuels-health-pregnancy/

 

By Liza Gross, Victoria St. Martin
May 12, 2022
 

For years, researchers have warned that chemical pollutants tied to fossil fuels have become so pervasive that they would be impossible for anyone to avoid.

A study released earlier this week may be the first indication of how widely some chemicals have spread. Researchers found multiple classes of potentially harmful chemicals where they’ve never been measured before: in the bodies of pregnant women.

Those findings have helped spur a call for policymakers to act now to protect environmental and public health from threats posed by the close connection between climate change and synthetic chemicals, most of which are derived from petroleum.

Scientists have known for decades that babies can be exposed to industrial chemicals even before birth because these chemicals can cross the placenta.

“To a disturbing extent, babies are born ‘pre-polluted,’” scientists with the U.S. National Cancer Institute reported in 2010.

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She said we know from animal studies and cell studies that a lot of the chemicals they found can interfere with the ability of the body to make hormones or respond to hormones. “And this often could lead to problems with reproduction, with development, with metabolism,” she said. 

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And now, faced with pressure to cut back on fossil fuels, researchers said in a webinar Tuesday, oil and gas companies are ramping up production of petrochemicals and plastics.

“As fuel production decreases slightly, that increase is more than offset by the demand for plastics and petrochemicals,” said Marty Mulvihill, a chemist and co-founder of Safer Made, which funds efforts to reduce human exposure to harmful chemicals.  

More than 60 percent of oil demand is expected to come from plastics and chemicals in the next decade, Mulvihill said.

That shift, researchers say, is not good news for health or the climate. Both chemicals and chemical production have a “significant” carbon footprint, with chemical manufacturing accounting for 18 percent of industrial carbon emissions, Mulvihill said. 

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