An article in the Boston Globe yesterday has the title “A Clean Transportation System is the Prescription My Patients Need.” The article is by Gaurab Basu, a physician with Harvard Medical School who is also co-director of the Center for Health Equity Education & Advocacy at Cambridge Health Alliance.
In the article, he notes that our dirty transportation system has long been an urgent public health issue, known to cause heart attacks, strokes, asthma attacks, and deaths. Now that recent studies show more COVID-19 deaths in counties with longstanding air pollution problem, clean, equitable transportation is even more urgent.
He describes recent studies that show disparities in exposure to air pollution from transportation, with communities of color being much more exposed, and that part of the answer about why COVID-19 is making people more sick is that society just didn’t care enough to keep the air clean. And that cars, trucks, and buses are the biggest sources of CO2 in the country, causing serious harm to the climate and our health.
He talks about his oath as a doctor, to first do no harm, and how our transportation system is actively harming his patients with air pollution and destabilizing the planet. He states it’s time to stop describing the problems, and instead to start acting with conviction to solve them.
We know so much about air pollution, exposure, climate, and health. This article is spot on, it’s time to act with conviction.
Read the Boston Globe article here.
Watch our Clean Air Conversation about Air Pollution, Climate Change, and Impacts on Vulnerable Communities here.
