Study of studies finds children affected by global warming and pollution even before birth

Increased air pollution, extreme heat and unpredictable weather patterns are all the result of the climate crisis, and in particular global warming. Now a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has looked at how these impact upon children's lives by reviewing findings from a number of earlier studies.

The findings aren't positive.

Heat exposure during pregnancy results in a higher risk of preterm births, lower birth weights, hyperthermia and higher rates of infant mortality. Are pollution causes more preterm births and infant deaths, whilst older children are likely to develop asthma or respiratory infections.

Children exposed to heat stress are more likely to develop kidney disease, whilst outdoors activities in elevated temperatures cause dehydration and heat stroke.

More than fifty million children worldwide have been forced to leave their homes as a result of extreme weather events, some of them permanently.

Those weather events are just going to keep getting worse and whilst they continue to do so, it's inevitable that the lives or children will get worse, before they are born, whilst they are young or because the world they inherit is so fundamentally damaged that they are unable to reverse the changes which previous generations have wrought.

We still have the opportunity to reverse those changes, by making difficult choices and through individual action.

We may be the last generation to have this opportunity.