Worldwide Protests: Citizens Urging Action on Environmental Pollution, Part 1 of a Multi-part Series

Environmental pollution, one of the modern world’s most pressing challenges, has been on the rise in recent decades, and is having a serious impact on living organisms, including humans. Long-term exposure to air pollution is estimated to have contributed to over 1.67 million annual deaths in India. The State of Global Air 2020 report found that air pollution caused more than 116,000 deaths in Indian infants within a month of birth in 2019. What do we want? Freedom! From plastic Freedom! From pollution Freedom! From global warming Freedom! From polluted air Freedom! “This is our time, we’re sending a very clear message to the leadership of this country, we do have one. No saans, no vote. If you want to win our vote, you’re going to have to give us clean air to breathe. I think the message is very simple and very clear.” Indians protest outside of the environment ministry in New Delhi over poor air quality concerns. In Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, hundreds of people gathered to protest the extremely high level of pollution. On Sunday, thousands turned out in the capital Belgrade to protest against air pollution in the Serbian capital.

“Fifteen thousand people died because of the pollution; this means 50deaths per day, which is more than from Covid-19 and we said nothing and do nothing about that.” According to the journal Tobacco Control, cigarettes emit air pollution at a rate 10 times higher than diesel car exhaust. Cigarette butts, littered by smokers, further pollute the environment. Climate activists in Portugal piled up 650,000 cigarette butts to raise awareness of this hazardous waste. “It’s highly toxic so this should be considered as toxic waste.” Scores of students marched across Cayman’s capital on Thursday, 4 November in an effort to raise awareness of single-use plastics and renew their call for a ban. Greenpeace activists installed six- and three-foot-high whale-person sculptures in front of the Pantheon, in the heart of Rome. “Eighty percent of them is from this company is Coca-cola, Unilever, Nestle, Ferrero, San Benedetto, and Haribo.” The UN is working on a treaty with various nations in the hope of drastically reducing plastic pollution by 2040.