Features
Newsday reporter
CHALSEY ANTHONY
Home to over 44 million people, the Caribbean is among the world’s top travel destinations. With its lush, inviting beaches, wide array of delicious food, rich, vibrant culture and citizens, millions of people visit every year.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, an estimated 58.8 million people visited the region in 2019. Despite having a paradisiacal appeal, the region faces some of the most severe environmental and socio-economic issues, challenging the very survival of its countries and people.
Greenhouse gases released when fossil fuels are burned contribute to air pollution and are one of the biggest drivers of climate change. National Geographic notes, “This creates a cycle where air pollution contributes to climate change and climate change creates higher temperatures, in turn higher temperatures intensify some types of air pollution.” These conditions continue to affect the quality of the social and environmental factors that contribute to our health. Thus, citizens in the Caribbean face complex problems that challenge our health and well-being – the food and water we need to live, the security of our shelter and even the air we breathe.
Four women from different fields share their experience of living in the Caribbean and dealing with the health implications of air pollution. Human activities, such as burning landfills and household waste, release toxic and harmful gases into the atmosphere, which can enter the lungs and bloodstream and increase the risk of heart disease, respiratory disease, and lung cancer. .
Paulette Palmer is a registered nurse and midwife who lives near a garbage dump that occasionally catches fire. “It just messes up the atmosphere and it’s not just for those who are close to her. Smoke can spread far. And irritating your eyes and your respiratory system, especially for people like me who have sinus problems, is not nice.” She says “years ago, one of my sisters lived much closer to the Riverton side. She had to move because it was also triggering her sinuses, making her dizzy and sick just from the smoke and inhaling it.”
For many people, these feelings are true and very real. Abigail Jones is the founder of a diaspora business in the Caribbean – a nostalgic island living in Jamaica.
She said, “I live in an area where a lot of my neighbors burn their trash and household waste so they can get to me right away.” As Jones reflects on the impressive effects this has had on her health, she continues to shed light on an even more intimate and personal ordeal.
“My grandmother and her neighbors are also affected by the burning and smog because they live very close to the landfill. Every time they burn, it gets all the smoke and it’s such a horrible smell. She had trouble breathing because of it.”
According to a report from the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately seven million people from around the world die each year from pollution-related incidents, causing approximately 320,000 premature deaths in the Americas region. Consequently, air quality is a dominant problem influenced by the levels and location of outdoor air pollutants, fine particles and airborne allergens.
Courtesy of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center, CCCCC –
UNICEF lawyer Priyanka Lalla, 15, said: “I have seen fires on mountain tops and even near my home. There is a lot of smoke and ash polluting your entire balance. You smell the smoke and the compressed air and it’s hard to even breathe out. I try to stay inside as much as I can on hot days to avoid heatstroke or breathing problems, especially with the Sahara dust now.”
Even natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions contribute to air pollution when plumes of ash and gas are emitted, resulting in a haze created by volcanic aerosols. Fine particles from wildfire smoke, black carbon or soot, as well as ash plumes and sulfuric gases from volcanic eruptions, also contribute to poor air quality, causing serious health effects.
In 2021, the La Soufriere volcano in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines erupted, resulting in the fallout of ash and sulfur dioxide experienced in the neighboring countries of Barbados, Saint Lucia and Grenada.
“It was particularly terrifying because you couldn’t even go outside until that point. It was irritating to my eyes. And just breathing it in, I could feel it in my throat,” recalls Charlotte Tom from Trinidad and Tobago, a student currently in Barbados completing a masters in environmental management who experienced the poor air quality from the explosion.
“I love being outside; I like it – fresh air. I like to remove my windows. When something as simple as being outside is a threat to your health, it’s kind of depressing. It takes a toll on you in more ways than one.”
Air pollution is disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, including women, children, indigenous minorities, poor communities, migrants or displaced people, the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. An epidemiologist at the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Belize, Antonio Hegar tells us that the long-term health consequences of exposure to poor air quality can cause respiratory diseases such as asthma, emphysema, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). but also things you wouldn’t normally associate with air pollution. “People are more at risk of developing strokes, blood clots and heart attacks as the level of fine particulate air pollution rises.”
common diseases and lung cancer. – Courtesy of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, CCCCC
For many people, like these four women, the reality that climate change and air pollution will continue to affect the quality of the air they breathe is sad. “You can’t do much because you can’t live in a vacuum,” Palmer said. Of her concern, Jones said: “It’s a bit scary to think what could go wrong next if we don’t change anything. It almost seems like it’s still a taboo subject because so many people still don’t know what climate change is or even if they do, they don’t know that it directly affects them.”
Tom called out feelings of outrage when she asked: “Who wants to live in a world where you have to limit your exposure to the air you breathe? We islanders are often overlooked when it comes to the global environment. With an issue as serious and urgent as climate change, you’d think there should be no alternatives, no debate – it’s an existential crisis.”
“I wonder what it will be like for future generations if I feel it already. This scares me”, said Lalla. “It doesn’t matter where you come from, who you are or what part of the world you live in; you are facing and feeling the effects and especially in Small Island Developing States.”
The good news is that when we take action to improve air quality, we make our environment cleaner, our health better and reduce the impacts of the climate crisis. Similarly, policies and interventions that reduce climate change and improve environmental conditions have the potential for large health benefits.
Since 2020, much focus has been on climate action and health through the promotion of tools to measure the health co-benefits associated with mitigation. The AirQ+ tool that quantifies the health burden and impact of air pollution includes a user-friendly mechanism to assess long-term and short-term exposure to ambient air pollution. The tool is being piloted in TT and Cuba and other countries under Strengthening Climate Resilient Health Systems in the Caribbean. The project is funded by the European Union and implemented by PAHO/WHO, together with five subregional implementing partners including CCCCC, UWI, CIMH, CARPHA and the Caricom Secretariat, and Cariforum plays a key oversight role.
Chalsey Anthony is communications assistant, Caribbean Community Center on Climate Change
