00:24Wildfires emit black carbon, sometimes called such.
00:28It's very small particles of partially combusted material and we breathe them in and then
00:35they're so tiny, some of them, that they can get through our lungs and into our bloodstream.
00:40So there's the obvious respiratory impact that can happen quite quickly, so asthma, but
00:45there's also longer term implications like lung cancer or once these particles get through
00:51into the bloodstream, they can affect every single organ, causing heart attacks, strokes
00:56and over the long term even dementia.
01:14For people who live in the vicinity that won't be affected by the fire itself on the ground,
01:20but will be affected by the air pollution.
01:22What we need is for authorities to warn them that it's coming, so that if they can move
01:26they can choose to evacuate.
01:28And if they can't do that, to make sure that they stay inside, have air purification if they
01:34can and really try and prevent breathing this pollution in.
01:52Climate change and air pollution and wildfires is a really vicious circle.
01:56We know that air pollutants are emitted at the same time as greenhouse gases.
02:00That's causing higher temperatures, which is causing more wildfires, which is causing more
02:05air pollution like black carbon that's then heating the planet more.
02:09So we really need to tackle other causes of air pollution as well as the wildfires to start
02:15bringing the temperatures down.
Comments