Health problems caused by burning

Burning causes many health problems. I am not talking about smoking but about burning fuel. The World Health organisation thinks that air pollution – almost all of it caused by burning of one kind or another, kills three million people very year.

The deaths and the illnesses that many more millions of people suffer from burning are very diverse and occur in every part of society and in virtually every part of this very diverse world.

Biomass, wood smoke, particulates and cancers

When we breathe in we inhale not only air but dust, and very small particles of stuff that we humans have put in the atmosphere. We know that these can be harmful – coal dust and asbestos dust spring immediately to mind.

Because we are putting relatively speaking so much into the atmosphere scientists are trying to understand the effect of these particles on human health.There is therefore a great deal of study and experimentation involving the toxicology of particles and fibres.