Frederica Perera -Children and Toxic Air Pollution

Frederica Perera, PhD founded Columbia's Center for Children's Environmental Healthand is a professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. Recently, her book Children's Health and the Perils of Climate Change was published by Oxford University Press, (2022).

Dr. Perera wrote this book as a wake-up call, a call to action. From her research, she knows that children are particularly at risk from air pollution, mostly caused by fossil fuels. This book is timely because the cures for children's health are the same as the ones we can employ for climate health, which is considered to be in Code Red Alert, by the UN.

This book is a resource and a reference for both children's ill health (eg: SIDS, Asthma, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, anxiety/depression, loss of IQ, mental health) and the more hopeful solution-focused examples that have been demonstrated effective, around the globe.

Governments have a large role to play in the fix, but Dr. Perera recognizes that individual choices influence others and make a real difference. Organizations that she recommends:
Fridays for Future
Sunrise Movement
International Youth Climate Movement,
Zero Hour
Earth Uprising
Extinction Rebellion
Moms Clean Air Force
The Society of Fearless Grandmothers
The Elders

Dr. Perera says, "Now's the time" to act. Our actions can alleviate suffering, costly medical treatments, and death. Positive changes will benefit us by slowing climate change, making green jobs, recovering human potential and a creating healthier population/planet, for all species.