NYU - March 4, 2017
Depending upon age and level of health, the average person takes between 17,000 and 23,000 breaths a day. Essential to life, the air we breathe should not make us sick.
Under most circumstances, air pollution is invisible, and yet the deaths of 6.5 million people per year are linked to breathing bad air. That’s more deaths due to breathing bad air than from AIDS, auto accidents, cholera, malaria, and war combined.
There are 1.2 billion cars on the road today, 2 billion projected for 2035, 1446 operating coal-fired power plants, and an additional 2291 coal-fired plants either under construction or in planning stages. In NYC alone there are over a million buildings and each is burning some type of fossil fuel to warm people who live or work within them. All those chimneys and pipes are pouring combustion by-products into the air we breathe which affects the health and well-being of all.
The Air We Breathe was a panel comprised of special guests who who spoke from their expertise to identify the danger in every breath and to show us what we can do tomorrow and today: Garth Lenz fine art photographer, Fred Ritchin, Dean of the International Center of Photography, Dr. George Thurston Professor of Environmental Medicine, Dr. Maureen George PhD, RN, AE-C, FAAN, Deborah Goldberg, Managing attorney, Earthjustice, Eric Weltman, senior organizer, Food and Water Watch, George Pakenham, filmmaker Idle Threat, Peter Terezakis, Associate Arts Professor, NYU Tisch and panel organizer.
The panel presentation was followed by a Q & A where experts answered questions about the air we breathe.
The Air We Breathe, was sponsored by the Tisch School of the Arts