Choked: The Age of Air Pollution and the Fight for a Cleaner Future

Description

Every year, air pollution prematurely kills seven million people around the world. Its impact has been linked to strokes, heart attacks, cancer, premature birth and Alzheimer's disease. The people affected are not just the mask-wearing masses of China, where clean air was sold in bottles as a publicity stunt to draw attention to the grim deterioration of air quality; nor are they solely the workers of India's factory slums. These people are the rich as much as they are the poor. They are as much inhabitants of first world countries and major cities like London and Los Angeles as they are the coal-burners of Poland. They are everyone with a pair of lungs around a car, an underground train network, a flourishing industrial sector. They are us. In Choked, Beth Gardiner travels to air pollution hot-spots around the world to meet the scientists who have transformed our understanding of air pollution, and to trace the commercial pressures and political decisions that have allowed it to remain at life-threatening levels. Gardiner presents us with the hard facts about the most insidious threat to our lives, our lungs and our cities. But she also offers us real-world solutions, and inspiring stories of the individuals and groups who are fighting for a less toxic future. Choked is a figurative breath of fresh air in a discussion too long fogged over.

In her more than twenty years as a journalist, Beth Gardiner's work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic and The Wall Street Journal, and she is a former longtime Associated Press reporter. She has appeared on the BBC, Sky News, ITV and LBC talk radio. Both the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting and the Society of Environmental Journalists supported Gardiner's work on Choked.

Gardiner is nuanced but sharp with in her judgements...You couldn't ask for a better guide for non-specialists and concerned citizens... Gardiner remains guardedly optimistic -- Caspar Henderson * Guardian * Beth Gardiner's powerful account of what the air we breathe is doing to our bodies couldn't be more timely. Choked tells a gripping, complex tale full of memorable characters - starring one of the deadliest villains of all time, air pollution. It illuminates some disturbing realities, but it also gives us hope by showing us what we can do to clean our air. This is an urgent, essential read -- Arnold Schwarzenegger [Choked reveals] a shocking litany of damaged lives [...] in stark and vivid terms -- Robin McKie * Observer * The stories Beth Gardiner tells in Choked paint a compelling picture of a critical issue. Air pollution blights too many lives. Choked weaves together science, politics and economics to show us the progress we've made toward healthier air and the work that still lies ahead -- Christine Todd Whitman, former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency A brilliantly crafted, readable anatomy of an insidious but powerful threat-air pollution. Choked exposes the tradeoffs and abuses that have left us breathing unhealthy air and also offers moving portraits of the clean air champions who are fighting back. -- Kate Winkler Dawson, author * Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog and the Strangling of a City * Choked is a deeply reported and powerfully written account of the challenges in understanding the invisible public health crisis of air pollution. Beth Gardiner's book holds insight, lessons and emotions that echo from people and communities around the globe literally sick of "holding their breath". Gardiner takes us on an eye-opening journey to the dirty air around us and the solutions that give us hope that clear air is possible -- Lisa Palmer, author * Hot, Hungry Planet: The Fight to Stop a Global Food Crisis in the Face of Climate Change * At a time when we urgently need environmental policies that safeguard the health and well-being of all, Choked illuminates the political and technological battles and victories that have determined what is in the air we breathe. Written with the profound wonder that defines the most engaging scientific narratives and with the deep concern that comes from being a parent, this book is a personal journey to the heart of one of our planet's most pressing problems. -- Elizabeth Rush, author * Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore * With gripping stories and a keen understanding of science, Gardiner traces air pollution's insidious impact on our bodies. Choked is chock full of frightening tales from places such as Krakow, London, Delhi and California's San Joaquin Valley. Yet you'll come away breathing a little easier, knowing that with the right choices we have the tools to make the world a healthier place for our children and grandchildren -- Randi Hutter Epstein, author * Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything * This important book tells so many touching stories from bold voices from all over the world, each making it clear that we can no longer accept air pollution and the devastation it causes, especially when the solutions are so close at hand. Clean air is a human right and every breath matters -- Christiana Figueres, former United Nations climate chief Choked literally breathes life into the struggle for clean air in the U.S. and across the world. Beth Gardiner is a masterful storyteller who makes the science understandable and introduces us to the scientists and policy makers who uncovered the dangers of air pollution and drove solutions that have saved millions of lives. This book doesn't just make air pollution personal, it brings hope to all of us who remain in the fight for cleaner air and a stable climate -- Gina McCarthy, former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Some seven million people will die prematurely this year owing to the effects of air pollution. Beth Gardiner travels to some of the smoggiest places on earth to explore this grim statistic and explain what can be done to alter it. Choked is a compelling book about a critical subject -- Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of * The Sixth Extinction * Choked is an extraordinary history of the air we breathe. Brilliantly reported and beautifully written, Beth Gardiner takes us on a global tour that illuminates what's at stake when the health of people and the planet are not our priority. She sheds myths, wrestles with moral complexity, and reveals the social injustices that make air pollution an issue that both connects us and divides us. Along the way, her candid interviews with public servants, activists, entrepreneurs, scientists, doctors, and on-the-ground citizens build an inspiring blueprint for how to move forward in one of our most elemental battles -- Anna Clark, author * The Poisoned City: Flint's Water and the American Urban Tragedy * With Choked, Gardiner renders the oft-invisible assault of air pollution on our lungs and cities not just visible, but gripping. Whether describing the people she meets in her search to understand the problem and its solutions, or discussing the science, politics and social issues surrounding dirty air, Gardiner is a deft reporter and a vivid story-teller. Choked should be required reading for anyone breathing today -- Carla Power, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist * If the Oceans Were Ink * What are we doing to our lungs by burning fossil fuels? That's the profound question that this engaging book answers, travelling the world from Los Angeles to London, Beijing to Berlin. Air pollution is an insidious and often invisible threat, which makes it easy to overlook. But you will learn just how dangerous dirty air really is -- and what we can do to clean it up -- in this illuminating tale -- David Biello, TED Talks science curator and author of * The Unnatural World * Choked is a timely and potent look at the health threat air pollution poses around the world. The book's focus on life's most basic function -- breathing -- makes dirty air's dangers both tangible and immediate. Gardiner has turned the fight for clean, healthy air into a compelling tale of the progress we've made and the work that still lies ahead -- Paul Billings, senior vice president of the American Lung Association Timely, eloquent and disturbing * Nature * Gardiner is a very clear writer... render[ing] the complicated science and environmental policy into readable and engaging text... An eye-opening read * Evening Standard * We must now thank the journalists Beth Gardiner and Tim Smedley and the scientist Gary Fuller for taking up the story [of air pollution] at length. They have written complementary books which together graphically show how air pollution has become so deeply embedded in everyday life that we barely notice it * Literary Review * Such an important book...Gardiner is cogent, in a way [others] are not ...It also matters how vividly and thoughtfully these stories are told: Beth Gardiner is an excellent and sensitive storyteller * TLS *