PM 2.5 and Impacts of Air Pollution on Ecosystem: Buddhist Perspective

บทคัดย่อ

          The pollution of air with PM 2.5 has raised concerns about the negative impact of air quality on several health conditions, including respiratory illness, heart health, and allergic symptoms affecting the eyes and nasal passages. It is a growing concern for the general public in Thailand. Increasing levels of PM 2.5 in Thailand, it has impacted on the health and wellbeing of citizens, especially children. Exposure to high pollution levels affects children in irreversible ways.  Children breathe faster than adults, which means that they are breathing in more polluted air than grownups. The younger they are, the more breaths per minute they take. In addition, their organs are still in a development stage, making them more vulnerable to immediate and life-long negative impacts. From a Buddhist perspective, an expression of craving, the very thing the Buddha pinpointed as the root cause of suffering. As signatories to this statement of Buddhist principles, the traditional five precepts, we acknowledge the urgent challenge of climate change we accept our individual and collective responsibility to do whatever we can to meet this target, including the personal and social responses outlined above. At the root of the ecological problem is a sense of self that needs to be deconstructed. We have a brief window of opportunity to take actions, to preserve humanity from imminent disaster and to assist the survival of the many diverse and beautiful forms of life on Earth.