Clean air must be made a global priority | Letter

Left unchecked, toxic air will keep shortening millions of lives and harming health, says Jane Burston

Your article (Millions of Britons face higher risk of heart failure due to dirty air, study suggests, 8 September) is just the latest reminder that toxic air is a public health crisis. The evidence is piling up. There’s also fresh evidence that air pollution can drive devastating forms of dementia.

Left unchecked, toxic air will keep shortening lives and worsening health everywhere. But the good news is that solutions are at hand. Academics at Princeton University have recently shown that cutting pollution in the US could save thousands of lives each year.