Guardian Downgrades the Climate Crisis, Chemical Pollution a “Comparable” Threat – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Amazing how many other problems are just as important as the crisis of our time.

Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate change, scientists warn

More than 100 million ‘novel entity’ chemicals are in circulation, with health impact not widely recognised

Damien Gayle Wed 6 Aug 2025 14.00 AEST

Chemical pollution is “a threat to the thriving of humans and nature of a similar order as climate change” but decades behind global heating in terms of public awareness and action, a report has warned.

The industrial economy has created more than 100 million “novel entities”, or chemicals not found in nature, with somewhere between 40,000 and 350,000 in commercial use and production, the report says. But the environmental and human health effects of this widespread contamination of the biosphere are not widely appreciated, in spite of a growing body of evidence linking chemical toxicity with effects ranging from ADHD to infertility to cancer.

“I suppose that’s the biggest surprise for some people,” Harry Macpherson, senior climate associate at Deep Science Ventures (DSV), which carried out the research, told the Guardian.

“Maybe people think that when you walk down the street breathing the air; you drink your water, you eat your food; you use your personal care products, your shampoo, cleaning products for your house, the furniture in your house; a lot of people assume that there’s really great knowledge and huge due diligence on the chemical safety of these things. But it really isn’t the case.”

…

Currently, chemical toxicity as an environmental issue receives just a fraction of the funding that is devoted to climate change, a disproportionality that Macpherson says should change. “We obviously don’t want less funding going into the climate and the atmosphere,” he said. “But this we think – really, proportionally – needs more attention.”

…

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/06/chemical-pollution-threat-comparable-climate-change-scientists-warn-novel-entities

The report “Toxicity: The Invisible Tsunami” is apparently available here, but as of the time of writing their website was unresponsive.

If this “Invisible Tsunami” of toxic chemicals is having an impact on human health, it is certainly not showing up in any life expectancy graphs I’ve seen.

I’m not suggesting that chemical toxicity is something which should be ignored, there are good reasons why dangerous poisons like Thallium rat bait and Tetra-ethyl lead fuel additives were discontinued. But spending huge money monitoring every imaginable chemical, that money has to come from somewhere. Spending billions of dollars on a wild goose chase, making life less affordable for people who are already struggling, would itself have a substantial large scale impact on human health.