by Sebastian Blanco (Car and Driver) Cambridge, Massachusetts, this week became the first city in the U.S. to put health and environment warning labels on its gas pumps. – In related news, a nine-year-old girl in South London, England, became the first person whose death certificate lists her cause of death as “air pollution exposure.” – The coroner’s decision came after a years-long fight by the girl’s mother, who said it wasn’t just about justice, but also “about other children, who are walking around cities with high levels of air pollution.”
Ella Kissi-Debrah is not the first person to die from the impacts of air pollution, but this week she became the first to have “air pollution exposure” listed as a cause on her death certificate. Kissi-Debrah was a nine-year-old girl who passed away in 2013 following a severe asthma attack, and in the years since, her mother has fought tirelessly to get her cause of death labeled for the world to see. She worked with a
[Images: arsa35/iStock, City of Cambridge]
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A decade ago, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and started spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a Toronto lawyer had an epiphany while sitting in traffic on a 14-lane highway and listening to a public radio station talk about the disaster.
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“They had expert guests and a bunch of callers all saying in unison, ‘Shame on BP, ” says Rob Shirkey, the lawyer-turned-activist. “And I’m looking at thousands of vehicles in front of me and thousands of vehicles behind me. I kind of had this moment where if I thought if I could put on X-ray goggles and magically see through all the cars, all I would see is people sitting on tanks of fuel. But for us engaging in this activity, collectively, the incident would never have happened.”