Climate change and pollution effects children, including prior to birth, more than adults. Additionally, as pollution and climate change worsens, children today will end up with more of the consequences, according to researchers from Standford and Columbia University.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a pair of researchers reviewed the plethora of research papers already published o how pollution and climate change impact children. Of course, pollution and climate change goes hand-in-hand.

For instance, research have shown the impact of pollution on in-utero brain development, low birthweight, birth defects, and increased risk of stillbirths. After they are born, the impacts of air pollution can lead to increase incidences of heart disease, dementia, and cancers.

After children are born, climate change on production of less nutritious food and less food in general will effect their nourishment as they get older.

And as they grow up, certain places will face more difficulties with extreme weathers and flooding impacting quality of life, financial health, mental health, and physical health.

If these effects continue, struggles for resources between areas on the planet will lead to more wars and abuse, leading to further life struggles.

Almost every parent today raise children blinded to the damage they have caused to the planet and thus the future of their children thinking they don’t have to do anything to change. The fact of the matter is, the aphorism is true, “we did not inherit the planet from our ancestors, we borrowed it from out children.” Or whether or not we inherited it or borrowed it, accountability and responsibility to the stewardship of it is the only honorable way to act.

F Perera and K Nadeau. Climate change, fossil-fuel pollution, and children’s health. New England Journal of Medicine. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMra2117706