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Millions could die prematurely without ‘unprecedented’ action to clean air and water, report warns

The United Nations released its sixth Global Environment Outlook report on Wednesday. Its main message, delivered across 740 pages, is straightforward: Human action is degrading the Earth and its ecosystems, and conditions will worsen if people do not take “unprecedented action” to try to reverse the situation.

Those actions, according to the report, include reducing land degradation, limiting pollution, improving water management, and mitigating climate change. The report also calls for environmental considerations to be “mainstreamed” into all social and economic decisions — so that the environment, in other words, is viewed not as its own issue, but central to all policymaking at all governmental levels.