You see it, smell it, taste and feel it. It is called pollution and more than 95 percent of the world’s population is currently breathing unhealthy air.

According to the annual State of Global Air Report, air pollution is the fourth highest cause of death among all health risks globally. Only high blood pressure, diet and smoking are more dangerous. The report says exposure to air pollution leads to strokes, heart attacks, lung cancer and chronic lung disease, causing many premature deaths.

According to the report, China and India were found to be jointly responsible for over 50 percent of global deaths attributable to pollution.

There is also indoor pollution. The report took into account those exposed to the burning of solid fuels in their homes, typically used for cooking or heating their home. In 2016, a total of 2.5 billion people - one in three global citizens - were exposed to air pollution from solid fuels such as wood, dung or charcoal.

We know what causes air pollution; factories and cars cannot be scratched from our everyday life. But why more isn’t being done is more difficult to answer. Ordinarily, the solutions to air pollution have focused on establishing a mix of technological solutions, regulations and policies, and encouraging behavioral change.

However, not everyone in the world is committed to helping stop pollution. Most sources of air pollution are from human activity, but does it matter? The truth is that pollution effects are so long-term that most people don’t care or even notice them. Air pollution might as well not be there. It is the subtlety of air pollution that makes it dangerous. It stops being relevant in an individual’s life.

Those who care about mobilizing public opinion on the environment need to find new messages in order to reinvigorate a debate that has long been pushed aside. People either figure someone else will clean up after them; they think it’s too expensive; they don’t know how; they never have before; they don’t care; or they don’t believe there is a problem.

Like the fatalities and poor health that result from obesity and smoking, the numbers are so high that the target audience becomes numb to the danger. The same is the case with pollution. All the figures, facts and statistics don’t seem to be having an effect. Thus, when it is discovered that combined exposure leads to one in four air pollution deaths in India, and nearly one in five in China, the chances are slim that this fatality rate will make a difference. Or that one in every four early deaths is in nations trying to industrialize rapidly. Or that air pollution travels great distances - if a toxin from burning coal in Shanghai is released, it can end up in Los Angeles just as easily. Or that breathing in Delhi air is equivalent to smoking 44 cigarettes a day. And so on and so forth.

People see polluted air from the windows of their cities and might worry but perhaps not much because in everyday life, it’s not a particularly big deal. Few people consider air pollution a serious issue.

People contribute to air pollution in multiple ways without even knowing it. By raising awareness, it can help minimize the causes of air pollution. Or maybe not.

Now that almost everyone on Earth breathes polluted air, what continues to surprise is the fact that even though governments and their people have been alerted about these figures for a while now, there has not been much improvement.

Bluntly put, bread and butter issues of the poor, and the desire for more elevated standards of living for others appear to pose a much clearer and more present threat to their well-being than environmental jeopardy.