I was listening this morning to a podcast interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which he discussed his very successful track record of environmental activism (including his bipartisan push to defeat Prop 23, a Califronia anti-regulation proposition heavily funded by oil and gas companies, back in 2010).

Arnold pointed out that, currently, the vast majority of environmental lobbying and debate focuses on climate change – obviously, a huge and extremely serious issue, though one where we need to change current actions to address seemingly distant future outcomes.

At the same time, the pollution that’s driving up global temperatures is having huge impact, today, on global health. The WHO estimates that more than 7 million people will die in 2017 due to air pollution, at least 250,000 of them here in the United States.

Despite my support for environmental causes, and my general interest in the policy world, I had absolutely no idea that the current numbers were that high. Indeed, this year, more people will die from air pollution than from war, terrorism, homicide, suicide, and car accidents, combined. That’s a huge clear-and-present danger, though one that environmental activists and lobbyists don’t seem to be effectively communicating.

Sure, we should be focusing on climate change, on the security benefits of energy independence, and the economic and jobs potential of green energy. But we’re killing millions of people around the world – and hundreds of thousands here in the US – every single year with our current environmental policies. That’s something that should be front and center in the push for tighter regulations and smarter investments.

Messaging matters, and it appears, in the push for a cleaner world, that’s where we’re falling short.