By 2050, global climate change will have a major impact on public health. Between 2030 and 2050, heat stress, diarrheal diseases, malaria, and malnutrition could cause up to 250,000 additional deaths annually.
The heating planet presents much more than just an environmental disaster. It is also a global health crisis, as humans struggle to cope with high temperatures, drought, extreme weather, infectious diseases, and food and water insecurity.
According to the WHO:
“Climate change is impacting human lives and health in a variety of ways. It threatens the essential ingredients of good health - clean air, safe drinking water, nutritious food supply, and safe shelter - and has the potential to undermine decades of progress in global health.”
Globally, the research shows reducing emissions over the next 50 years to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement to keep global warming under 2°C through the end of the century could prevent about 4.5 million premature deaths, 1.4 million hospitalizations and emergency room visits, 300 million lost workdays, 1.7 million incidences of dementia, and 440 million tons of crop losses nationwide. Roughly two-thirds of those benefits would be realized even if only the United States reduced emissions.
“What we found was that there was a real difference across time, that you have to spend a lot of money now to deal with climate change and transition your economy to renewable energy, and your cars to electric vehicles, electrify all appliances, all of these kinds of things,” Shindell said. “That saves you money in the long run, but in the near term, it doesn't really give you benefits from reduced climate change that outweigh the cost, because climate is slow, it just doesn't respond that quickly." The effects of improved air quality, however, occur at a faster pace. www.nasa.gov/...
Earlier this year, sixty health organizations told Congress that climate change is also a health emergency and urged legislators to pass laws designed to lower GHG emissions.
“Climate change is here and we’re already seeing it damaging human health across the world,” Anthony Costello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown, said in a press release.
The Lancet Countdown report revealed that only 45 of 91 countries in the survey had a national health plan in place to address climate change and health. Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed reported insufficient financing to implement plans. www.eurekalert.org/…
The report noted the rapid increase of outbreaks of Zika, dengue, and chikungunya in countries with extremely high human development indexes. The coastal regions of Europe and the United States are more conducive to bacteria which can lead to gastroenteritis, serious wound infections, and sepsis.
“We’re seeing that across all indicators that track the impacts of climate change on human health, we see that things are getting worse,” Marina Romanello, PhD, research director for the Lancet Countdown and the study’s lead author, tells Verywell.
With intensified climate change can come various health risks. For instance, heat waves can rapidly evaporate water, causing larger storms. Resulting floods may displace people from their homes, usher in harmful black mold infestations, and spread pollutants into drinking water.
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Heatwaves: premature deaths for children under age one and adults over 65.
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Drought: Food and water insecurity.
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Poor air quality from GHG emissions: especially impacts children, seniors, pregnant women, and those with respiratory illnesses
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Warming oceans: lead to die-off of sea life. 3.3 billion people depend on seafoods for nutrition
Climate Change & Youth: Inspiration
The New York Times produced a special report Climate Solutions, to examine how individuals around the world were taking action to address climate change. In part 5, In the Fight Against Climate Change, Young Voices Speak Out, reporters spoke with five young people about how climate change impacted their lives.
Vanessa Nakate, 24, Uganda
Climate activist from Uganda and founder of the Africa-based Rise Up Movement
Around the time I was finishing university, I became deeply interested in the climate crisis. I was inspired by my father, who has always been involved in community initiatives, to find out what the biggest issues facing my community were, so that I could do something to help. While doing my research, I kept coming back to the climate crisis. It seemed to be the cause of so much suffering in my country, Uganda — which is funny because no one was really talking about it. That’s when I knew I had to take action, so I started protesting in January 2019.
John Paul Jose, 24, India
Deputy director general of Zero Hour Southeast Asia, a youth-led movement that provides training and resources for young people seeking to take climate action
Knowing about climate change and how it was impacting the world provided a focus. In 2018, when extreme rainfall flooded more than half of our state and country, I realized we are in a climate emergency. My parents and other people also began to realize this was the first time they had seen something of that scale. As time went on, I started noticing that other impacts of climate change were visible and it was even impacting our livelihood: streams began to dry out quickly; wettest summer, driest monsoon; high temperatures. And yet, unlike other issues, tackling the climate crisis was a backstage event, and there were no mainstream political or media discussions on such a pressing issue.
POST COP
The Financial Times reported that the Glasgow talks failed because they are relying on technology to solve the problem of global warming. Tech fixes, they note, cannot be scaled to size in time. Plus, all of the solutions are dependent on:
- electricity generated by hydropower, renewables or nuclear fission
- carbon capture and storage (CCS)
- biomass.