Climate change threatens human health: report

In its report published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, the lack of progress on climate change threatens the lives of people and the sustainability of health care systems in Canada and around the world. The report says that the most important thing governments can do to improve human health is to fight climate change effectively.

According to a report, millions of people are dying

In Canada, it is estimated that greenhouse gas pollution kills 7,142 people a year and 2.1 million people around the world.

Last summer, public health officials in Quebec said that 90 people had died as a result of a heat wave. The increase in heat waves can cause heat stroke and more pollen, aggravate allergies and asthma and contribute to forest fires. Courtney Howard, Canadian researcher, wrote the part of the report on Canada. She says that the world is on the rhythm of temperature increases that it can not adapt to.

Pollution by greenhouse gases, such as that emitted by coal-fired power plants, is already linked to deaths in Canada and around the world, notes a report in The Lancet. (IStock)

More lights, more smoke

The report warns that more fires will mean more days of smoke and more warnings for people to stay inside. More heat means more insects and diseases than they can cause, such as Lyme disease, whose case count has increased by half in 2017.

Fine particles of pollutants in the air can cause heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, respiratory infections and lung diseases that can lead to death.

"It's an emergency," says the doctor

Howard told The Canadian Press that the last few summers have shown Canadians what climate change will look like with record fires in British Columbia in 2017 and 2018, drought in the Prairie Provinces in western Canada and heat waves in central Canada and floods in communities across the country.

She added: "I am an emergency doctor and I work there because it is an emergency."

With records from the Canadian press.