Doctors Warn of Climate Change: World's Largest Global Health Threat | News | Eco-Business

The increasing heat and climate change climate is making it "the greatest global threat to 21st century health", with hundreds of millions more people already suffering in the past two decades, warned medical authorities.

In a compelling report published by the medical journal The Lancet, scientists and health experts said that the impacts of climate change (from heat waves to storms, floods and growing fires) were increasing and threatening. overload health systems.

"That's what really keeps me awake at night," said Nick Watts, executive director of The Lancet Countdown, an annual report analyzing the links between public health and climate change.

Storms and floods, for example, not only cause direct injuries, but can also shut down hospitals, cause epidemics, and cause persistent mental health problems as people lose their homes, he said. .

Similarly, forest fires have injured and uprooted people, but they have also significantly worsened air pollution in large areas.

The recent wildfires in California, caused by the drought, killed more than 80 people, but also polluted the air to eastern Massachusetts, said Gina McCarthy, former director of US Environmental Protection Agency, currently at the School of Public Health at Harvard University.

Kristie Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington, said that many of the health impacts of climate change often hit the ground simultaneously. "We see them arriving in communities at the same time," she said.

The Lancet Report, written by doctors, academics and policy experts from 27 organizations around the world, called for swift action to tackle climate change and prepare global health systems for growing challenges.

"A rapidly changing climate has adverse consequences for all aspects of human life, exposing vulnerable populations to extreme weather conditions, altering patterns of infectious disease and compromising food security, clean drinking water and the environment. pure air, "he warned.

Sweat sweat

According to the report, 157 million more people worldwide have already been exposed to heatwaves last year compared to 2000.

The milder temperatures resulted in the loss of 153 billion hours of work in 2017, a jump of 60% over 2000. Construction, agriculture and other workers industries have destroyed tools, often reducing family income.

In India, the heat has reduced the number of hours worked by nearly 7% in 2017, said Watts.

Richer countries are also seeing the effects of heat, the report says.

Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, for example, seem more vulnerable than Africa and Southeast Asia, he added.

This is largely because so many older people – among the most at risk – live in cities that retain heat and heat more than surrounding areas, the report says.

England and Wales, for example, saw 700 more deaths than normal during a hot 15-day period in June and July this year, Watts said.

Renee Salas, MD of the Massachusetts General Hospital Emergency Room in the United States and author of the report, said she had recently treated a 30-year-old man, injured by heat stroke, while He was trying to do two jobs in the construction industry.

"Keep in mind that each statistic is a personal story," she urged. Such medical cases represent the "often hidden human cost of climate change," she added.

Hunger and disease

The warmer climate change conditions are broadening the potential range of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever and other health threats, the report said.

Since 1950, coastal areas prone to cholera epidemics have increased by 24% in the Baltic region, while in the highlands of sub-Saharan Africa, areas in which malaria-carrying mosquitoes can survive have expanded by 27% .

Warmer conditions could also give some of the disease-causing microbes greater resistance to antibiotics, Salas said.

And higher temperatures seem to dampen maximum crop harvests in all regions of the world, reversing the pre-harvest trend, the report said. Ebi, from the University of Washington, said that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduced the amount of nutrients in cereal crops, increasing the risk of malnutrition, even for those who eat until full.

Meanwhile, threats to mental health – children worried about their future in an overheated world for families stressed by disaster losses – are on the rise, she said.

Acting quickly to tackle climate change – whether it's clean energy or encouraging more people to walk and cycle – would reduce health care costs by the same amount needed to reduce emissions, said Ebi.

"Most mitigation policies are good for health, and they are good now," she said.

This story was published with the permission of Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, covering news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate.