Climate Change: "Biggest Health Threat"

The cost of climate change extend far beyond the welfare of polar bears. Food supplies, drinking water, and basic survival could become issues for all species in response to extreme weather events, flooding, drought and fires.

Doctors use the term “golden hour” to refer to the time in which critically ill and injured patients must receive medical care, otherwise, death appears certain. The question is, are we now at the golden hour of species health, particularly human species health, due to the impacts of climate change?

Health professionals around the world are beginning to recognize that human society faces a global health epidemic of dire consequences. The poorest will be hit first by the health effects of global climate change, but no one will be spared.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that climate change threatens to "halt or reverse" the progress made by the global public health community in combating infectious disease.

The Lancet and the University College of London Institute of Global engaged in a year long research project on the health and social impact of climate change. The overall conclusion?

"Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. Effects of climate change on health will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives and wellbeing of billions of people at increased risk."
Managing the Health effects of Climate Change

Sea level rise, storms, floods and droughts could have a dramatic impact on health and well being, especially for people living in coastal and small island communities. Sea level rise and higher storm surge causes salt water contamination of surface and underground fresh water supplies. This is all ready a reality in Kiribati, where lack of water supply will make the country un-inhabitable, long before the islands are submerged.

The Carteret Islands in Papa New Guinea are some of the many islands that are probably in the last years of their existence. 15 years ago salt water started to seep into their underground fresh water sources. Now the new types of food introduced into their diets via emergency rations delivered by the World Food Programme is causing diabetes and indigestion. The majority of crops do not grow on the island anymore.

Predictions are that malaria, dengue fever and other tropical diseases will increase and spread to areas that, 50 years ago, no one imagined possible. Tentative research suggests global warming may melt ice in wish an influenza virus could be in hiding. (Global ice melt) "can bring a set of viral genes back to life that have been frozen for centuries or thousands of years,” in something biologist Scott Rogers on Bowling Green State University, in Ohio, calls an evolutionary strategy of “genome recycling.” He thinks migrating waterfowl regularly deliver influenza viruses to Arctic glaciers and lakes, where it becomes frozen in ice. When the ice melts, birds pick the virus up and transport it back south where it can infect humans. See this article Flu Pandemics May Lurk in Frozen Lakes.

Dr Michael Gill of the Climate Health Council, said that 20 years ago, climate issues were the preserve of environmentalists, but the debate has now shifted to a discussions about financing.

"People think climate change is now all about economics, but health should be the bottom line," he said. Gill claimed that any policy that is good for the environment is good for health too, and said politicians should link the two issues to help improve public appreciation of why urgent action is needed.

He said health professionals will come together to highlight climate change just as doctors from the US and Russia had joined forces in the 1980s to protest against nuclear war.

European Parliament's environment and public health committee will gather together on OCT 19th, to vote on amendments to the Parliament's position on climate change.
EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassilliou said climate change will have a major impact on human, animal and plant health and "will be of massive importance to citizens for years to come".

Green health groups are urging Vassilliou to put pressure on Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas and the EU's delegation to the Copenhagen climate summit to bring health to the forefront of talks with a 'Prescription for a Healthy Planet,' which calls for better treatment for the ailing climate negotiations and a focus upon health.

Internationally, Dr Michael Wilks, president of the Standing Committee of European Doctors, said doctors will need to be trained to recognise new communicable diseases which will increase as the ecosystem changes.

"We know about the primary medical consequences of climate change but we also have to consider the secondary problems like malnutrition arising from crop failures," he said.

The wider issue of malnutrition arising from decreased crop yields is also being floated as an argument for a decisive agreement in the DEC 7-18 2009, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen.

Below are links of interest related to Climate Change and Health

European Union

European Commission: Living with Climate Change

United States

EPA: Climate Change- Health and Environmental Effects

Harvard University: Climate Change Futures - Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions

Global

United Nations Climate Change Conference Copenhagen 2009

World Health Organisation: Climate Change and Human Health

Publications

The Lancet: Managing the Health effects of Climate Change

NGOs

Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL)

Health Care Without Harm

Climate and Health Council

Standing Committee of European Doctors (CPME)