THE CASE FOR CHANGE
Vickie Wetchie, economic development director for Montana First Nations, sits on a panel Tuesday at the Cities and Climate Change Science Conference, where she discussed the impacts of climate change on Indigenous people.
Climate change can impact mental health in a variety of ways, an American expert told an international conference Tuesday in Edmonton.
People get stressed when confronted with a problem of the magnitude of climate change, said Patrick Kinney, urban health professor at Boston University.
He spoke to Postmedia at the Cities and Climate Change Science Conference at the Shaw Conference Centre.
The big issue in Canada is wildfires, he said.
“Climate change is making wildfires more prominent,” he said.
“They are getting bigger, they are lasting longer.”
And wildfires, besides causing cardiovascular and respiratory effects from air pollution, can force people to leave their homes, as happened in Fort McMurray in 2016.
“They get displaced from their homes and they are living somewhere else for several months,” he said.
“So that’s very stressful. The trauma that occurs and the change in your daily life — all impacted by these extreme events.”
Northern latitudes have been and will be warming more rapidly than the rest of the globe, said William Solecki, a professor at City University of New York and co-director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network.
The Canadian Medical Association in its paper Climate Change and Human Health said climate change is increasingly recognized as a significant threat facing society and has the potential to be one of the greatest threats to human health in the 21st century.
“While the damage is being done now, many of the health effects may arise only decades in the future,” it said.
Among the possible impacts are increased mortality, disease and injuries from heat waves and other extreme weather events; 260 million to 320 million more cases of malaria predicted by 2080, with six billion more at risk for dengue fever; an increase in malnutrition; increased flooding, drought, foodborne and water-borne illnesses and negative health effects on air quality; and cardio-respiratory morbidity and mortality, asthma and allergens.
The projections and observed rates of warming for northern latitudes are between 1 C and 2 C.
And though that might seem small, the increases make a huge difference, Solecki said.
“Even 1 C translates into day-today shifts, lengthening of the growing season, rates of evaporation …
it does have incremental effects,” he said.
“Then there are gradual effects, seasonal changes, as well.”
Kinney said if someone’s body temperature goes up by 1 C or 2 C, it would mean something serious is going on, but the temperature rise itself does not tell the whole story.
“Likewise with the climate,” he said. “Temperature is just one indicator of the very complex climate system.”
While the damage is being done now, many of the health effects may arise only decades in the future.
For instance, Kinney said when the growing season changes, then livelihoods change.
Also accompanying these changes are increases in diseases carried by mosquitoes and infectious diseases that may come from the thawing permafrost.
Solecki said the impacts of climate change will be uneven, and the most vulnerable will be the very young, very old and recent immigrants.
“Climate change is washing through every component of life,” he said.
“But there are specific places and populations within those societies who will be most affected.”