Climate change promoting spread of diseases

As if more intense hurricanes and worse floods weren’t enough to concern ourselves with, there is also evidence showing global warming is damaging the health of the world’s population through disease.

A recent study by a team of 63 doctors, public health officials and scientists from around the world and published in the British medical journal Lancet shows that cases of dengue fever have doubled every decade since 1990 and the number of cases of Lyme disease in the U.S. have tripled over the last 20 years. Since mosquitoes and ticks flourish in warmer weather, the rise in these diseases isn’t surprising. Respiratory diseases also increase in a warmer climate. The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reports that for every increase of one degree centigrade there is a 1 to 3 percent increase in all causes of death but a 6 percent increase in people with respiratory diseases.

In spite of the evidence that global warming is already harming people (and 2017 is going down as the hottest year on record), the United States is the only country in the world to refuse to sign the Paris Climate Accord, the only country whose leaders insist that global warming doesn’t exist, in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Is this good leadership? I don’t think so. MARY ELSIE MARCHANT

Winslow