Climate change no longer future threat: Disease, heat hurting us now, study finds
“The human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible.” Report in the British medical journal The Lancet
Climate change is already having an extraordinary impact on human health worldwide — affecting the spread of infectious diseases, exposing millions to air pollution and heat waves and dramatically reducing labor productivity, according to a report released Monday.
“The human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible,” the report by the British medical journal The Lancet says, and the situation is so serious that significant gains by modern medicine and technology are being undercut.
“The delayed response to climate change over the past 25 years has jeopardized human life and livelihoods,” the report says.
While most previous similar studies have covered the potential impact of climate change on future public health problems, The Lancet report goes a step further and illustrates how it is no longer a future threat but a current one.
The direct effects of climate change “result from rising temperatures and changes in the frequency and strength of storms, floods, droughts and heat waves — with physical and mental health consequences,” it says.
For example, from 2000 to 2016, there has been a 46% increase in the number of weather-related disasters, the report notes.
Some of the findings:
Warming is exacerbating the spread of Dengue fever, the world’s most rapidly expanding disease. In fact, two types of mosquitoes’ ability to spread Dengue globally has increased by 9.4% and 11.1% since the 1950s.
An additional 125 million people around the world were exposed to heat waves each year from 2000 to 2016 (as compared with 1986-2008) and a record
175 million people were exposed to heat waves in 2015.
Rising temperatures have led to a
5.3% fall in labor productivity in the planet’s rural areas since 2000, with a dramatic drop of 2% from 2015 to 2016. In 2016, this effectively took more than
920,000 people out of the global workforce.
Global exposure to dangerous levels of air pollution has increased by
11.2% since 1990.
Climate change is also worsening allergies in the United States. For example, Americans faced significantly longer exposure to ragweed pollen in 2016 compared with 1990.