tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/health-and-climate-change-2972/articles
Health and climate change – The Conversation
2023-11-30T23:07:06Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218809
2023-11-30T23:07:06Z
2023-11-30T23:07:06Z
COP28: the climate summit’s first Health Day points to what needs to change in NZ
<p>Climate change has many effects, but one of the most significant will feature for the first time at COP28 – its impact on human health.</p>
<p>Now under way in Dubai, the latest Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change includes a <a href="https://www.cop28.com/en/schedule">day dedicated to human health and climate action</a>, Taking place on December 3, it will be attended by a record number of health ministers from many governments.</p>
<p>Health Day is a big deal. Health is – or should be – at the centre of climate policy. Nations do not progress if the health of their population fails. We also know climate change is a serious threat to good health.</p>
<p>In the past 20 years, for example, the number of heat-related deaths among people aged 65 and over has <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/27-11-2023-global-health-community-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-and-health-at-cop28#:%7E:text=Health%20Day%20and%20Ministerial%20session,ministers%20will%20be%20attending%20COP28">increased by 70%</a> worldwide. Rising temperatures, altered rainfall patterns and the displacement of millions of people by floods and fires may <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-022-01426-1">amplify the spread</a> of significant infectious diseases, such as dengue and cholera.</p>
<p>In New Zealand, <a href="https://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal-articles/superheated-storms-climate-drivers-health-effects-and-responses">extreme flooding</a> in Hawkes Bay and Tairawhiti in early 2023 meant thousands were cut off from essential supplies. Many were trapped in homes that could not be repaired. There were 11 deaths from drowning and injury. </p>
<p>How probable is it that these extraordinarily heavy rains were due to climate change? According to a <a href="https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/the-role-of-climate-change-in-extreme-rainfall-associated-with-cyclone-gabrielle-over-aotearoa-new-zealands-east-coast/">study led by Luke Harrington</a> from the University of Waikato, 75% probable. With extreme weather events more likely in future, addressing the consequences for human health becomes more urgent.</p>
<h2>Healthy adaptations</h2>
<p>Health has long been on the margin of climate negotiations. The focus has been on loss and damage to property and land.</p>
<p>Health programmes have seldom been at the front of the queue when global climate funds are distributed. It’s <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/27-11-2023-global-health-community-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-and-health-at-cop28#:%7E:text=Health%20Day%20and%20Ministerial%20session,ministers%20will%20be%20attending%20COP28.">estimated</a> less than one cent in every dollar spent by international development agencies on adaptation to climate change has gone to health projects.</p>
<p>And yet we know reducing the risks of climate change in the long term can also provide opportunities to lift the health of populations rapidly.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-disasters-and-heat-intensify-can-the-world-meet-the-urgency-of-the-moment-at-the-cop28-climate-talks-217063">As disasters and heat intensify, can the world meet the urgency of the moment at the COP28 climate talks?</a>
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<p>These so-called “co-benefits” to human health may be <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/05-12-2018-health-benefits-far-outweigh-the-costs-of-meeting-climate-change-goals#:%7E:text=The%20latest%20estimates%20from%20leading,such%20as%20China%20and%20India">greater than the cost</a> of the climate interventions that enable them. One <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(18)30029-9/fulltext">study of project options</a> to reduce global air pollution, for example, found the median value of health co-benefits was roughly double the median cost of the project.</p>
<p>Closer to home, <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1307250">research has estimated</a> best-practice bike infrastructure in Auckland would return health benefits 10-25 times greater than the costs involved. </p>
<p>Meat farming and production have significant climate impacts, whereas plant-based and flexitarian diets are typically healthier for people, environments and the climate. They can also cut food bills by up to a third, according to an <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study">Oxford University study</a>.</p>
<h2>A climate and health strategy</h2>
<p>Health Day at COP28 is a significant opportunity to raise the profile of these interconnections and co-benefits. It will attract many senior politicians who might not otherwise attend the negotiations. </p>
<p>It also provides a platform for governments, international agencies, global funding bodies and the private sector to highlight initiatives and gather support.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop28-earths-frozen-zones-are-in-trouble-were-already-seeing-the-consequences-218119">COP28: Earth's frozen zones are in trouble – we're already seeing the consequences</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.cop28.com/en/schedule">programme</a> includes presentations on green healthcare, case studies in building health resilience, best-practice approaches to measuring the burden of disease due to climate change, and health funding priorities for agencies such as the Global Climate Fund. </p>
<p>One session will “showcase progress and new commitments to capture the vast health benefits of climate mitigation policies”. The closing session will “set out a roadmap and opportunities for action”.</p>
<p>The programme also suggests the basis for a New Zealand national climate and health strategy, so it is a pity Health Minister Shane Reti will not be attending. The new government is also repealing climate-related policies introduced by the previous administration, but it is not clear what will replace them.</p>
<p>Without the Three Waters infrastructure project, for instance, how will local governments be funded to sustain safe water supplies? Remember, the outbreak of campylobacteriosis in Havelock North in 2016, the largest mass poisoning in the country’s history, was caused by heavy rain washing sheep faeces into an unprotected water supply.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/were-burning-too-much-fossil-fuel-to-fix-by-planting-trees-making-net-zero-emissions-impossible-with-offsets-217437">We're burning too much fossil fuel to fix by planting trees – making 'net zero' emissions impossible with offsets</a>
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<p>Painstaking reforms to the Resource Management Act (which everyone agrees is cumbersome and out of time) will be shelved under the National-Act <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nationalparty/pages/18466/attachments/original/1700778592/National_ACT_Agreement.pdf?1700778592">coalition agreement</a>. This has serious climate-health implications. </p>
<p>Urban density done well, for example, saves commuting time and cuts greenhouse emissions, and improves health with cleaner air and more physical activity. But large-scale changes in land use like this require legislation fit for purpose.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, according to a <a href="https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/11/29/majority-say-nz-will-see-severe-climate-impacts-in-next-decade/">recent poll</a>, two-thirds of New Zealanders expect to see severe climate impacts in their region in the next decade, mostly floods and fires. How will New Zealand manage when these impacts mount up? </p>
<p>The Health Day at COP28 points to what is required. Health must be brought to the centre of climate policy. As the director-general of the World Health Organization, <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/27-11-2023-global-health-community-calls-for-urgent-action-on-climate-and-health-at-cop28">Tedros Ghebreyesus, has put it</a>:</p>
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<p>Prioritising health is not just a choice, it is the foundation of resilient societies.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alistair Woodward has received funding from the Health Research Council for environmental health studies. He is affiliated with Bike Auckland.</span></em></p>
Nations struggle if the health of their population fails. But good health is seriously threatened by climate change. So putting health at the centre of climate action makes sense.
Alistair Woodward, Professor, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216813
2023-11-02T13:29:11Z
2023-11-02T13:29:11Z
Amazon a time bomb for the emergence of diseases with pandemic potential – due to deforestation and climate change
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556964/original/file-20231030-17-13jpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C24%2C8256%2C5277&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Historic drought in the Amazon has caused rivers to dry up in the Catalão region (AM)</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/">Cadu Gomes/VPR</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Home to <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/05/22/why-the-amazons-biodiversity-is-critical-for-the-globe">the greatest biodiversity on the planet</a>, the Amazon is also a ticking time bomb for the emergence or resurgence of diseases with pandemic potential. This is because environmental degradation and altered landscapes are important factors in this process, which are exacerbated during periods of <a href="https://theconversation.com/drought-in-the-amazon-understanding-the-causes-and-the-need-for-an-immediate-action-plan-to-save-the-biome-215650">extreme drought</a>, such as the one now affecting the region.</p>
<p>In the Amazon in particular, the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16990982/">paving of the BR-319 highway</a>, linking Porto Velho to Manaus, is a significant source of concern. Conservative estimates predict that <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2/823">deforestation around the road will triple</a> in the next 25 years, mainly due to land speculation. This is made worse by the fact that 90% of the area directly affected consists of untouched forest.</p>
<p>And deforestation is not a static situation, but dynamic and unpredictable, resulting in the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357781576_The_New_Transamazonian_Highway_BR-319_and_Its_Current_Environmental_Degradation">fragmentation of forests</a>, increasing the risk of fires and reducing the biodiversity of the affected areas. The association between human action in the Amazon, climate change, disorganised migration and precarious social development creates a favourable environment for the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo5774">emergence and resurgence of diseases</a>, it has been shown.</p>
<h2>Known diseases…</h2>
<p>This process can happen in different ways. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-59341770">degradation of conserved areas</a> and the diversion of rivers and extreme drought, can, for example, lead to water and food shortages. And this poses a direct threat of malnutrition, affecting the health of local populations and leaving them more vulnerable to known diseases.</p>
<p>Lack of clean water and poor hygiene in drought conditions also increase the <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/foodborne-diseases#tab=tab_1">risk of diseases transmitted by contaminated water and food</a>, such as cholera and hepatitis, and viruses that cause severe diarrhoea, such as rotavirus. Making matters worse, the incidence of diseases associated with poor fish preservation, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhabdomyolysis">rhabdomyolysis</a> (black urine disease) - which is not infectious - also rises during extreme droughts.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/global-warming">Global warming</a> is also a critical factor in this process, allowing an increased presence of mosquitoes that transmit diseases such as malaria and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fever">dengue fever</a>. An increase of just a few degrees in the planet’s average temperature can allow them to colonise areas that were previously inaccessible. In regions where they are present, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70816-2">environmental degradation can increase or decrease rainfall periods</a>, favouring flooding and the maintenance of standing water, and facilitating their proliferation.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-4685-GMB-2020-0355">vector-borne diseases are classic cases</a> of outbreaks due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2021.106225">environmental imbalance</a>. The recent <a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/58033/yanomami-indigenous-brazil-mining-health-crisis-malnutrition-malaria/">humanitarian crisis of the Yanomami</a>, a tragedy caused by illegal mining, land grabbing and lack of access to health services, is a case in point. In addition to the contamination of water and the environment by mercury, mining activity has created a favourable environment for the reproduction and spread of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/anopheles">mosquito species of the genus Anopheles</a>, the transmitter of the protozoan that causes malaria.</p>
<p>This is because digging ravines to extract gold and minerals creates pools of water that act as artificial breeding sites. In addition, mining activity increases the human population in these remote regions, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12936-022-04381-6">facilitates the spread of malaria</a>. In numerical terms, while between 2008-2012 around 20% of malaria cases occurred in Yanomami territory, between 2018-2022 almost 50% of cases affected this population.</p>
<h2>… and new diseases</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7563794/">Zoonotic diseases</a> (transmitted from animals to people) present an even greater potential problem. While some pathogens (disease-causing agents such as viruses and bacteria) are capable of infecting one or a few host species, others are more generalised and can, if there is contact and opportunity, infect a wide variety of animals.</p>
<p>This type of “jump” from one host to another occurs constantly among animals in their natural habitat, for example from bats to non-human primates, small rodents and other mammals. However, there is usually a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02104">balance in the circulation of these agents</a>.</p>
<p>But when habitats are destroyed, for whatever reason (human or otherwise), local species migrate to more conserved areas in search of food and shelter. And this can lead them to areas close to human settlements – <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2018.0403">and facilitate contact between wild animals and people</a>.</p>
<h2>Impossible to predict, but possible to monitor</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7361267/">preventing zoonoses</a> is not an easy task – is no effective method that can predict what the next emerging disease will be, or from where it will emerge.</p>
<p>But it is possible to keep an eye on it. To do this, we monitor the circulation of resistant viruses and bacteria in samples of water, animals and vectors, as well as humans. Animals such as bats, rodents and primates are subjected to next-generation sequencing technologies for early detection of circulating agents that could pose a threat to human health.</p>
<p>And yet it’s not enough. To be effective, surveillance must be constant and cover local and national levels. Although Brazil has the capacity and basic technical infrastructure for this, few actions are actually implemented. In addition to surveillance, we need investments in faster and more accurate diagnostic methods that can help contain the spread of potential new diseases with pandemic potential.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camila M. Romano receives funding from the São Paulo State Research Foundation (FAPESP), project #2022/10408-6, Amazon+10 Initiative</span></em></p>
Environmental degradation and altered landscapes, both due to human action and climate change, increase the incidence of already known diseases and the risk of new zoonoses emerging
Camila M. Romano, Pesquisadora, Faculdade de Medicina da USP (FMUSP)
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/206783
2023-06-25T11:09:53Z
2023-06-25T11:09:53Z
Five questions for African countries that want to build climate-resilient health systems
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531313/original/file-20230612-23-rcpr42.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Sudan has been beset by floods for the past four years. Its health system, like those in other African countries, will have to adapt to climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SIMON MAINA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every day seems to bring a new headline about a devastating climate event. African countries aren’t spared. A “<a href="https://mg.co.za/thoughtleader/opinion/2022-04-19-flood-prone-durban-ill-equipped-to-weather-the-climate-crisis/">rain bomb</a>” in South Africa. <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/warming-worsened-west-africa-floods-that-killed-800-people/#">Flooding</a> in Nigeria. <a href="https://theconversation.com/cyclones-in-southern-africa-five-essential-reads-200371">Cyclones</a> battering Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-seasonal-rains-keep-failing-what-needs-to-be-done-115635">Drought</a> in Kenya.</p>
<p>These events have enormous <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Planetary-Health-Protecting-Protect-Ourselves/dp/1610919661">health and social effects</a>, among them death, injuries, malnutrition and diseases (infectious and non-communicable). This all puts tremendous pressure on countries’ health systems, both in terms of caring for those affected and because facilities like hospitals and clinics are vulnerable to damage and destruction.</p>
<p>Extreme weather events, for example in South Africa’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v14i1.3778">KwaZulu-Natal</a> and <a href="https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/floods-destroy-generators-at-two-eastern-cape-hospitals/">Eastern Cape</a> provinces, also disrupt energy supplies, communications, supply chains, the workforce and provision of essential services such as maternity and chronic care. </p>
<p>How, then, can African countries build more resilient primary healthcare systems as the effects of climate change worsen? We recently conducted a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667278223000299?via%3Dihub">scoping review</a> on primary healthcare and climate change in Africa and found very little evidence to guide health systems in answering this question. </p>
<p>We looked for any studies in the African context that investigated primary healthcare and climate change. The review mapped the available evidence onto the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) <a href="https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/9789241565073">health system building blocks</a>: leadership and governance; the health workforce; the health information system; infrastructure and technology; service delivery; and health financing. </p>
<p>We identified five key questions that health systems must answer to build more resilient primary healthcare.</p>
<h2>1. What training do medical professionals need?</h2>
<p>Health professionals in most African countries receive barely any training related to the health and social effects of dramatic changes in weather patterns.</p>
<p>There are some moves to change this. The Southern African Association of Health Educationalists recently published a <a href="https://doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v15i1.3925">position paper</a> calling for the integration of planetary health and environmental sustainability into health professions curricula in Africa. The World Organisation of Family Doctors has also launched a <a href="https://www.globalfamilydoctor.com/News/WONCAEnvironmentlaunchesplanetaryhealthcourse.aspx">global online training programme</a> on planetary health. </p>
<p>This kind of training should focus on how different health services – for instance nutrition, HIV, TB, malaria, immunisations, maternity – should adapt to the effects of climate change. It should also offer insights into how facilities can be better prepared for emergencies and extreme events.</p>
<p>But training new health professionals isn’t enough. Continuing professional development and in-service training is key too.</p>
<h2>2. What are the community’s key vulnerabilities?</h2>
<p>The primary healthcare system in Africa should be <a href="https://gh.bmj.com/content/4/Suppl_8/e001489">community-orientated</a>, focusing on the health needs of the whole community, not just those who use a particular facility. This kind of primary care has become policy in some health systems, <a href="https://doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v12i1.2632">for instance</a> in South Africa’s Western Cape province. </p>
<p>The community-orientated approach has usually focused on addressing the <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/social-determinants-of-health#tab=tab_1">social determinants</a> of ill health such as early childhood development or education. Now, environmental determinants of health and key climate-related vulnerabilities must also be considered.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-first-heat-officer-is-based-in-freetown-5-things-that-should-be-on-her-agenda-199274">Africa's first heat officer is based in Freetown – 5 things that should be on her agenda</a>
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<p>For example, <a href="https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Health-impacts-of-Eskoms-non-compliance-with-minimum-emissions-standards-Google-Docs.pdf">air pollution from coal-fired power stations</a> is a major cause of non-communicable diseases such as ischaemic heart disease, stroke, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. </p>
<p>Building informal settlements in flood plains or having no trees in urban slums can increase vulnerability to floods and high temperatures. Floods can displace people and cause injuries as well as water-borne diseases such as <a href="https://health-e.org.za/2023/02/08/cholera-third-case-confirmed-in-gauteng/">cholera</a>. High temperatures can lead to dehydration, heat exhaustion and even <a href="https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/change-in-work-hours-suggested-after-heat-stroke-deaths/">death from heat stroke</a>.</p>
<h2>3. How can the health system track environmental changes?</h2>
<p>Health information systems traditionally collect data on health services and a population’s health needs. For instance, such systems can identify outbreaks of notifiable infectious conditions to support rapid responses.</p>
<p>But they rarely include indicators that warn of environmental challenges. </p>
<p>Primary health care facilities and services need to identify the particular climatic events that they are likely to face. For some this may be extreme temperatures or drought. For others it may be severe storms or cyclones, or sea level rise and storm surges. </p>
<p>They should also identify the most likely changes in the burden of disease linked to such events. For example, will they face an increase in climate migrants, heat-related conditions, water or vector borne infectious diseases, mental health problems or malnutrition? </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joclim.2023.100229">scoping review</a> did not find any African examples of health information systems tracking the changes or providing early warning of climate-related events.</p>
<h2>4. How can health systems build climate resilience?</h2>
<p>Primary healthcare facilities and services need to continue functioning in the face of environmental challenges, such as cyclones, and provide safe healthcare, for example with extreme heat. Facilities need robust infrastructure, lighting, water, heating and cooling, and energy supply. Services need healthcare workers, equipment, medication and supplies, and communications. </p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2017.02.022">hybrid energy system</a> may improve resilience and mitigate the health system’s carbon footprint. Such systems may also provide resilience against power cuts. Health systems need to consider how they can design facilities and systems to withstand environmental challenges, respond to emergencies and continue offering essential services.</p>
<h2>5. What are the next steps?</h2>
<p>The scoping review reveals a widespread absence of evidence on how to address the issue of climate change in African primary healthcare. There’s a need for more research. </p>
<p>South Africa’s Stellenbosch University and the primary care and family medicine (<a href="https://primafamed.sun.ac.za/">PRIMAFAMED</a>) network in sub-Saharan Africa are studying the impact of climate change on primary healthcare, developing tools for facilities to identify their risks and vulnerabilities, and identifying the learning needs of primary care providers. </p>
<p>Health systems also need to explicitly address the risks of climate change. There are examples that others can learn from: for instance, the Department of Health and Wellness in South Africa’s Western Cape province has established a Climate Change Forum to develop policy on both mitigation (becoming carbon neutral by 2030) and adaptation (preparing for climate related events and challenges).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Mash receives funding from the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR), the SA Medical Research Council, the National Research Foundation, and World Diabetes Foundation. He is the President of the SA Academy of Family Physicians and coordinates the Primary Care and Family Medicine (PRIMAFAMED) network in Sub-Saharan Africa.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Lueme Lokotola receives funding from the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR). He is coordinating the African Hub of climate change, migration and health network research (under the Flemish Interuniversity Council grant). He is an active associate member of Wonca Environment Group, Global Family Doctors Association, Primafamed (Primary Health Care and Family Medicine Association in Africa), Southern African Association of Health Educationalist (SAAHE) and Public Health Association of South Africa (PHASA).
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Primary health care systems must become more resilient as the effects of climate change worsen.
Bob Mash, Distinguished Professor, Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Stellenbosch University
Christian Lueme Lokotola, Lecturer in Planetary Health, Division of Family Medicine and Primary Care, Stellenbosch University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/201031
2023-03-13T13:36:12Z
2023-03-13T13:36:12Z
Droughts bring disease: here are 4 ways they do it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514272/original/file-20230308-28-7nw902.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Riccardo Mayer / Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Countries in the <a href="https://public.wmo.int/en/media/news/another-poor-rainy-season-forecast-drought-hit-horn-of-africa">Horn of Africa</a> have been hit by a multiyear drought. Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda are expected to continue getting below-normal rainfall in 2023. Excluding Uganda, <a href="https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/horn-of-africa-projections-of-a-famine-in-2023/">36.4 million people</a> are affected and 21.7 million are in need of food assistance. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter12_FINAL.pdf">Climate change projections</a> show changes in temperature and rainfall extremes, especially without emissions reductions. Some parts of <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX_Full_Report-1.pdf">Africa</a> are projected to become wetter and others drier. Prolonged dry spells, particularly in semi-arid and arid regions, may have serious impacts, particularly if people aren’t prepared. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514453/original/file-20230309-28-k4b0hf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514453/original/file-20230309-28-k4b0hf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514453/original/file-20230309-28-k4b0hf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514453/original/file-20230309-28-k4b0hf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514453/original/file-20230309-28-k4b0hf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514453/original/file-20230309-28-k4b0hf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514453/original/file-20230309-28-k4b0hf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">IPC v Acute Food Insecurity Phase.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://fews.net/east-africa/key-message-update/november-2022">The Famine Early Warning Systems Network</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Droughts can have wide-ranging implications for the affected population. The decreased availability of water – often accompanied by high temperatures – can increase the risk of contamination, cause dehydration and result in an inability to wash and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3682759/">maintain hygiene practices</a>.</p>
<p>Droughts can have an impact on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297704300_Assessing_Economic_Impacts_of_Agricultural_Drought_A_Case_of_Thaba_Nchu_South_Africa">non-resistant crops and livestock</a>, causing <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/pamj/article/view/100127">malnutrition</a> and food insecurity. The <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajs4.52?casa_token=-MdGydVfIJ4AAAAA:1iIJRS7yTbBc6VYefznvyV2XmIvRrXLJIdLdO6lTcIzrj3jYAkbrzZDhYgnhVmRjZFT13Tti5XJLCTI">economic implications</a> of agricultural losses can go on to affect <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-014-0638-2">mental health</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519622000882">gender-based violence</a> and poverty. </p>
<p>The changes to the environment and human behaviour caused by drought can also lead to <a href="https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-021-06856-4">higher exposure to disease-causing organisms</a>. It can increase the risk of infections and disease outbreaks. Diseases that are spread through food, water, insects and other animals can all break out during times of drought and often overlap. Understanding and managing the known risk factors for these outbreaks, and how drought can exacerbate them, is important in preventing infectious disease mortality during drought.</p>
<h2>Food-borne diseases</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001706X18309525">During droughts</a> there can be changes in what kinds of food are accessible, as less water is available to produce and process it. Food insecurity can lead to malnutrition, which has an <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0010574">impact on immunity</a>. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/20477724.2021.1981716">Certain foods</a> may become less available and it may not be possible to reduce food contamination via traditional methods of acidification such as lemon juice, curdled milk, tamarind and vinegar. </p>
<p>Food insecurity can lead to an increased reliance on <a href="https://www.scirp.org/html/2-1690055_73774.htm">roadside food vendors</a>. Food vendors are often linked to food-borne disease outbreaks as hygiene standards can vary widely and are often poorly regulated. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/epidemic-cholera-in-mali-high-mortality-and-multiple-routes-of-transmission-in-a-famine-area/249E03BD40F7AC91BAB58C21391DFA17">Cooking fuel</a>, particularly wood, may be in short supply, so food may be eaten cold, raw or without re-heating, increasing the chances of contamination. </p>
<p>Food-borne diseases linked to droughts include cholera, dysentery, salmonella and hepatitis A and E. But any food-borne pathogen can be a risk during times of water scarcity. </p>
<h2>Water-borne diseases</h2>
<p>The impact of drought on water availability also affects <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3682759/">water-borne pathogens</a>. It can change the environment and human behaviour in ways that increase transmission risks, similar to food-borne diseases. </p>
<p>During times of <a href="https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-021-06856-4">limited water resources</a>, a pathogen can become more concentrated in the environment, particularly when higher temperatures suit its growth. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/epidemic-cholera-in-mali-high-mortality-and-multiple-routes-of-transmission-in-a-famine-area/249E03BD40F7AC91BAB58C21391DFA17">Risky water use behaviours</a> may increase. People might use water sources they would normally avoid, and reduce hand-washing. </p>
<p>Water-borne diseases linked to droughts include cholera, dysentery, typhoid and rotavirus. </p>
<h2>Vector-borne diseases</h2>
<p>Breeding sites for vectors such as mosquitoes may be <a href="https://www.scielosp.org/pdf/bwho/v78n9/v78n9a09.pdf">reduced</a> during drought because there is less groundwater for females to lay their eggs. But new areas may be created. Droughts can lead to an <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033350613002990">increase in potable water</a>, due to stockpiling or the delivery of water aid to households from the government or NGOs. If water containers are open, this can create ideal vector breeding grounds. Open containers may also move the vector breeding ground – and therefore the vector – closer to the household. </p>
<p>Changes in temperature and water can affect <a href="https://agritrop.cirad.fr/547072/1/document_547072.pdf">egg and larval survival</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1015089901425">intermediate or animal host</a> transmission, helping the pathogen to survive longer. Higher temperature can affect <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1182-x">vector behaviour</a>, mainly biting frequency and timing of feeding, altering transmission. </p>
<p>Vector-borne diseases linked to droughts include West Nile virus, St Louis encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, chikungunya and dengue. </p>
<h2>Zoonotic diseases</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/zoonoses">Zoonotic diseases</a> are those that can be transmitted from animals to humans. Water scarcity increases the pressure on water sources, and so <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000190">water is used for several purposes</a> and may be shared by livestock, wildlife and people. Interactions between humans, livestock and wildlife increase, expanding the opportunity for contact and disease transmission. Food supply issues and agricultural losses may also increase reliance on <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42398-021-00165-x">bushmeat</a> for food and income, which can be a risk for zoonotic disease spillover.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3367616/">Recent examples</a> of zoonotic disease spillover include Nipah virus, Ebola and monkeypox (recently renamed mpox).</p>
<h2>Taking precautions</h2>
<p>At an individual level, education around disease risks is important. This will allow people to make informed choices to protect their health to the best of their abilities. Household water should be covered. And personal and food hygiene should be maintained as much as possible. </p>
<p>To prevent drought-related disease outbreaks, pre-existing vulnerability (poverty, access to water, education) needs to be addressed. It is not the drought that causes the outbreak, but instead how society deals with these dry conditions. </p>
<p>Better water resource management is needed at a regional and international level, to treat large water sources as a common resource for all. Authorities need to act to provide drought assistance. This includes safe water to prevent the use of poor quality water sources, and agricultural and food aid to mitigate dehydration and malnutrition.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gina Charnley receives funding from the Natural Environmental Research Council. </span></em></p>
It is not the drought that causes disease outbreak, but instead the way society deals with dry conditions.
Gina Charnley, Research Postgraduate, Imperial College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105028
2018-10-22T10:38:37Z
2018-10-22T10:38:37Z
3 dangers of rising temperatures that could affect your health now
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240878/original/file-20181016-165897-1fiqujl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of a ground crew In Phoenix wrapped wet towels around their necks to cool off when the temperature reached a record of 116°F.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Southwest-Heat/b5c7bf55642648fc82db38955564739a/47/0">Matt York/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I read the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/session48/pr_181008_P48_spm_en.pdf">news</a> about the urgency of addressing climate change, and as a mathematician who studies climate change, I was not surprised. Very worried, but not surprised.</p>
<p>A few days before Christmas last year, I took a picture of a blooming cherry tree along the Charles River in Boston. As a scientist at Tufts University studying seasonal patterns, I saw the tree as an anomaly resulting from increasing temperature, another piece of evidence for climate change. As a human, I was amused by the contrast of color and moved on.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241245/original/file-20181018-67164-ubamzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241245/original/file-20181018-67164-ubamzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241245/original/file-20181018-67164-ubamzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241245/original/file-20181018-67164-ubamzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=343&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241245/original/file-20181018-67164-ubamzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241245/original/file-20181018-67164-ubamzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241245/original/file-20181018-67164-ubamzu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cherry tree blooming by the Charles River in Boston, Dec. 17, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elena Naumova</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This exceptionally hot summer <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/08/23/this-summer-has-set-records-for-heat-boston/22Cn9YweZXuq6gOYwlW7ZJ/story.html">set several records</a> in the Boston area. I had the luxury to budget some extra money for air conditioning, spend some time in Maine and move a business trip to South India from August to January, when I can function well. What if a person doesn’t have this luxury? </p>
<p>Last summer, I spent time editing a paper on the effect of heat on health. It took me 15 years to secure funds, find students, assemble the data, build the model and scrutinize the model so that I could defend the finding “beyond reasonable doubt” and finally <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep39581">publish the results</a>. </p>
<p>In that paper, we showed that in Boston for about 10 days in the summer when night-time temperature is above 65.5 degrees Fahrenheit for three consecutive nights, we Bostonians paid the price of about 14 older people being hospitalized due to heatstroke, a fully preventable condition. Is it too much or what we should expect? Over 15 years in the Boston metropolitan area, these preventable hospitalizations contributed over US$5 million in medical charges, which is almost equivalent to the annual state budget allocated to supportive senior housing of $5.5 million for 2015.</p>
<p>It’s not only older people who are vulnerable, however. So are you. </p>
<h2>Higher risk of heatstroke</h2>
<p>The human body of a healthy adult has a remarkable capacity to maintain <a href="https://www.reference.com/science/body-temperature-maintained-e11e175f9cbb833">stable core temperature</a> in the narrow range between 36.6 and 37.7 degrees Celsius (98°F and 100°F) despite large variability in ambient temperature. The core body temperature is controlled by complex physiological feedback loops and maintained by a delicate balance between heat production, conservation and dissipation that depends on environmental conditions. Failure to dissipate enough heat causes <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heat-stroke/symptoms-causes/syc-20353581">heatstroke</a>, or an uncontrollable rise in the core body temperature above the healthy levels. </p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11988377">core body temperature</a> reaches 40.5°C (105°F) due to a failure of the internal body’s temperature control system, it causes adverse health consequences, such as complications involving the central nervous system and cardiovascular and respiratory systems failure, leading to morbidity and mortality.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19758453">Older adults</a> suffer disproportionately more during heat waves due to weakening of thermoregulatory mechanisms, potential side effects of medications and limited mobility. Furthermore, people with a high perspiration threshold combined with increased blood viscosity, elevated cholesterol level and diminished ability to detect changes in body temperature <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4397690/">may further contribute </a>to severe heat-related health conditions. </p>
<h2>Some illnesses worsened, some people caught off-guard</h2>
<p>Heat waves <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-8-40">threaten the health of vulnerable populations</a>, especially of those who are who are less capable to cope and adapt to the thermal extremes, such as individuals with preexisting conditions like asthma or diabetes and people who need routine support, like dialysis or oxygen. Heatstroke occurs at rates that are <a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1205223">12–23 times higher</a> in persons 65 and older compared with other age groups, indicating the high degree of inability to cope with climate stressors. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241251/original/file-20181018-67182-1e8r30l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241251/original/file-20181018-67182-1e8r30l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241251/original/file-20181018-67182-1e8r30l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241251/original/file-20181018-67182-1e8r30l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241251/original/file-20181018-67182-1e8r30l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241251/original/file-20181018-67182-1e8r30l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241251/original/file-20181018-67182-1e8r30l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People in cooler climates may have a harder time adjusting to extreme heat waves.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/warning-extreme-heat-vintage-rusty-metal-1086468626?src=LUJpPHV0oSsJ76eYXq8aVA-2-37">Ducu59us/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The issue with <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11772788">superhot days</a> is that the increase of one degree from, say, 100°F to 101°F will produce a more devastating effect than one degree in increase at a low temperature base, say from 90°F to 91°F. </p>
<p>While populations in the southern regions, characterized by hotter climate, are better acclimatized to handle high seasonal temperature, the effects of poverty, substandard infrastructure and limited access to health care could easily wipe out the advantages of regional adaptation.</p>
<h2>Outdoor work becomes more dangerous</h2>
<p>Short heat waves resolve into cooling nights, offering a highly desired relief. Extended heat waves, however, accrue the impact and start to affect healthy people who might well <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-069X-11-58">tolerate short periods</a> of heat. Extended heat waves, in particular, threaten the health of people highly exposed to elements, such as construction workers or farmers. About <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/extremeheat/index.html">600 deaths</a> a year are considered officially due to extreme heat, but that number may not reflect all heat-related deaths. For example, studies have shown that hundreds of deaths from <a href="https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heat-related-deaths">Chicago’s heat wave in 1995</a> may not have been captured on death certificates. Other reasons, such as cardiac failure, may instead be reported, even if heat may have led to them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241254/original/file-20181018-67170-1f28t4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241254/original/file-20181018-67170-1f28t4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241254/original/file-20181018-67170-1f28t4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241254/original/file-20181018-67170-1f28t4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241254/original/file-20181018-67170-1f28t4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241254/original/file-20181018-67170-1f28t4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241254/original/file-20181018-67170-1f28t4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dry soil can contribute to increased temperatures, a European study suggested. Here, a dirt road during the 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/long-dusty-dry-dirt-road-during-1142326478?src=yABGvSXusbZwK3ZKAqtv_g-2-14">Simon Annable/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A study in Europe suggested that high surface temperature that arise from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2015.05.001">dry soils may contribute to anomalously high overnight temperatures</a>, a feature of extreme heatwaves. </p>
<h2>A real and growing crisis</h2>
<p>Average temperatures compared to preindustrial times have already risen almost <a href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/WorldOfChange/DecadalTemp">1°C</a>, and in the most recent IPCC report, climate scientists said preventing an increase of 1.5°C is <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/15c-degree-goal-extremely-unlikely-ipcc/a-42154601">very unlikely</a>.</p>
<p>How does one define how a 1.5°C increase in global temperature affects me personally? It is not like you bake a cake in an oven set to 350°F and now you bake it at 351.5°F and wonder if the cake turned out well. It is also not like a child had a fever of 102°F and now it is at 103.5°F and you need to choose the best course of action to save a child. It is more like trying to understand that we live in interconnected world where “small” things matter, even if the cause and effects are not so visible. The seasonal patterns are changing, and a heat wave arriving too early and late in a season can catch you off guard and leave people scrambling for solutions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241259/original/file-20181018-67182-1geqllg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241259/original/file-20181018-67182-1geqllg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241259/original/file-20181018-67182-1geqllg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241259/original/file-20181018-67182-1geqllg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241259/original/file-20181018-67182-1geqllg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241259/original/file-20181018-67182-1geqllg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/241259/original/file-20181018-67182-1geqllg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What would Copernicus say? A statue of the astronomer in his hometown of Torun, Poland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/monument-great-astronomer-nicolaus-copernicus-torun-618122798?src=iNzCpOFOEXwG-h9e-2_jdg-1-0">Lukasz Janyst/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These global issues demand seeing a picture at a different scale. I wonder how Galileo and Copernicus would reply if asked to provide an example how a person might feel if he or she places the sun rather than Earth at the center of the universe. Maybe they will continue to believe scientists, because regardless of their feelings, Earth is moving around the sun. As an educator, I wonder what we missed in our education to allow for a dangerous mix of ignorance and arrogance to gamble with the future, which we are affecting daily. </p>
<p>In order to measure the effect of heat wave in a timely and accurate manner, I believe we need a national surveillance system. Such a system should employ features that already exist in the national and global surveillance for flu or other notifiable infections, including report standardization, distributed network of credible regional units, routing reporting and analysis. </p>
<p>So far, timely systematic and comprehensive reports for heat wave effects are rare. During natural disasters, the reporting of health effects is limited for obvious reasons, as the first responders’ attention is focused on saving lives. So far heat waves are not treated like a state of emergency but more like a seasonal nuisance. We are beginning to see – and feel – the effects.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elena N. Naumova receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>
Rising temperatures will not only hurt people in the future. Many are feeling the effects now. Those who work outdoors, those who have certain chronic conditions and the elderly are vulnerable.
Elena N. Naumova, Professor, Tufts University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70994
2017-01-19T00:26:44Z
2017-01-19T00:26:44Z
2016 crowned hottest year on record: Australia needs to get heat smart
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153339/original/image-20170118-26548-12s15uj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sydneysiders cool off in heatwave conditions gripping eastern Australia in January 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Joel Carrett</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s official, 2016 set another record for being the world’s hottest. Three international agencies have confirmed today that last year was the hottest on record. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-noaa-data-show-2016-warmest-year-on-record-globally">NASA</a> reported that 2016 was 0.99°C hotter than the 20th-century average, while the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called it at 0.94°C. NOAA also calculated that <a href="https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201613">global land temperatures</a> were 1.43°C higher. The <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2017/2016-record-breaking-year-for-global-temperature">UK Met Office</a>, using its own data, also reported that 2016 is one of the two hottest years on record. </p>
<p>The figures vary slightly, depending on the baseline reference period used.</p>
<p>Heat records don’t linger for long any more. 2016 surpassed the 2015 record, which surpassed the 2014 record. Three record hot years in a row sets yet another record in the 137-year history of modern accurate and standardised meteorological observation. </p>
<p>For Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology described 2016 as a “year of extreme events” and the <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Temperature">fourth hottest at 0.87°C</a> above the 1961-1990 average. The <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Dtmean%26area%3Daus%26season%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D10">warming trend</a> is clear. </p>
<p>Australia is already on average 8°C hotter than the average global land temperature, so further warming means our heat risk is far greater than for other industrialised countries.</p>
<p>This dangerous warming trend sends a dire warning, as average warming delivers many more extreme heat events, as we’re currently seeing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jan/18/eastern-australia-swelters-under-heatwave-as-hottest-january-on-record-looms">in Queensland and New South Wales</a>. These are the <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/young-pilot-dies-of-heatstroke-while-motorbike-riding-20170116-gts25r.html">killers</a>.</p>
<p>As Australia lurches from heatwave to heatwave, the message is clear: extreme heat is the new norm – so Australia needs to get “heat smart”. </p>
<h2>Rising extremes</h2>
<p>In Australia the number of days per year over <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/State-of-the-Climate-2016.pdf">35°C has increased</a> and extreme temperatures have increased on average at <a href="http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00753.1">7% per decade</a>. </p>
<p>Very warm monthly maximum temperatures used to occur around 2% of the time during the period 1951–1980. During 2001–2015, these happened more than <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/State-of-the-Climate-2016.pdf">11% of the time</a>.</p>
<p>This trajectory of increased temperature extremes raises questions of how much heat can humans tolerate and still go about their daily business of commuting, managing domestic chores, working and keeping fit. </p>
<h2>We can’t just get used to the heat</h2>
<p>Air-conditioning and acclimatisation are not the answer. <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/7/8034">Acclimatisation to heat has an upper limit</a>, beyond which humans need to rest or risk overheating and potential death. And air-conditioning, if not powered by renewable electricity, increases greenhouse gas emissions, feeding into further climate changes.</p>
<p>We have two key tasks ahead. The first is to stop the warming by drastically reducing emissions – the 2015 Paris Agreement was a step along this path. Several studies have shown that Australia can achieve <a href="http://deepdecarbonization.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AU_DDPP_Report_Final.pdf">net zero emissions</a> by 2050 and live within its recommended carbon budget, using technologies that exist today, while maintaining economic prosperity.</p>
<p>Our second task is to adapt to the trajectory of increasing frequency of dangerous heat events. </p>
<h2>A heat-smart nation</h2>
<p>We can prevent heat-related deaths and illnesses through public health mechanisms. Australia enjoys a strong international track record of world-leading public health prevention strategies, such as our campaign against smoking. </p>
<p>We can equally embrace the heat challenge, by adopting initiatives such as a <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/caha/pages/40/attachments/original/1476390215/CAHA_Discussion_Paper_v04.pdf?1476390215">National Climate, Health and Wellbeing Strategy</a>, which has the support of Australia’s health sector. Its recommendations outline a pathway to becoming a heat-smart nation.</p>
<p>At a recent <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/db9b955b4917179139bb594184fc3ae9.pdf">heat-health summit</a> in Melbourne, experts declared Australia must adopt four key public health actions to reduce heatwave deaths. </p>
<p>These are: </p>
<p>• Prevent</p>
<p>• Prepare </p>
<p>• Respond</p>
<p>• Educate. </p>
<p>These fundamental public health strategies are interlinked and operate at the government, health sector, industry and community levels. </p>
<p>Prevention includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as reducing exposure. The Bureau of Meteorology provides superb <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/index.shtml?ref=marketing">heat warnings</a> that allow us to prepare. Global organisations such as the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provide reports</a> that can underpin greater understanding. </p>
<p>The next challenge is for the populace broadly to act on that knowledge. This requires having options to protect ourselves and avoid hazardous heat exposures while commuting, working and at home. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/hospitals-feel-the-heat-too-from-extreme-weather-and-its-health-impacts-70997">health sector must also prepare</a> for demand surges. <a href="http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/2037673/paramedics-tell-of-ambulance-service-meltdown-in-heatwave/">Tragic outcomes</a> will become increasingly common when, for example, ambulance services cannot meet rising demand from a combination of population growth, urbanisation and forecast heat events. </p>
<p>The health sector will need the capacity to mobilise extra resources, and a workforce trained in identifying and managing heat illness. Such training remains limited. </p>
<p>Individuals and workplaces also need to prepare for heatwaves. In a heat-smart nation, we’ll need to reschedule tasks to avoid or limit exposure, including rest periods, and to ensure adequate hydration with cool fluids.</p>
<p>We’ll need to think about housing. Building houses without eaves or space for trees to provide shade forces residents to rely on air-conditioning. In such houses, power failures expose residents to unnecessary heat risks, and many air-con systems struggle when temperatures exceed 40°C. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/events/third-australian-earth-system-outlook-conference/cities-future-earth-summary">Urban planners and architects</a> have solutions. There are many options for <a href="http://www.envirotecture.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/S29-Design-for-Climate-heatwaves.pdf">safe housing design</a>, and the government should consider supporting such schemes. </p>
<p>We’ll need to think about our own health. Active transport, such as walking and cycling, both reduces emissions and improves fitness. Promoting active transport throughout summer requires the provision of shade, rest zones with seats, and watering stations along commuting routes. <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/7/8034">High cardio-respiratory fitness</a> also boosts heat resilience: a win-win.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Australia has two options: ignore the risks of increasing heat extremes and suffer the consequences, or step up to the challenge and become a heat-smart nation. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Clare de Castella Mackay, ANU.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Hanna has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Commonwealth of Australia, The Victorian Department of Human Services, and the United Nations. She is President of the Climate and Health Alliance and is the Key Contact for Climate for the Australian College of Nursing</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Bowen receives funding from the World Health Organization, the Asian Development Bank, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, National Health and Medical Research Council, Government of Victoria.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Howden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
2016 is the third consecutive hottest year on record. How can we adapt?
Liz Hanna, Honorary Senior Fellow, Australian National University
Kathryn Bowen, Senior Research Fellow, Australian National University
Mark Howden, Director, Climate Change Institute, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69564
2016-12-04T19:09:11Z
2016-12-04T19:09:11Z
Can we blame climate change for thunderstorm asthma?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148229/original/image-20161201-17781-10p4m91.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Climate change can cause higher pollen counts</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/search/allergy?photo=Hez3-whPnNA">Lukasz Szmigiel/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australians have been left unsettled by the recent thunderstorm asthma event that <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/eight-now-dead-from-thunderstorm-asthma-20161129-gszt5z.html">claimed eight lives in Melbourne</a>. As with previous extreme weather events, we are left to wonder whether it was climate change at work, if it will happen again and if it will be worse next time. </p>
<p>We can’t say for sure if the thunderstorm asthma event was caused directly by climate change. But modelling each extreme event is neither feasible nor necessary. All weather events should now be considered in the context of climate change and general <a href="http://templatelab.com/IPCC-WG2AR5-SPM-FINAL/">climate projections</a> are sufficiently alarming to justify the need for governments to prepare for, and adapt to, new risks these pose to our health.</p>
<h2>How climate change affects Australia</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/media/ccia/2.1.6/cms_page_media/168/CCIA_2015_NRM_TR_Executive%20Summary.pdf">Updated projections</a> from the Bureau of Meteorology and the national science body, CSIRO, outline Australia has warmed 0.9°C since 1910 and can be expected to warm a further 0.6°C to 5.1°C by 2090, depending on reductions in greenhouse gases.</p>
<p>Hotter days will be more common and more severe. Rainfall during the cooler seasons will decrease in southern Australia while extreme rain events will become more common, particularly in the tropics. Ocean acidification and sea level rise will continue, wind speeds may decrease and tropical cyclones may become more intense but less frequent.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/148376/original/image-20161202-25653-18rfbfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Extreme rain events will become more common, especially in the tropics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/search/rain-storm?photo=tT_SrSMhhgE">Glenn Carstens-Peters/Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Severe thunderstorms are <a href="http://www.cawcr.gov.au/projects/vicci/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Dowdy.pdf">projected to be more common</a> in eastern Australia; about 14% more frequent in Brisbane and 30% in Sydney. Unlike heat and rainfall projections, links between climate change and thunderstorms in Australia are less well understood due to uncertainty around the physical processes that underpin them.</p>
<p>Thunderstorms can be dangerous due to accompanying winds, lightning and flash floods, as well as their potential to <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-thunderstorm-asthma-4159">rupture pollen into tiny particles</a> that can be inhaled into the lungs. In general, global warming can trigger asthma, and other illnesses, through increased baseline <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1586/17476348.2013.814367">pollen and ground-level pollutants</a> such as ozone. </p>
<p>Climate change also poses a health risk beyond asthma and thunderstorms that is critical to prepare for.</p>
<h2>How our health will be affected</h2>
<p>Climate change <a href="http://www.bmj.com/cgi/doi/10.1136/bmj.e1359">poses a threat to health</a> directly through extreme weather events, warmer average temperatures and sea level rise. Indirectly it can destabilise the systems that keep our air clean, produce our food, provide us with fresh drinking water and enable economies to thrive. These shifts pose a threat to <a href="http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v296/n6/full/scientificamerican0607-43.html">livelihoods</a>, <a href="http://www.bmj.com/cgi/doi/10.1136/bmj.e1356">food and water security</a>, and <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2815%2960854-6/fulltext">social and political stability</a>.</p>
<p>Heatwaves and reduced rainfall pose the greatest threat to Australians’ health and livelihoods. Indirectly, these changes will increase the severity of bushfires and droughts. These and other extreme events are a significant risk to physical and <a href="http://link.springer.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/article/10.1007/s00038-009-0112-0">mental health</a>. </p>
<p>Extreme prolonged heat <a href="http://aph.sagepub.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/content/23/2_suppl/27S.full.pdf+html">can trigger acute heat stroke</a> and dehydration or exacerbate underlying illnesses such as heart and kidney disease. Rates of <a href="http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/climchange.pdf">injury, crime and domestic violence also increase</a> in heatwaves. Melbourne’s 2009 heatwave was associated with a <a href="http://aph.sagepub.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/content/23/2_suppl/27S.full.pdf+htm;">62% increase in deaths and 46% increase in ambulance emergencies</a>. </p>
<p>The elderly, the young, those with chronic disease and those engaged in physical outdoor work are especially vulnerable.</p>
<p>Infectious diseases pose a different challenge. In warmer climates, the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/doi/10.1890/08-0079.1/full">transmission potential</a> of mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria is increased. As warmer climates expand southwards, malaria, dengue and Ross River virus will occur in new regions of Australia.</p>
<p>Although thunderstorm asthma has been well documented and has <a href="http://theconversation.com/we-couldve-seen-thunderstorm-asthma-coming-and-there-are-ways-to-prepare-69216">previously occurred in Melbourne</a>, the recent storm revealed that public and health services were unprepared. </p>
<p>In explaining the difficulty of adequately responding to the crisis, Victoria’s health minister Jill Hennessy <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/melbourne-thunderstorm-asthma-victim-dies-eight-days-after-70minute-ambulance-wait/news-story/5d72a024ab48fff8a90c12eab7d07318">likened it to 150 bombs going off</a> in different places at once. With current climate change projections, governments need better planning for the likelihood of similar crises.</p>
<h2>Getting prepared</h2>
<p>There are increasing demands from the health sector for a <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/caha/pages/40/attachments/original/1476390215/CAHA_Discussion_Paper_v04.pdf?1476390215">national strategy to address climate change</a> and the related health concerns. Such action would also address Australia’s international obligations to develop and report on national climate change adaptation strategies, and to achieve strong greenhouse gas emissions reductions.</p>
<p>Key elements of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/pubmed/21108905">health sector adaptation </a> include early warning systems and more adequate preparation of the workforce. Health professionals need to <a href="http://www.jphres.org/index.php/jphres/article/view/673">learn about climate change</a> and related risks to be able to identify vulnerable people, such as the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, participate in emergency responses and contribute to health system stewardship. </p>
<p>Similar adaptation strategies can often be implemented for different climate risks. For example, the risk from heatwaves and thunderstorms could both be reduced by <a href="http://link.springer.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/article/10.1007/s00484-007-0132-5">early warning systems</a>, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/science/article/pii/S0277953609006625">vulnerability mapping</a> and public health education. </p>
<p>However, while predicting a thunderstorm may be relatively straightforward, <a href="http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/content/qjmed/106/3/207.full.pdf">predicting acute asthma epidemics</a> requires a detailed understanding of the process and sensitive monitoring of allergens in the air.</p>
<p>Irrespective of whether climate change contributed to the thunderstorm in Melbourne last week, we can be sure that Australia’s climate projections herald new risks to health that cannot be ignored.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69564/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janie Maxwell receives funding from the Department of Health for research in climate change and human health. Janie is a member of the Victorian committee of Doctors for the Environment Australia.</span></em></p>
Irrespective of whether climate change contributed to the thunderstorm in Melbourne last week, we can be sure Australia’s climate projections herald new risks to health that cannot be ignored.
Janie Maxwell, Associate Lecturer in Climate Change and Health, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/37566
2015-02-17T06:13:57Z
2015-02-17T06:13:57Z
Hard Evidence: will climate change affect the spread of tropical diseases?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72156/original/image-20150216-18469-1842tnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anopheles gambiae – coming to a home near you?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Joanna Waldock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many tropical diseases such as malaria, Chagas disease and dengue are transmitted to humans via mosquitoes and other carriers known as vectors. These vector-borne diseases continue to have a major impact on human health in the developing world: each year, more than a billion people become infected and around a million people die. In addition, around one in six cases of illness and disability worldwide <a href="http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GBD_report_2004update_full.pdf?ua=1">arise from these diseases</a>.</p>
<p>Malaria arguably continues to attract the most attention of all the vector-borne diseases by virtue of causing the greatest global disease burden. However, others such as dengue are not only resurgent in some regions, but threaten a vast proportion of the world’s population.</p>
<p>Climate change remains a substantial threat to future human health and since the behaviour of disease carriers like mosquitoes is known to be extremely <a href="http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/08-0079.1">sensitive to temperature and rainfall</a>, it seems unquestionable that climate change will affect many, if not all, of these diseases. What is less clear, however, is the extent to which climate increases the risk of becoming infected in certain regions <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1665/20130551">compared to other factors</a> such as poverty or fragile health systems.</p>
<p>In addition, although the number of new cases of diseases such as malaria appears to be declining worldwide, it is still increasing in many regions for a variety of reasons; the continued spread of insecticide resistance, changes in land use, and difficulties in maintaining political interest pose considerable challenges. Which of these factors will be most influential over the coming decades remains up for debate and one that was raised in a special edition of <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1665">Philosophical Transactions B</a>.</p>
<h2>Changes in risk</h2>
<p>The latest research, however, is clear and consistent in many of its findings. Different diseases, transmitted by different vectors, respond in different ways to changing weather and climate patterns. Climate change is very likely to favour an increase in the number of dengue cases worldwide, while many important mosquito populations that are able to transmit devastating diseases are changing in their distribution. </p>
<p>The latest maps show that many areas of Europe (including the UK) could become increasingly hospitable for mosquitoes that transmit dengue over the coming decades (the map below shows a projected change in suitable habitat for the <em>Aedes albopictus</em> mosquito). Similarly, other mosquito range expansions are likely to occur in the US and eastern Asia. If dengue and/or chikungunya are imported into these regions, there will be a considerable increase in the worldwide number of vulnerable individuals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72033/original/image-20150214-13186-h04imt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">European map of simulated Aedes albopictus habitat suitability based on one future climate projection for the period 2045-2054.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is also clear that small changes in these so-called risk maps can have very large public health impacts. Tick-borne diseases (such as Lyme disease) <a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1665/20140051">are also predicted</a> to expand in range as climate changes. Although, as before, plenty of other factors are likely to contribute, meaning that direct causation is very hard to attribute.</p>
<p>It is important to remember too that climate change is not just global warming; the latter refers to an increase in global mean temperatures, but there is also an overwhelming body of evidence demonstrating that rainfall is at least as important for many vector-borne diseases. Rainfall episodes have also been shown to provide <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2717128/">a very good early-warning sign</a> a few months in advance for outbreaks of West Nile Virus.</p>
<p><a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rstb.2013.0557">New research</a> on African anti-malaria mosquito control programmes that involve spraying houses (to kill indoor mosquitoes) and distributing bed nets also shows that both temperature and rainfall can influence the degree to which programmes decrease new infections and, crucially, their cost-effectiveness. However, whether or not this is substantial enough to affect regional policy decisions about scaling up mosquito control programmes depends on factors such as how rapidly insecticide resistance emerges, the human immune response to malaria, and country-specific conditions. </p>
<p>In terms of malaria elimination in Africa, adopting the same approach in all affected regions is unlikely to be the best way forward. However, there is some new evidence to suggest that if efforts continue to be concentrated on scaling-up current intervention programmes in regions close to elimination, the longer-term effects of climate change will become far less important. Indeed, one of the most effective ways of protecting human health against climate change in the long-term is to further strengthen current disease control efforts.</p>
<h2>Mathematical models</h2>
<p>As with the formulation of public health policies to deal with diseases such as Ebola, flu, and HIV, mathematical models are valuable tools that are widely used to make predictions about how different carrier-borne diseases are likely to respond to climatic changes. How reliable these predictions are is an important question and, like many areas of science, include unavoidable uncertainties. For example, people may change their behaviour and actions as climate change evolves – for example by migrating to other areas – which evidently makes forecasting more difficult. </p>
<p><a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1665/20140136">New evidence</a> has also shown that disease vectors may evolve in under a decade to changes in temperature, which conflicts with many current models that assume climate change only affects their ecology, not their evolution. Predictions that might be affected by climate change must therefore not only take account of these uncertainties, if they’re to be more reliable and useful, but also recognise that these predictions cannot strictly be disproved until the future arrives.</p>
<p>This remains a very active research field, but considerable progress in our understanding has been made over the last ten to 15 years. Better data on the links between vectors, diseases they carry and the environment is definitely required, as are better ways of quantifying disease risk for different populations and different diseases.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72140/original/image-20150216-18500-144x2an.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72140/original/image-20150216-18500-144x2an.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72140/original/image-20150216-18500-144x2an.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72140/original/image-20150216-18500-144x2an.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72140/original/image-20150216-18500-144x2an.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72140/original/image-20150216-18500-144x2an.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72140/original/image-20150216-18500-144x2an.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seven steps to understanding climate impacts and assessing risks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philosophical Transactions B</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Future challenges</h2>
<p>Many diseases have received very little attention so far on how climate change may affect future trends. One example is onchocerciasis (river blindness), for which tentative predictions suggest that we might expect substantial increases in the number of disease vectors in certain African regions over the coming decades. </p>
<p>Almost all models are currently based on single diseases, but many populations are unfortunately burdened with multiple diseases at any one time; understanding how climate change affects interactions between these diseases has attracted little attention to date. </p>
<p>One other important challenge for the field is the mismatch between the data current global climate models are able to provide and the information required by local public health officials to make more informed decisions; continued improvements in computing power are essential to progress. The predictions of our current models are not perfect and improvements in our understanding are certainly required. </p>
<p>To date, we have tended to react to disease outbreaks as they occur, but we need an increased focus on being more proactive; we cannot stop outbreaks of many of these diseases, but proactive risk management is less expensive (and more effective) than responding after a crisis. Ultimately, the challenge is not to address specific health risks due solely to climate change, but instead to ensure sustained progress is made towards decreasing the number of deaths and cases of these diseases for future generations.</p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/hard-evidence">Hard Evidence</a> is a series of articles in which academics use research evidence to tackle the trickiest public policy questions.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Parham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Many tropical diseases such as malaria, Chagas disease and dengue are transmitted to humans via mosquitoes and other carriers known as vectors. These vector-borne diseases continue to have a major impact…
Paul Parham, Lecturer in Public Health, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/28466
2014-09-25T02:19:11Z
2014-09-25T02:19:11Z
PODCAST: Speaking with Nick Watts from the UN Climate Summit in New York
<p>Speaking with Nick Watts, Director of the <a href="http://www.climateandhealthalliance.org">The Global Climate & Health Alliance</a>, from the <a href="http://www.un.org/climatechange/summit/">UN Climate Summit</a> in New York. </p>
<p>Listen in as he explains the links between climate and health, what we have to be optimistic about, and the crucial challenges that lay ahead.</p>
<p><br></p>
<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="710" data-image="" data-title="Speaking with Nick Watts on climate change and health" data-size="17051732" data-source="The Conversation" data-source-url="" data-license="CC BY-NC-ND" data-license-url="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">
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</audio>
<div class="audio-player-caption">
Speaking with Nick Watts on climate change and health.
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a><span class="download"><span>16.3 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/6/sandro-podcast-nick-mixdown.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Speaking with Nick Watts, Director of the The Global Climate & Health Alliance, from the UN Climate Summit in New York. Listen in as he explains the links between climate and health, what we have to…
Sandro Demaio, Australian Medical Doctor; Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Health & NCDs, Harvard University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/31813
2014-09-23T15:25:42Z
2014-09-23T15:25:42Z
Energy efficient buildings – beware possible health risks
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59454/original/n4dfxdj2-1411051429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">BedZED in Hackbridge, London.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BedZED_2007.jpg">Tom Chance</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The primary goal of home energy efficiency initiatives might be to reduce total energy consumption, but these projects could have a negative impact on public health if we do not take care.</p>
<p>Global climate change <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health/project-pages/lancet1/ucl-lancet-climate-change-messages.pdf">has been called</a> the biggest global public health threat of the 21st century – and energy efficiency is a key tool in our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission levels. </p>
<p>Efficiency projects allow us to more effectively manage growing energy consumption without sacrificing services that we value. In the cost-optimised 2°C scenario set out by the International Energy Agency (the temperature rise that we have to stick within if we’re to mitigate climate change), end-use efficiency improvements will be responsible <a href="http://www.iea.org/etp/explore/">for 38%</a> of the global emissions reductions between now and 2050.</p>
<p>Without these emissions decreases, the World Health Organisation expects <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/">250,000</a> additional deaths to occur each year, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-climate-change-is-very-bad-for-your-health-22965">caused by</a> climate-related malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress around the globe.</p>
<p>Given these numbers, it seems logical to push forward with blanketing energy efficiency investments. However, there is evidence to show that we must take care in how we implement projects.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/1462959/1/bmj.pdf">a 2014 article</a> published in the British Medical Journal, James Milner and his co-authors outlined how some home energy efficiency improvements could cost lives by increasing indoor radon exposure and the risk of developing lung cancer. </p>
<p>According to the authors, energy efficiency projects could lead to an estimated 56.6% increase in average indoor radon concentrations. They calculate that the corresponding increase in radon exposure could lead to 278 premature deaths (the equivalent of 4,700 life years lost) each year in the UK.</p>
<p>After smoking, radon exposure is <a href="http://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/1462959/1/bmj.pdf">the most</a> important risk factor in developing lung cancer. This colourless gas, which occurs naturally from the indirect decay product of uranium or thorium, can be found in indoor air. It produces a radioactive dust that is trapped in our airways. This radiation then causes lung damage and increases the chance that we will develop lung cancer. Each year, an estimated <a href="http://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/1462959/1/bmj.pdf">1,400 cases</a> of lung cancer in the UK are primarily due to radon exposure, and <a href="http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html#risk">about 21,000 in the US</a>.</p>
<p>The increased radon concentrations in the Milner study stem from the fact that many energy efficiency improvements alter the way that buildings exchange indoor and outdoor air. These alterations are often aimed at reducing energy losses due to leaky windows or drafts around unsealed doors. In turn, these buildings can be more <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/insights/ee_improvements.pdf">effectively heated and cooled</a>, leading to observable public health improvements and decreases in total energy use.</p>
<p>However, they can increase some health risks. According to Milner and co-authors, while an individual project can be “good for energy efficiency, indoor temperatures in winter and protection against outdoor pollutants, it has the potential to increase concentrations of pollutants arising from sources inside or underneath the home.”</p>
<p>A 2013 <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132313002412">study</a> suggested similar risks in retrofitted buildings from mould growth and “sick building syndrome”, where occupants appear to experience health issues from occupancy in a building. By trapping humidity inside the building, energy efficiency retrofits could unintentionally lead to dangerous mould growth. In turn, people in these buildings would be more prone to chronic fatigue, irritated lungs, and watery eyes.</p>
<p>Using fans and other equipment to carefully control the indoor air quality could reduce or eliminate the negative co-impacts documented in these studies. Of course, the use of these technologies would offset some of the energy savings. But, they could also prevent an array of illnesses, which could stymie future energy efficiency proposals.</p>
<p>Energy efficiency projects can help to reduce total energy consumption. They are a key part of mitigating the impacts of global climate change. But we must be aware of any potential negative co-impacts on human health and take care to reduce their effect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>One of the co-authors of the BMJ study mentioned in the article is Melissa Lott's secondary PhD supervisor.
</span></em></p>
The primary goal of home energy efficiency initiatives might be to reduce total energy consumption, but these projects could have a negative impact on public health if we do not take care. Global climate…
Melissa C. Lott, PhD Student: energy, environmental and public health trade-offs of energy system technology transitions, focusing on air pollution, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/30105
2014-08-14T20:40:52Z
2014-08-14T20:40:52Z
Climate change will widen the social and health gap
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/56497/original/4ffymnw9-1407995432.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Poorer people are more vulnerable to the impact of extreme weather events. Pictured: the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/11043346434/in/photolist-hPS39J-hwiLSN-hwWaKR-hvLPJc-hwiM6d-jXTgsk-jXV3ey-hM4u2H-hM5T7r-hJrWoV-hwX3tc-hM5jdb-jhZacu-hM5AiM-hM3gfU-hM4216-hM3aZy-hM4jGZ-hM3dTZ-hM5eYu-hM4rF8-hM2NoX-hM3Qjj-iq72tJ-iq6Y6H-iq6Wu6-iq7Mka-iq7bfU-hM3N4K-hM41qP-hM3wJ9-j2Z6Jq-iq79hA-iq79dC-jhVbQ6-hEkQbQ-jhWEcM-jhWPhG-jhVbgk-jhVbpr-hERN4T-jhV2tv-jhWsT4-iq6tYZ-iq63VA-mBk7S2-hsmX4D-ihxoDY-iq5kMw-hRcZvx">DFID - UK Department for International Development/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/report/">Climate projections</a> suggest that, thanks to human activity, we will likely see an increase in extreme weather events, disruptions to agriculture, loss of livelihoods and displacement of people. </p>
<p>While everyone will be affected, these climate impacts will exacerbate social and health inequities, depending on underlying economic, geographic, social and health status.</p>
<p>Recently there’s been increasing attention on climate change and health, including <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/10/tony-abbott-under-pressure-to-put-climate-change-on-g20-meeting-agenda">calls from Australian scientists</a>, led by Professor Peter Doherty, for the government to put climate change on the G20 agenda. </p>
<p>My research focuses on social inequality, and how that might exacerbate climate changes impact on health inequalities, including vulnerability to extreme weather and rising food prices. I presented some of the latest research on this topic at a recent Australian Academy of Science symposium on climate and health.</p>
<h2>Inequities of man-made natural disasters</h2>
<p>Low-lying cities and towns near coasts are facing increased risks from more frequent and more intense cyclones. These storms can generate storm surges causing flooding, direct injury and damage to infrastructure, including housing, water and sanitation systems. </p>
<p>Poorer households are usually at <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health/project-pages/lancet1/ucl-lancet-climate-change.pdf">higher direct health risk</a> due to weaker structures, less safe locations and building sites, and the weaker resilience of infrastructure in poorer cities and towns to withstand damage. </p>
<p>At the end of 2013, the Philippines were hit by devastating super typhoon Haiyan, which affected 16 million people. 6,069 people were reported dead while 4.1 million people were displaced, with 1.1 million houses damaged or destroyed. While everyone was touched by the typhoon, large income inequalities meant that poorer people not only lived in poorer quality housing, they were also more likely to be living on cheaper land in <a href="http://juxtamagazine.org/2014/05/21/in-the-wake-of-typhoon-haiyan">vulnerable low-lying regions</a>. </p>
<p>Poorer households also often lack the economic resources to evacuate in the face of climate-related disasters, or to rebuild. The flooding of New Orleans in 2005 gave a <a href="http://cretscmhd.psych.ucla.edu/nola/volunteer/EmpiricalStudies/Survival%20and%20death%20in%20new%20orleans%20-%20an%20empirical%20look%20at%20the%20human%20impact%20of%20katrina.pdf">striking example</a> of what can happen among socially disadvantaged communities. Elderly patients in homes and poor people could not evacuate in front of the storm because of lack of transport. </p>
<p>We see similar issues with <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/heat-wave">heatwaves</a>. Lower socioeconomic and minority ethnic groups are more likely to live and work in warmer neighbourhoods and in buildings that are poorly ventilated and absorb heat. This increases the risk of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-heat-can-make-your-body-melt-down-from-the-inside-out-22042">heat stress and heat deaths</a>. </p>
<p>Poor neighbourhoods with weak infrastructure, buildings and unplanned developments with little <a href="https://theconversation.com/trees-are-a-citys-air-conditioners-so-why-are-we-pulling-them-out-21890">green spaces</a> are <a href="http://eau.sagepub.com/content/20/1/165.abstract">likely to be more exposed</a> to high temperatures compared to more affluent neighbourhoods.</p>
<h2>Impacts on agriculture</h2>
<p>Our agricultural systems are also under threat. Increasing drought periods in Australia may challenge the viability of agriculture in some regions, and hence those communities that depend on primary production. This will affect people’s income, stress levels and sense of hope. </p>
<p>In 2003 bushfires ravaged eastern Victoria, destroying more than 40 homes and killing thousands of cattle. But the bushfires <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016711001148">exacerbated problems</a> already present in the community, typical of other rural Australian communities. Economic and climate pressures on rural farming communities has created financial hardship, led to closures in local businesses, and young people moving away. </p>
<p>This has transformed the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0743016711001148">social landscape and support</a> that is often present within rural communities. These factors we know have real implications for <a href="https://theconversation.com/farmer-suicide-isnt-just-a-mental-health-issue-9381">mental health</a> and may increase risk of suicidal thoughts.</p>
<p>Climate change also exacerbates food insecurity. <a href="https://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/Climate_change_and_food_prices_in_Australia.pdf">Modelling estimates</a> suggest that between 2005 and 2007 there was a 33% increase in the price of vegetables and a 43% increase in fruit prices in Australia because of the drought and extreme weather events. </p>
<p>Rising food prices most affect the poor — as a proportion of total household expenditure, food makes up an average of around 19%. But, with 12% of Australians living below the poverty line, these average figures hide some of the <a href="https://74.50.56.43/eating-healthy-whats-in-store-for-food-prices-in-the-year-ahead-21970">food security difficulties</a> many Australians face. </p>
<p>Climate pressures will widen the food gap between those able to maintain a healthy diet of fresh produce, fish, lean meat and so on, and those needing to find the cheapest sources of calories. Cheap calories are found in the most highly processed, long shelf-life products, containing hardened fats and bulk starches, preserved with sugar or salt. </p>
<h2>Where does inequality come from?</h2>
<p>Climate change throws into sharp relief many of the issues to do with inequities in living standards, resource use, levels of exposure to environmental stresses, and existing health inequities. </p>
<p>Australians who are more socially disadvantaged (by income, employment status, education) and Indigenous Australians are <a href="http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/battlers-and-billionaires">more likely to die younger</a> and have a higher risk of depression, diabetes, heart disease and cancers. </p>
<p>Parts of our cities are marked by concentrations of long term unemployment, low levels of education, and poor and dangerous housing conditions, leading to poor physical and mental health outcomes. The health experience of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1753-6405.12273/abstract">people living in rural and remote Australia</a> is often worse than the urban average.</p>
<p>Climate change itself is a product of the same forces that have created inequality in different groups of people. In creating a global marketplace that depends upon ever-increasing volumes of production and consumption, the economic and social trajectory of the 20th century and beyond has led to increasing <a href="http://ehs.sph.berkeley.edu/krsmith/publications/2005%20pubs/ARER.pdf">over-exploitation</a> of finite natural resources and to overloading natural environmental systems. </p>
<p>The best way to address the unequal effects of climate change is address the causes of climate change and inequality. This <a href="http://www.australia21.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Final-InequalityinAustraliaRepor-2.pdf">might include</a>: fairer and more sustainable food systems; affordable quality housing; pensions and benefits set no lower than the poverty line and indexed to average wages; and the establishment of more quality job creation programs in priority areas.</p>
<p>This will not only improve health, but advances will be made in social equity such that communities and nations will be better able to resist current climate change and avert further damage to the environment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30105/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Friel receives funding from The Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.</span></em></p>
Climate projections suggest that, thanks to human activity, we will likely see an increase in extreme weather events, disruptions to agriculture, loss of livelihoods and displacement of people. While everyone…
Sharon Friel, Director and Professor of Health Equity, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/26640
2014-06-08T21:10:59Z
2014-06-08T21:10:59Z
Not so cheap: Australia needs to acknowledge the real cost of coal
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50464/original/yf6cw5rq-1402030856.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=87%2C114%2C3538%2C2195&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not so cheap: coal has wider costs than the price of digging it up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACollie_coal_mining.jpg">Calistemon/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>US President Barack Obama’s latest plan to reduce carbon emissions is a welcome one, and not just because it addresses climate change. In publicising the plan to cut emissions from old coal power stations, Obama put the <a href="https://theconversation.com/obamas-plan-for-coal-power-delivers-on-health-and-climate-27516">emphasis on health</a>. Now it is time for Australia to do the same. </p>
<p>Here we continue to ignore the real costs of coal, instead clinging to the myth that “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2014/s3997071.htm">coal is cheap</a>”, justifying continuing expansion and subsidies for the industry. </p>
<p>In the immediate wake of last month’s budget, treasurer Joe Hockey moved to reassure mining companies that the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-government-heads-off-fight-with-miners-report-20140505-zr4l8.html">A$2 billion diesel rebate</a> would be safe. </p>
<p>And Australia’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-12/coal-mine-aproved-despite-expert-environmental-concerns/5447150">largest coal mine</a>, proposed by Indian energy company Adani, was given the green light by the Queensland government, despite expert environmental concerns. </p>
<p>It is time to eradicate the myth that coal doesn’t cost much. In reality, it is costing humanity more <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6811.htm">than we can imagine</a> (or are willing to admit) — here’s the evidence. </p>
<h2>Burning money</h2>
<p>There is <a href="http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/about-us/news-activities/2014/01/new-book-sustainable-energy-solutions-climate-change">no simple way</a> to compare direct costs of coal and other energy sources. But in the future, coal is likely to be <a href="http://ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Low%20Emission%20Fossil%20Scenarios.pdf">less competitive than renewables or gas</a>; its cost advantage is <a href="http://www.irena.org/menu/index.aspx?mnu=Subcat&PriMenuID=36&CatID=141&SubcatID=277">already declining</a>. </p>
<p>This is because alternative energy, such as renewables, delivers power with no fuel costs. While higher capital costs may be involved, coal and gas prices increase with inflation, and require large government rebates and new investments to maintain supply. </p>
<p>It’s not just within Australia. Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-energy-future-australian-coal-or-renewable-revolution-26569">largest coal-export partner</a>, India, would <a href="http://www.ieefa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/IEEFA-Briefing-Note_IndianElectricityCoalPricing_4-May-2014.pdf">save money</a> by winding down purchases of Australian coal, and transitioning rapidly to renewables. </p>
<h2>Damaging body and mind</h2>
<p>Coal also has enormous environmental, social and health costs. Some of these “externalities” can be accounted for. </p>
<p>The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering <a href="http://www.atse.org.au/Documents/Publications/Reports/Energy/ATSE%20Hidden%20Costs%20Electricity%202009.pdf">has found</a> that these extra costs effectively double the wholesale price of coal-fired electricity. </p>
<p>Coal also costs lives. Reports (see <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/research/units/boden/PDF_Mining_Report_FINAL_October_2012.pdf">here</a> and <a href="http://dea.org.au/images/general/How_coal_burns_Aust._-_True_cost_of_burning_coal_04-13.pdf">here</a>) based on international evidence show that air pollution — especially the tiny particles emitted from the mining, transport and burning of coal — increases the risk of heart and lung disease, and reproductive problems.</p>
<p>Overseas, our exported coal contributes to the estimated <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/">3.3 million premature deaths</a> annually worldwide linked to outdoor air pollution, with the greatest impact on the elderly, children, people with chronic diseases, and pregnant women.</p>
<p>But some health costs can’t be counted, or fixed with money. Communities near coal mines, and miners themselves, face <a href="http://apy.sagepub.com/content/21/1/32.long">stressful noise, spills, accidents and the disruption caused by the “fly in, fly out” phenomenon</a>, which can disturb harmony. People experience distress, anxiety, depression and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18027145">solastalgia</a> when they witness the destruction of loved places and nature. Aboriginal Australians <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAOcfkcGDKA">suffer profoundly</a> when their cultural heritage and sacred sites are desecrated.</p>
<p>Although these impacts are linked to mental health problems, they are rarely taken seriously, even in health risk assessments or as quantifiable externalities.</p>
<h2>Then there’s the environment…</h2>
<p>Coal mines pose a diverse range of threats to the environment — some localised (as in the case of open-cut mines), and others truly global. </p>
<p>Underground coalmines can cause subsidence and change water flow. This is even occurring below important rivulets within <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-30/extended-version-of-mining-impacts-on-sydney/4926460">Sydney’s own water catchment</a>, cracking and drying riverbeds and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/water-issues/drinking-water-call-for-halt-to-coal-mining-as-contamination-level-increases-20131229-301re.html">causing contamination</a>. Existing damage may have already <a href="http://www.ewater.com.au/uploads/files/McNally_Evans-2007-Longwall_mining.pdf">impaired the full functioning</a> of Sydney’s catchment.</p>
<p>Coal-fired power stations operating in Australia and overseas emit <a href="http://www.iea.org/co2highlights/co2highlights.pdf">billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide</a>. Estimated at 13.1 billion tonnes of CO<sub>2</sub> between 2009 and 2010, these emissions are altering the delicate balance of our climate, exacerbating extreme weather events. The latest <a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-australia-and-new-zealand-face-greater-fire-and-flood-risk-damage-to-coral-reefs-24642">International Panel of Climate Change</a> report charts the profound impacts on health, environment and society that result from a changing climate. </p>
<h2>Corruption, financial risk</h2>
<p>If that isn’t enough, we also see <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/big-coal/">some coal companies</a> connected with corruption and bribery scandals, promoting untruths, denying climate change, harming the renewable energy industry and using influence to escape paying tax and maintain huge subsidies. </p>
<p>Evidence presented to New South Wales’s [Independent Commission Against Corruption](http://www.icac.nsw.gov.au/investigations/currentinvestigations/investigationdetail/192,<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/ofarrell-government-breaks-election-promise-by-backing-central-coast-coal-mine-20140219-32zuu.html">election promises seen to be broken</a> has seriously undermined the integrity of that state’s mining approvals process.</p>
<p>You may also have heard warnings of the “<a href="http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/verve/_resources/Unburnable_Carbon_Australias_Carbon_Bubble_finalreport.pdf">carbon bubble</a>”, as economists and investors recognise the risk of stranded fossil fuel assets that, if the world seriously addresses climate change, would become worthless. </p>
<p>Worthless? Possibly. Cheap? Absolutely not.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Haswell-Elkins is affiliated with the Doctors for the Environment Australia, the Public Health Association Australia and the Climate and Health Alliance.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Haydn Washington is affiliated with the Colong Foundation for Wilderness (Board member) and the NSW chapter of the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy (Co-Director)</span></em></p>
US President Barack Obama’s latest plan to reduce carbon emissions is a welcome one, and not just because it addresses climate change. In publicising the plan to cut emissions from old coal power stations…
Melissa Haswell, Associate Professor (Public, Environmental and Indigenous Health), Muru Marri, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, UNSW Sydney
Haydn Washington, Visiting Fellow, Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/24213
2014-03-30T19:47:50Z
2014-03-30T19:47:50Z
Climate change and health: IPCC reports emerging risks, emerging consensus
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44606/original/p982n4w5-1395704247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The largest impacts will occur in poorer and vulnerable populations.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/unamid-photo/5516926569/in/photolist-9pvG4B-9pvGvD-a98goq-a95tTD-a95twZ-hV5HKL-gwFkUL-7N9CMu-7N5D3z-9pvGST-8dZfHD-7AQ2my-7RSbNT-7RSc4r-7RSbYR-7RVrBh-7RVrvC-9X6MG2-7RScbr-bxoh1d-7RVrGo-8qW1hW-7Q1GTw-7PXnM4-7PXnJM-7Q1H23-7Q1GY5-7Q1GX5-eReqqk-cD6tMJ-cheiXU-8uurwH/">'Collecting water' by UNAMID</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Impacts volume of the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/#.UxaQorG4ayQ">Fifth Assessment Report</a> will be released today. Here, three contributors to the health chapter explain the ideas and evidence behind the report.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The consequences of human-driven global climate change as this century progresses will be wide-ranging. Yet public discussion has focused narrowly on a largely spurious debate about the basic science and on the risks to property, iconic species and ecosystems, jobs, the GDP and the economics of taking action versus taking our chances. </p>
<p>Missing from the discussion is the threat climate change poses to Earth’s life-support system – from declines in regional food yields, freshwater shortage, damage to settlements from extreme weather events and loss of habitable, especially coastal, land. The list goes on: changes in infectious disease patterns and the mental health consequences of trauma, loss, displacement and resource conflict. </p>
<p>In short, human-driven climate change poses a <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMra1109341">great threat</a>, unprecedented in type and scale, to well-being, health and perhaps even to human survival. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44613/original/93nwctw9-1395705664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44613/original/93nwctw9-1395705664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44613/original/93nwctw9-1395705664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44613/original/93nwctw9-1395705664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=830&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44613/original/93nwctw9-1395705664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44613/original/93nwctw9-1395705664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44613/original/93nwctw9-1395705664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Extreme weather events have contributed to a rise in global food prices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/60699107@N00/360867322/in/photolist-xTxho-ytMDf-yCVwG-zk3uo-CLiY3-G59c5-Gv3TL-JUasF-P9TPn-23BCEn-2mq8Rq-2uvC92-31nQvJ-3nBG5S-4mAgSa-4mEprJ-4rC1yq-4rT75h-4x42Wb-4x43fS-4xRzaG-4FQHL7-4HbL5D-4JEiRt-4LwZXz-4VVWtK-54SQzw-56S8uT-5kyByB-5rTjG6-5sHtJQ-5ye9hh-5HherR-5Q4c2a-5QNcHT-5Rw7V1-5TgcpK-5XV4kk-5ZDwpr-62szR4-658TcX-66cKyi-67GVcR-6cT6QP-6eZC2k-6pEd47-6s4eqx-6xwJ3M-6BxaJS-6DcmY9-6EgcyC">'Palm Trees, Wind and Ocean' by Brooke/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The human health chapter in the second (“Impacts”) volume of the IPCC’s <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/#.UxaQorG4ayQ">Fifth Assessment Report</a> concludes that the scientific evidence of many current and future risks to health has strengthened in recent years. The chapter, as in all IPCC reports, reviews all existing scientific evidence and is subject to external peer-review. </p>
<p>During at least the next few decades, the chapter states, climate change will mainly affect human health, disease and death by exacerbating pre-existing health problems. The largest impacts will occur in poorer and vulnerable populations and communities where climate-sensitive illnesses such as under-nutrition and diarrhoeal disease are already high – thus widening further the world’s health disparities.</p>
<p>Currently, the worldwide burden of ill-health clearly attributable to climate change is relatively small compared with other major blights on health such as from poverty, poor sanitation and exposure to tobacco. </p>
<p>Even so, in this early stage of human-driven climate change researchers in many countries have reported that rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns have, variously, increased heat-related illnesses and deaths, altered the distribution of some water-borne infectious diseases and the insect transmitters (vectors) of some diseases (such as malaria), and have reduced food yields in some already food-insecure populations. </p>
<p>Less certainly, extreme weather events, influenced in part by climate change, are likely to have contributed to the recent rise in global food prices.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44610/original/r9xvy6rf-1395705158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44610/original/r9xvy6rf-1395705158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44610/original/r9xvy6rf-1395705158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44610/original/r9xvy6rf-1395705158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44610/original/r9xvy6rf-1395705158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44610/original/r9xvy6rf-1395705158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44610/original/r9xvy6rf-1395705158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate change may render some regions uninhabitable.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-106885685/stock-photo-heat-haze-rises-as-powerlines-blur-into-the-distance.html?src=ZBvVVrxSDzzYpo2KZhXVqg-1-7">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The chapter discusses three impact categories in particular: </p>
<ul>
<li>under-nutrition and impaired child development due to reduced food yields</li>
<li>injuries, hospitalisations and deaths due to intense heat waves, fires and other weather disasters and </li>
<li>shifts in the seasonal duration and spatial range of infectious diseases. </li>
</ul>
<p>There is also <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799237/">mounting evidence</a> of the adverse health consequences of workplace exposure to heat extremes, including reduced work capacity and productivity. </p>
<p>Looking ahead to 2100, for which some modelled scenarios now project an average global warming of 4 degrees Celsius, the report foresees that in such conditions people won’t be able to cope, let alone work productively, in the hottest parts of the year. And that’s assuming social and economic institutions and processes are still intact. Some regions may become uninhabitable. </p>
<p>Impacts on mental health could be similarly extreme, further limiting our collective capacity to cope, recover and adapt.</p>
<p>Overall, while limited health gains from climate change may occur in some regions, the health chapter concludes from the evidence that harmful impacts will greatly outweigh benefits. The impacts of climate change will also undermine hard-won gains achieved through social development programs, impeding progress in the world’s poorest countries. </p>
<p>The world community has dithered for two decades over climate change since it rose to prominence during the <a href="http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.html">1992 Earth Summit</a>. As valuable time to reduce the risks (mitigation) has been squandered, the need to also focus on managing risk (adaptation) has increased. But excessive reliance on adaptation carries its <a href="http://greenhouse-2013.m.asnevents.com.au/event/abstract/6126">own risks</a> – including fooling ourselves that we don’t need immediate and aggressive mitigation.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44614/original/7yyb3sxz-1395706053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44614/original/7yyb3sxz-1395706053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44614/original/7yyb3sxz-1395706053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44614/original/7yyb3sxz-1395706053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44614/original/7yyb3sxz-1395706053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44614/original/7yyb3sxz-1395706053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44614/original/7yyb3sxz-1395706053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Public health programs can help manage the effects of climate change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/106853342@N04/10717237335/in/photolist-hk3Dh4-hk4ij7-dyPSsL-b6Kgj2-c4aUVy-kUSxTZ-kUTT4G-kUSwYJ-kUSp9W-kUTuv5-kUR2LD-kUTmb9-kUR4vi-kUS3Bx-kUQUrX-kUTJ7J-kURyTZ-kURj12-kUSQnS-kUQBoR-8nz8rf-9y7gkx-b6KgFD-hdNxZq-hdNo5K-dNH7d2-9Ui5LZ-b6KgVz-b6KhcM-a9HWA2-bF9SKa-bF9SU6-bseZRb-b6Kg7D-8tU1zt-7FgYEk-fmJFJK-8GNyx2-b6KfSK-b6Kgvc-9VuPBP-7AcdLk-b6KhmV-baGyq4-9yaeuA-9yaexw-9y7fvM-9y7gop-9yadWs-9y7fAc-9yaehW">Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The health chapter concludes that the most immediate effective way to manage health risks is through programs that introduce or improve basic public health measures. It also notes the need to boost human rights-based access to family planning. </p>
<p>As climate change proceeds, additional climate-specific measures (such as enhanced surveillance, early warning systems and climate-proofed building design) will be needed to protect population health, even in high-income settings. Recent extreme events such as the severe heat waves and fires in Australia in 2009-2014 and in Russia in 2010 underscore this need. </p>
<p>The chapter offers some cheer in stressing that the near-term and relatively <a href="http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/files/pr189.pdf">localised health “co-benefits”</a> from reducing greenhouse emissions (mitigation) could be very large. Reducing emissions of methane and black carbon, for example, may avoid more than two million deaths per year. </p>
<p>Other <a href="http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673609617591.pdf">mitigation actions</a> likely to improve physical health, social connectedness and mental health include: </p>
<ul>
<li>encouraging communities to be more active via improved public transport and reduced car reliance</li>
<li>reducing exposures to temperature extremes with well-insulated energy-efficient housing and</li>
<li>promoting healthier diets through the transformation of food production and processing systems.<br></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44611/original/d99f3r3b-1395705292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44611/original/d99f3r3b-1395705292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44611/original/d99f3r3b-1395705292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44611/original/d99f3r3b-1395705292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44611/original/d99f3r3b-1395705292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44611/original/d99f3r3b-1395705292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44611/original/d99f3r3b-1395705292.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Impacts of climate change on mental health limit our capacity to cope, recover and adapt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/70021771@N00/4895714866/in/photolist-8sBPt1-9geR1m-aBQHSm-cBoq7s-dp3YvJ-by96Za-dpbQxz-dpbPmB-dpbJuc-dpbUM7-dpbVRU-dpbXiA-dpc2hw-dpbSyA-dpbRrG-aBjTsr-8KncvA-8pgjjh-e5Usgc-7zVKL1-8Nqfn3-97VwCD-ayxEqb-ayxEeC-c5UiJQ-84rHDG-9poZG6-ayTVf1-b2DPZ4-dMsbGW-9YabE4-bqxV6a-bLMB14-8ChXrJ-9Ubg4t-8qpTBY-7MH14D-dKmW5R-7K2VJG-cSc6Sm-ixCc1r-eiPD5j-8XmRKy-bgKBUz-bw1xNi-bHYQke-aRVYSa">Tim Caynes</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In economic terms, the IPCC chapter judges that the health co-benefits from reducing emissions would be extremely cost-beneficial. They would, for example, be one thousand times greater than the economic co-benefits to agricultural yields from reduced exposures to short-lived, crop-damaging, airborne climate pollutants. </p>
<p>Overall, the up-front costs of reducing emissions could be substantially offset by early and extremely large health (and other) benefits.</p>
<p>Of course, none of this matters if human well-being, health and survival mean little to us. In that case we can emit all we like, then suffer, dwindle or even die out as a species and leave this planet to recover and thrive without us. One way or another we will then emit less. </p>
<p>We have a closing window of time in which to do something about global climate change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24213/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony McMichael receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council. He is affiliated with The Climate Institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Butler receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is co-director of the NGO Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health and Insight.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Louise Berry receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party.</span></em></p>
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Impacts volume of the Fifth Assessment Report will be released today. Here, three contributors to the health chapter explain the ideas and evidence…
Tony McMichael, Emeritus Professor, National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, Australian National University
Colin D. Butler, Professor , University of Canberra
Helen Louise Berry, Professor and Associate Dean Research, University of Canberra
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/22166
2014-02-09T19:08:05Z
2014-02-09T19:08:05Z
Our cities need more trees and water, not less, to stay liveable
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40895/original/69xmqfk8-1391666529.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C48%2C3195%2C2379&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Green and gone: Perth's Burswood Park Golf Course is about to make way for a football and casino complex.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moondyne/Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s major cities routinely rank among the world’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/melbourne-ranked-worlds-most-liveable-city--again-20130828-2sprk.html">most liveable</a>. But for all our clean streets, good healthcare and educational opportunities, one of the things we have to contend with is our sweltering summer heat.</p>
<p>Urban vegetation has an important role in easing these temperatures, which means that a city’s public parks, remnant woodlands, residential gardens, nature strips, street trees, green roofs, green walls and rain gardens are all vital for maintaining its liveability.</p>
<p>As such, this greenery – collectively termed “urban green infrastructure” – confers a wealth of environmental, economic and health benefits to city residents. By actively cooling the urban landscape, it helps reduce energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, and ultimately lessens the risk of residents suffering heat stress, heatstroke or even death. </p>
<p>The problem is that urban greenery needs water, and all too often the response to past droughts has been to stop watering it, to conserve water for people.</p>
<p>Yet irrigating urban greenery should not be viewed as a “waste of water”, but rather as an investment in the long-term environmental and social benefits we gain from green spaces. Our cities need to use the abundant water that we currently let run down the drain. </p>
<h2>Smarter design</h2>
<p>Thankfully, local and state governments around Australia have started to recognise this and are starting to use water-sensitive urban design, which retains stormwater run-off and provides an alternative to irrigation with drinking water. Much of our research involves developing and evaluating new water-sensitive technologies such as green roofs, rain gardens and modified kerbs and nature strips. </p>
<p>But the amount of urban vegetation is still declining in Australian cities. Ever-growing houses, on ever-shrinking plots, mean that the average backyard has shrunk. Population growth has driven up property prices so that residential blocks are being subdivided for units or townhouses. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, larger green open spaces are being sold and developed. Perth’s Burswood Park Golf Course is <a href="http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/burswood-was-no-augusta-but-well-miss-it-20130415-2hwav.html">making way</a> for a football stadium and casino complex, while more than 9 hectares of Melbourne’s historic Royal Park is <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/eastwest-link-to-take-6-of-royal-park-report-20130826-2slgi.html">set to disappear</a> under the <a href="http://www.linkingmelbourne.vic.gov.au/pages/pdfs/east-west-link-stage-one--short-form-business-case.pdf">East-West Link</a> toll road. </p>
<p>As one of the most urbanised countries in the world, Australia could benefit greatly from increasing the extent and quality of its urban green infrastructure. Doing so has repeatedly been shown to reduce the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island">“urban heat island”</a> effect – a critical issue considering climate change predictions foretelling more intense and more frequent heatwaves. </p>
<p>Thermal mapping observations collected in Melbourne suggest that on average, a 10% increase in urban green cover could reduce the daytime surface temperature during heatwaves in our cities by around 1°C. However, US research has shown that for a similar reduction in urban air temperatures, a much larger increase in greenery is required.</p>
<h2>Where to start</h2>
<p>To help planners in Australian cities make better use of urban green infrastructure to beat the heat, we have developed <a href="http://www.vcccar.org.au/publications">a framework</a> including the following steps to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Identify priority neighbourhoods based on assessments of exposure and vulnerability, using satellite thermal imagery and demographic data. This will target the areas of cities that most need cooling.</p></li>
<li><p>Maximise the effectiveness of existing greenery by integrating water-sensitive urban design. Water is vital for plants to deliver their cooling benefits: in Melbourne, irrigated grass can be up to 15°C cooler than unwatered grass during the day, while a healthy tree canopy can reduce summer midday air temperatures beneath by up to 3°C. </p></li>
<li><p>Identify priority streets for temperature reduction, based on their orientation and the height/width ratio of the street canyon. Wide streets that run east-west streets in areas with low buildings should be the highest priority because they are the most exposed to the sun. In contrast, narrow, north-south streets with tall buildings are the least exposed.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, select the most appropriate type of green infrastructure for each location. For example, increasing tree canopy cover will be the most effective strategy in wide, open streets, whereas green walls will work better in narrow street canyons. Grassed parks can act as islands of cool in a hot urban landscape, and these could be strategically located upwind of vulnerable communities such as aged-care facilities.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>From new parks to new policy</h2>
<p>Australian cities are already trying to increase their green cover in innovative ways. For example, a new park was recently created in North Melbourne by removing and reducing the width of roads, while in inner Sydney, the <a href="http://aspect.net.au/?p=384">Goods Line</a> project is being compared to New York’s celebrated <a href="http://www.thehighline.org/">High Line</a> park. Many local governments are developing urban forest strategies, with targets to increase tree canopy cover by a certain date. </p>
<p>These individual projects are good initiatives, but are they enough, and do they make enough use of the great benefits that urban greenery can provide? </p>
<p>Given the intensity of heat being experienced in our southern cities, perhaps a more joined-up approach is required. Australian cities could consider policies like the “no net loss” of urban green cover policy used in German cities, or Seattle’s <a href="http://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cityplanning/completeprojectslist/greenfactor/whatwhy/">Green Factor</a> – a score-based planning code that increases the amount and quality of green infrastructure in all new developments. </p>
<p>Couple this with a shift in thinking, based on the retention and reuse of the abundant stormwater that runs off the hard surfaces in our cities, and we might really get somewhere. Retarding and redirecting runoff from roofs and impervious surfaces towards green infrastructure should happen in the <a href="http://www.urbanstreams.unimelb.edu.au/">peri-urban landscape</a>, in the <a href="https://www.treenet.org/resources/inlets/more-about-inlets/">suburbs</a> and the <a href="http://www.clearwater.asn.au/">inner city</a>. </p>
<p>Making this rainfall runoff available to existing and engineered green infrastructure, particularly during hot weather, is the means to making our cities, greener, cooler and more resilient to climate change. </p>
<p>Perhaps then Australian cities can still be at the top of the annual “most liveable” lists – even during a heatwave or in a drought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Williams receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research, Melbourne Water, City of Melbourne and the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Coutts receives funding from Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Livesley receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the City of Melbourne, the City of Monash, Melbourne Water, the Office of Living Victoria and the Nursery and Garden Industry Australia</span></em></p>
Australia’s major cities routinely rank among the world’s most liveable. But for all our clean streets, good healthcare and educational opportunities, one of the things we have to contend with is our sweltering…
Nicholas Williams, Senior Lecturer in Urban Ecology and Urban Horticulture, The University of Melbourne
Andrew Coutts, Research Fellow, Monash University
Stephen Livesley, Associate Professor in Urban Ecosystems, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/22402
2014-01-28T03:29:17Z
2014-01-28T03:29:17Z
Spending wisely now will make heatwaves less costly later
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39956/original/ww3c76wr-1390874689.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C31%2C2071%2C1351&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Melbourne is facing more frequent hot days in the future.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Melbourne labours through its second heatwave this month, it is becoming clear that these events take a heavy toll. Health, energy consumption, transport, infrastructure, agriculture and other natural resources are all affected.</p>
<p>What is also clear is that the costs will continue to mount. The most prudent way to stop them escalating beyond our control is to spend money up front to ensure our cities and communities can withstand increasing temperatures. Put simply, we need to be more proactive, and less reactive, when adapting to climate change.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, the Victorian Government has spent <a href="http://www.climatechange.vic.gov.au/adapting-to-climate-change/Victorian-Climate-Change-Adaptation-Plan">more than A$4 billion</a> on response and recovery to bushfires, floods, droughts and heatwaves. On top of that public money, there is also the private financial cost to industries, communities and individuals – not to mention the emotional and mental impact of these events.</p>
<p>There has to be a better way. We can start by widening our thinking about climate adaptation, to include steps to avoid and prepare for events such as heatwaves, rather than just responding to them.</p>
<h2>Risky problem</h2>
<p>Climate adaptation is often characterised as an ‘environmental’ problem, and handed over to environment and sustainability officers within governments or businesses. But adaptation is better thought of as a matter of risk management, and as such it requires all parts of organisations to assess the risks and make sure they have robust plans in place to deal with them.</p>
<p>As a case in point, extreme heat events in our cities are the biggest climate-related cause of death. Without investments in adaptation, the risk of heatwaves and the associated loss of life will only rise in the future. Without action to curb greenhouse emissions, by 2070 Victoria is forecast to suffer an average of 21 days a year with temperatures above 35C, compared with the current average of nine.</p>
<p>Combine that with increasing urban density, more hard surfaces and less greenery, and a larger, older and more multicultural population, and the potential impacts from heatwaves start to multiply rapidly.</p>
<p>So how can we adapt? Here are two useful suggestions. </p>
<p>First, it is now well known that increasing ‘green infrastructure’ – street trees, urban parks, green roofs and green walls – and retaining water in cities can significantly reduce heat loads. A <a href="http://www.vcccar.org.au/publication/literature-review/potential-green-infrastructure">10% increase in green cover</a> could reduce the projected increase in urban temperatures from global warming. To that end, the City of Melbourne’s <a href="https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Sustainability/UrbanForest/Pages/About.aspx">Urban Forest Strategy</a> aims to increase tree cover in the city from 22% to 40%. Many other urban councils have similar projects. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39965/original/b2wvtkxt-1390877087.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39965/original/b2wvtkxt-1390877087.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39965/original/b2wvtkxt-1390877087.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39965/original/b2wvtkxt-1390877087.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39965/original/b2wvtkxt-1390877087.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39965/original/b2wvtkxt-1390877087.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39965/original/b2wvtkxt-1390877087.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greening the CBD could help Melburnians keep cool.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">City of Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But while studying the issue, the <a href="http://www.vcccar.org.au/">Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research</a> found that many people did not fully appreciate the benefits of green infrastructure. What is needed is an approach that involves agencies responsible for health, transport, local government and planning.</p>
<p>Health awareness programs can promote related benefits such as improved air quality; planners can reduce the red tape involved in planting street trees; local governments can identify priority neighbourhoods for development, protect existing greenery, and implement water-sensitive urban design.</p>
<p>Increasing green infrastructure will also require the use of private space – one major challenge will be to give private landowners the incentive to keep or install greenery and incorporate vegetation into building design.</p>
<p>Second, we can design train, tram, rail and essential service infrastructure that can stand up to heatwaves, making our cities more resilient for the future. Smarter grid design and use of electricity can mean Victorians have an electricity grid that can bear the strain of peak summer demand. Research is also under way on the design and use of energy-efficient homes that can cope with extreme temperatures while avoiding extreme electricity bills. </p>
<h2>Practical measures</h2>
<p>These are just two examples of how research is identifying practical measures to manage risk and increase Victoria’s climate resilience. While national investment in research is important, climate impacts vary around the country and are best addressed by state and local governments working in partnership with local researchers. Similar partnerships in the United States have an impressive track record of generating knowledge and crafting solutions that meet the needs of regional and local stakeholders. </p>
<p>Of course, we are not only adapting to a changing climate. Australian cities also need to deal with growing populations and changing patterns of urban development. The growth of our cities presents problems in areas such as transport, food supply, land management and conservation.</p>
<p>We also need to encourage positive behavioural changes through better planning of where we build or changing work practices and use of transport systems during heat waves, rather than just relying on engineering solutions like higher flood barriers or more air conditioners when adapting to our future climate.</p>
<p>Governments don’t have unlimited money to devote to the problem. Adaptation research will help them choose the best strategies to reduce the impact of heatwaves and other climate extremes while avoiding those that don’t help, or which do more harm than good. </p>
<p>At its heart, a good climate adaptation strategy, backed up by useful research, is like a well-chosen insurance policy. As the Deputy Governor of East Jakarta <a>said during the recent floods</a>: “I’d rather spend Rp20 billion to avoid risks than suffer Rp20 trillion in losses”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rod Keenan receives funding from the Victorian Government as Director of VCCCAR and has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research and the Centre for International Forestry Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Preston is affiliated with the Climate Change Science Institute at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA), the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Tennessee-Knoxville (USA), and the Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia)</span></em></p>
As Melbourne labours through its second heatwave this month, it is becoming clear that these events take a heavy toll. Health, energy consumption, transport, infrastructure, agriculture and other natural…
Rod Keenan, Professor and Director, Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research, The University of Melbourne
Benjamin Preston, Visiting fellow, Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/22164
2014-01-21T03:33:21Z
2014-01-21T03:33:21Z
It’s time for Australia to change its attitude to extreme heat
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39495/original/hf2jmq2c-1390268877.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4018%2C2658&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Barossa in January: not always ideal cycling conditions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Peled</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Complacency can kill. You would have to be living under a rock to be unaware that heat exposure can be <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-heat-can-make-your-body-melt-down-from-the-inside-out-22042">deadly</a>. Yet every year Australia – supposedly the “clever country” – endangers the lives of everyone from elite athletes to construction workers by making them work in the summer heat. </p>
<p>Sports schedulers and workplace regulators urgently need to take off their blinkers and confront our problem with extreme weather.</p>
<p>It is not sensible to schedule the gruelling <a href="http://www.tourdownunder.com.au/">Tour Down Under</a> for January in Adelaide. Likewise, the <a href="http://www.ausopen.com/index.html">Australian Open</a> tennis championship should not be held in Melbourne in January. This year, players have <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/tennis-sauna-heat-wave-hits-australian-open-21523537">complained</a> about having to play on in temperatures well above 40C.</p>
<p>Yet the vested interest in these major sporting events is massive. Given the involvement of television stations, advertising, flights, hotels, transport, security and the range of support industry staff, there is an understandable reluctance to interrupt meticulous plans. But is that worth the death of, say, one of the world’s top tennis players?</p>
<h2>Hot competition</h2>
<p>Athletes’ bodies are the tools of their trade. Sporting success and careers are built on fitness. Heat injuries can destroy all that. Competitions in extreme heat become a test of heat tolerance rather than athletic performance and skill. Sports professionals have responsibilities to their fans and their sponsors, so it is very difficult for them to withdraw to protect their health. Event organisers have a duty of care to provide safe environments so the decision should rest with them to modify events in extreme conditions. </p>
<p>About 80% of the energy produced by working muscles is heat, so without heat loss via sweating, we would overheat in about six minutes. High-intensity sports increase physiological heat generation 15-20 fold, and this extra heat must be dissipated to the environment via sweating. The rate of heat exchange on a hot day is poor, and when the air temperature is more than 37 degrees it becomes negligible, generating more heat load than can be dissipated and resulting in heat stress. It can be life-threatening, even for the very fit.</p>
<p>But it is not only elite athletes who are at risk; local club sports and recreational participants and organisers must consider the heat in planning their games. This includes prospects for modifying the activity, to provide shade and cool water, increased rest breaks, and altering the timing. Cricket is played in summer in the heat of the day, and each year players are among those who <a href="http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/05/18/heapro.dat027.full">suffer problems</a> with heat.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39497/original/xzbwbsmc-1390270048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39497/original/xzbwbsmc-1390270048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39497/original/xzbwbsmc-1390270048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39497/original/xzbwbsmc-1390270048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39497/original/xzbwbsmc-1390270048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39497/original/xzbwbsmc-1390270048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39497/original/xzbwbsmc-1390270048.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Construction workers deserve protection from dangerous heat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pawel Papis/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps even more pervasive is workplace heat exposure. Many occupations must be done outdoors, or in buildings that cannot be effectively cooled. Some work can be rescheduled for the evening, but not all. Workers who provide essential services, such as district nurses visiting the elderly, put their own lives at risk on hot days to care for the elderly and unwell. Yet systematic funding cuts call for their increased productivity. Rarely do we see staff numbers being increased to ease their workload. </p>
<p>In the construction industry there are building contracts that factor in “rain delays”. Why are there no official “heat delays”?</p>
<p>My <a href="http://nceph.anu.edu.au/research/projects/working-heat-study">research group</a> at the Australian National University is currently exploring the effects of heat on health and productivity, with the aim of identifying safe working thresholds and developing strategies that help workers to acclimatise. “Heat-proofing” Australian industry will be vital in our increasingly hot summers.</p>
<p>It is baffling that a hot country like Australia does not collect public data on thermal tolerance at the population level. Australia needs seriously to consider heat and how best to manage it safely. The nation cannot afford to shut down over summer, yet killing our workers or tennis players is also not an option. </p>
<p>Setting safety guidelines on the basis of hospitalisations and deaths is too little, too late. These outcomes must be prevented, and collectively we need to start the conversation on heat and institute a culture of heat safety.</p>
<h2>The heat is on</h2>
<p>Despite Australia’s long history of hot summers, the evidence is clear that it is getting hotter. Globally, each of the past 13 years (2001 to 2013) have ranked among the 14 warmest on record. The warming trend is not unique to Australia, but have a head start because we were already hot to begin with. </p>
<p>Last year was Australia’s <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20140103.shtml">hottest</a>, breaking the previous record set as recently as 2005 by 0.17°C. The Bureau has developed a new <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/heatwave/">heatwave forecasting tool</a> to help people track dangerously hot weather.</p>
<p>Hot weather records around the nation are crashing, often by unusually large margins, whereas new cold extremes are becoming less frequent. The past is quite different to today, and very different from the future. </p>
<p>A clever country would recognise this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22164/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Hanna receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.</span></em></p>
Complacency can kill. You would have to be living under a rock to be unaware that heat exposure can be deadly. Yet every year Australia – supposedly the “clever country” – endangers the lives of everyone…
Liz Hanna, Director NHMRC Project: Working in the Heat - Health Risks and Adaptation Needs, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/18204
2013-09-18T05:33:20Z
2013-09-18T05:33:20Z
China’s industrial revolution is happening on a new planet
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31474/original/3w7dkcvj-1379421236.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">China's industrialisation has followed the same path, but the rules of the game have changed.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Kos-Read</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What can two periods of industrialisation nearly two centuries apart tell us about how economies change and the demands their change place on the planet?</p>
<p>Today, China leads the wave of emerging economies poised to recast the Western-dominated geopolitical balance. Its development over the past three decades has turned it from a rural backwater – the “Sick Man of the Orient” – into the world’s second largest economy. According to the Peterson Institute’s Arvind Subramanian, China will soon displace the US as the dominant economic power in the world, wielding a global influence <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/134497/arvind-subramanian/eclipse-living-in-the-shadow-of-chinas-economic-dominance">even greater</a> than that of the British Empire at its height.</p>
<p>But China’s economic ascendancy has been purchased at a high environmental cost. Degraded ecosystems, polluted waterways, and encroaching deserts – these are the malignant byproducts of the largest economic expansion in history. The British historian Niall Ferguson has said that China seems intent on “cramming a century’s worth of industrialisation and urbanisation <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/14/china-faces-its-own-fiscal-problems.html">into about 30 years</a>”. This sounds dramatic, but Professor Ferguson’s assessment may be an understatement. According to a recent report by the <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/urbanization/urban_world">McKinsey Global Institute</a>, China’s industrialisation has proceeded at ten-times the speed and 100-times the scale of Britain’s.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Britain still provides the archetypal example of the industrialisation experience, if only because it was the first. The world was fundamentally changed when <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/watt_james.shtml">James Watt</a>, along with fellow inventors and entrepreneurs such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-13822526">James Hargreaves</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/arkwright_richard.shtml">Richard Arkwright</a>, pioneered the technologies that catalysed the great burst of productivity we now call the Industrial Revolution. By 1829, the Victorian social critic Thomas Carlyle had already proclaimed the dawn of the “Age of Machinery”.</p>
<p>“Hell is a city much like London – a populous and a smoky city,” <a href="http://www.cf.ac.uk/encap/skilton/poetry/shell01.html">wrote</a> the poet Shelley during Britain’s early industrial period. Fellow Romantic poet William Blake despaired that “dark Satanic mills” were blighting the landscapes of his beloved Albion. What Shelley and Blake lamented, and later scholars and commentators continued to document in rigorous detail, was the progressive despoliation of the natural world and the rise of urban civilisation.</p>
<p>Manchester transformed from a picturesque market town into Europe’s industrial heartland. There are remarkable parallels in modern China. Take Shenzhen, a middling city of barely 300,000 people in 1980. Today, it is a metropolis of more than ten million, a neon-lit, concrete-and-steel microcosm of China’s broader economic gains.</p>
<p>But there is an important difference between the two periods of industrialisation. In a much-cited 2009 paper in the journal Nature, a group of environmental scientists advanced the <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html">concept</a> of a “safe operating space for humanity”. Key planetary limits are being transgressed and the room for collective human error is shrinking. When Britain began its industrial ascent, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was approximately 280 parts per million (ppm). Today, it is about 400 ppm. Earth’s ability to absorb effluence and yield resources has declined significantly.</p>
<p>Thus, the environment in which China, India, and other emerging economies now pursue growth is fundamentally different. The natural world can no longer be taken for granted as a backdrop against which industrial activity takes place. The growing pressure to cap China’s emissions during international climate negotiations highlights the new reality.</p>
<p>However, with average incomes still a fraction of those in the developed West, China is unlikely to acquiesce. The West grew their industrial economies with environmental impunity, the emerging countries grumble, but now that it is their turn, the rules have changed. But even if geopolitics are negotiable, planetary boundaries are not. It is clear that the current wave of industrialisation must find a new, more environmentally-amenable paradigm.</p>
<p>In recent years, China’s concerted efforts at low-carbon development – highlighted by world-leading investments in renewable energy, government-mandated decreases in energy intensity, and large-scale afforestation – offer great promise, even if <a href="http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n7/full/ngeo1870.html">major challenges remain</a>.</p>
<p>“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities famously begins. Even if it is not the best of times, it is still hard to begrudge the social achievements of China’s development - nearly 630 million people were <a href="http://econ.lse.ac.uk/%7Edquah/p/2010.05-Shifting_Distribution_GEA-DQ.pdf">lifted out of poverty</a> between 1981 and 2005.</p>
<p>But the environmental consequences of that growth are becoming unavoidably manifest, in ways with which the Britain of Dickens’ time did not have to contend. Reconciling the social and the environmental sides of growth is the paramount challenge for modern China. Should it succeed, it could represent the archetype of a new paradigm of development, one that is not only industrial but also sustainable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tong Wu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
What can two periods of industrialisation nearly two centuries apart tell us about how economies change and the demands their change place on the planet? Today, China leads the wave of emerging economies…
Tong Wu, Research Fellow, Tsinghua University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/17752
2013-09-05T14:26:37Z
2013-09-05T14:26:37Z
Thousands die early due to air pollution
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/30623/original/5y3shczh-1378220158.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The secret killer</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">United Nations Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A recent MIT study claims that total combustion emissions in the US account for about <a href="http://lae.mit.edu/wordpress2/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/US-air-pollution-paper.pdf">200,000 premature deaths per year</a>. This enormous figure is not unique. In the UK, roughly <a href="http://www.comeap.org.uk/images/stories/Documents/Reports/comeap%20the%20mortality%20effects%20of%20long-term%20exposure%20to%20particulate%20air%20pollution%20in%20the%20uk%202010.pdf">29,000 premature deaths</a> are estimated to result from one year of emissions. Worldwide this figure amounts to <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16024504">800,000 deaths</a>. </p>
<p>Rapid urbanisation around the world brings with it intense energy consumption and increased emissions from transportation and industrial sources. As a consequence, people in both developed and developing countries are exposed to more diverse and unhealthy concentrations of air pollutants. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231012006024">Scientific research</a> has confirmed the detrimental effects of air pollution on mortality, and the increased risk of cardiopulmonary disease. Studies <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231012006024">are now investigating</a> the potential for air pollution to exert a wider threat, for example by negatively influencing unborn children, or contributing to neurodegeneration in the elderly.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.comeap.org.uk/air/pollutants/97-health-effects-of-particles">Particulate matter</a> is a complex mixture of finely divided liquid droplets or solids in a gaseous medium. It is released into the air by a variety of combustion sources, which together with the chemical make-up and size of the particle, appears to determine its toxic effects. Particulate matter with a diameter of between 0.1 and 2.5 millionths of a metre (PM 2.5)is the air pollutant most strongly associated with an increased risk of death. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.comeap.org.uk/air/pollutants/96-health-effects-of-ozone">Ozone</a> is a major constituent of photochemical smog. It is generated at ground level by atmospheric reactions of UV light with oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons produced by motor vehicles, industry and plants. Once generated, ozone can travel long distances, for example, to less polluted regions, where it can accumulate and reach high concentrations far away from the original source.</p>
<p><a href="http://lae.mit.edu/wordpress2/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/US-air-pollution-paper.pdf">The MIT study</a> draws upon pollutant emissions data, meteorological and air quality models and epidemiological evidence to quantify particulate matter and ozone-related premature deaths in 2005. </p>
<p>These deaths were attributed to electric power generation, industry, commercial or residential activities, and road, marine and rail transport. In the US, human-made combustion emissions represent the predominant source of PM2.5 and ozone that people breathe.</p>
<p>Total combustion emissions in the US were found to be responsible for about 200,000 premature deaths per year due to long-term exposure to increased PM2.5 concentrations. Additionally, roughly 10,600 premature deaths were due to exposure to increased ozone concentrations. </p>
<p>When looking at these figures it must be borne in mind that quantifying the impact on health of pollutants and their sources is challenging. While total mortality is the easiest endpoint to tackle, the complexity of the area means that results are always going to be accompanied by uncertainties.</p>
<p>The two largest contributors for both pollutant-related mortalities were found to be road transportation and power generation. Road transportation caused an estimated 53,000 PM2.5 and 5000 ozone-related early deaths per year. Power generation accounted for 52,000 PM2.5 and 2000 ozone-related premature mortalities per year. </p>
<p>These findings led the authors to conclude that a reduction of particulate matter emitted from power plants (sulphur dioxide) and road transport (black carbon) should be considered for future US energy and air quality policies.</p>
<p>In the UK, the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) carried out <a href="http://www.comeap.org.uk/images/stories/Documents/Reports/comeap%20the%20mortality%20effects%20of%20long-term%20exposure%20to%20particulate%20air%20pollution%20in%20the%20uk%202010.pdf">a recent appraisal of the effect of air pollution on mortality</a>, concluding that the burden of man-made PM2.5 air pollution had an effect on mortality in 2008 equivalent to nearly 29,000 deaths. </p>
<p>They also estimated that a policy aimed at reducing the annual average concentration of PM2.5 by 1 microgram per metre cubed would save approximately 4 million life years: equivalent to an increase in life expectancy of 20 days in people born in 2008.</p>
<p>COMEAP did not attribute the 29,000 deaths to different emission sectors. However, because road transport emissions in the UK represent a much higher fraction of total PM2.5 than in the US (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69635/pb13837-aqeg-fine-particle-matter-20121220.pdf">30.1% vs 6.9% - 2005 figures</a>), the significant contribution of this sector to poor air quality cannot be ignored. </p>
<p>Greater PM2.5 emissions originating from road transport in the UK are due to the high penetration of diesel vehicles on the roads, and as such, tighter regulation of the use of this fuel would seem a sensible way forward for the UK government to attain further improvements in air quality.</p>
<p>Outdoor air pollution at current levels makes a significant contribution to mortality. This emphasises the crucial role that modern day environmental health research has in setting public policy and improving health. Deaths could be delayed, and an enormous potential exists to achieve this. </p>
<p>The MIT study will generate interest and stimulate discussion in the short term. More importantly, the study goes some way towards assessing the health impact caused by different types of human activities. It is therefore hoped that such research will be used in the longer term to guide refined regulation and optimise pollution control strategies. This will encourage the achievement of the best possible improvement in the impact of air pollution on public health.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Kelly receives funding from MRC, NERC, EC, Wellcome Trust, NIHR. He is Chairman of the Committee of the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Fussell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A recent MIT study claims that total combustion emissions in the US account for about 200,000 premature deaths per year. This enormous figure is not unique. In the UK, roughly 29,000 premature deaths are…
Julia Fussell, Scientific Communicator, King's College London
Frank Kelly, Professor of Environmental Health, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/9750
2012-10-08T19:22:09Z
2012-10-08T19:22:09Z
Future under threat: climate change and children’s health
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16238/original/dfs93cfk-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children suffer around 90% of the disease burden from climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/SeemaKK </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change has been <a href="http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673609609351.pdf?id=5bbe37e152166496:-2811610:13a06538a1b:-55d61348727260360">widely recognised</a> by leading public health organisations and prestigious peer reviewed journals as the the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/">recently released report</a>, commissioned by 20 of the most vulnerable countries, highlights the size of the threat: climate change is already responsible for 400,000 deaths annually, mostly from hunger and communicable disease. And our carbon-intensive energy system causes another 4.5 million deaths annually, largely due to air pollution.</p>
<p>Along with the old and disadvantaged, children are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Children suffer <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20947468">around 90%</a> of the disease burden from climate change. </p>
<p>What can our children expect if we continue the way we’re going?</p>
<p>Even if current international carbon reduction commitments are honoured, <a href="http://climateinteractive.org/scoreboard">the global temperature rise</a> is predicted to be more than double the internationally agreed target of 2°C. Humanity continues to pour <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n1/full/nclimate1332.html">record amounts</a> of CO2 into the atmosphere. It has been <a href="http://m.rollingstone.com/entry/view/id/29695/pn/all/p/0/?KSID=f105d41e4d974469a26748564eee36bc">argued that</a>, if this continues, reasonable hope of avoiding dangerous climate change will have passed us by in a mere 16 years. </p>
<p>The impact climate change has on children born today may well be decided before they can vote on it. </p>
<p>Climate change <a href="http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/pr21.pdf">will affect</a> global agricultural productivity and food security, with 25 million additional children predicted to be malnourished by 2050. The estimate of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692964/pdf/12028796.pdf">an additional 200 million “environmental refugees” by 2050</a> has become the widely accepted figure. This means, if we do not intervene, millions of children will suffer the adverse mental, physical and social health impacts associated with forced migration.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16239/original/j6hkzgkg-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16239/original/j6hkzgkg-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16239/original/j6hkzgkg-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16239/original/j6hkzgkg-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16239/original/j6hkzgkg-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16239/original/j6hkzgkg-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16239/original/j6hkzgkg-1349413510.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The impact climate change has on children born today may well be decided before they can vote on it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Slater Wildlife Encounters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The intensity and frequency of weather extremes will increase. This will result in increased child illness and death from heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts. The increased incidence and severity of floods, for instance, will increase child illness and death from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarrhea">diarrhoea</a> and other water born diseases. </p>
<p>We’re likely to see more asthma, allergies, disease and other adverse health outcomes that disproportionately affect children. A recent <a href="http://www.childreninachangingclimate.org/database/unicef/Publications/Our%20climate%20our%20children%20our%20responsibility.pdf">report</a> observed that climate change may make serious epidemics more likely in previously less-affected communities. This report also found that changing climate conditions have the potential to stimulate the emergence of new diseases and influence children’s vulnerability to disease. </p>
<p>Australians will not be immune to these changes.</p>
<p>It has been estimated that climate change will mean that Australian children <a href="https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=22896">will face</a> a 30% to 100% increase across selected health risks by 2050. Indeed, if we fail to act, future generations of Australians <a href="https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=22896">may face</a> a three- to 15-fold increase in these health risks by 2100. </p>
<p>Because their brains are still developing, children are <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/1/e232.full.pdf">particularly vulnerable</a> to <a href="http://developingchild.harvard.edu/topics/science_of_early_childhood/toxic_stress_response/">toxic levels of stress</a>. Increased exposure to trauma and stress because of climate change is likely to affect children’s brain development and mental health. Children surveyed six months after the 2003 bushfires in Canberra, for example, <a href="http://ww1.cpa-apc.org:8080/publications/archives/CJP/2005/march/McDermott.asp">showed</a> much higher rates of emotional problems. Nearly half had elevated symptoms of <a href="http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Post_traumatic_stress_disorder">post-traumatic stress disorder</a>. </p>
<p>Research has also found that prolonged exposure to adverse weather conditions is associated with <a href="https://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=22898">increased child and adolescent psychological distress</a> over time. As global warming drives local and regional change to home environments, children, like many non-human animals will experience place-based distress (known as <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-age-of-solastalgia-8337">solastalgia</a>) at the unwelcome changes.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16241/original/8msj7xgj-1349413721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/16241/original/8msj7xgj-1349413721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16241/original/8msj7xgj-1349413721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16241/original/8msj7xgj-1349413721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=867&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16241/original/8msj7xgj-1349413721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16241/original/8msj7xgj-1349413721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/16241/original/8msj7xgj-1349413721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1089&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An additional 25 million children around the world are predicted to be malnourished by 2050.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">United Nations Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are only beginning to understand the impacts that climate change will have on children’s physical and mental health. More research at the regional and local levels is desperately needed so we can adequately understand, prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change. </p>
<p>James Hansen from NASA recently <a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1110/1110.1365.pdf">argued that</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Children cannot avoid hearing that the window of opportunity to act in time to avoid dramatic climate impacts is closing, and that their future and that of other species is at stake. While the psychological health of our children needs to be protected, denial of the truth exposes them to even greater risk. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>We must listen to the fears and concerns of children and young people and include their voices in discussions about climate change.</p>
<p>The existence of cost effective ways to reduce climate change means there is <a href="http://theconversation.com/health-ministers-attacks-on-climate-change-action-are-just-sick-8671">no excuse</a> for inaction. Climate change and the carbon-intensive energy system are <a href="http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/">currently costing</a> 1.7% of global GDP and are expected to reach 3.5% by 2030. This is much higher than the cost of shifting to a low carbon economy.</p>
<p>Right now the science is telling us that we are not doing enough.</p>
<p>As children are innocent and non-consenting victims of climate change, adults have an ethical obligation to do everything possible to prevent further damage to their ability to thrive in the future. To do otherwise is to ignore the very thing many of us see as the most important reason for living.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/9750/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Farrant is supported by funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. He has no commercial interests of any kind.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Armstrong is Convenor of the Climate and Health Alliance.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Glenn Albrecht has previously received funding from an ARC DP project and an NCCARF grant.</span></em></p>
Climate change has been widely recognised by leading public health organisations and prestigious peer reviewed journals as the the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. A recently released…
Brad Farrant, Adjunct Research Fellow in Early Childhood Development, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/8671
2012-08-09T20:38:07Z
2012-08-09T20:38:07Z
Health ministers’ attacks on climate change action are just sick
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13919/original/kmbf5wdj-1344232240.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If health ministers want to keep people out of here they should be supporting - not opposing - action on climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Cox</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ACCC has been vigilant about following up the 45 or so <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/gym-fined-over-carbon-price-lies/story-e6frg6nf-1226440285879">carbon price gouging</a> complaints it gets each day. But who can stop the politicians? Their relentless carbon price scare campaigns seek to frighten, rather than inform, an increasingly polarised public who should be getting the facts on health and climate change.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the Liberal Health Minister in Victoria, David Davis. His recent contribution to the climate discussion was <a href="http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/new-low-carbon-tax-scare-campaign">a leaflet for distribution</a> across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs which suggested that the “carbon tax will hurt patients”. He said that hospitals will face a $13 million “tax bill” because “Julia Gillard doesn’t care.” </p>
<p>In actual fact, there is no such tax bill. Even if electricity costs rose by $13 million, it would reflect less than 0.1% of total health expenditure. Given that the Commonwealth will be footing the bill for 50% of the cost of <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/hospitals-face-small-cost-increases/story-fn7x8me2-1226294034807">hospital care from 2014</a>, the states can hardly claim the burden as their own.</p>
<p>The most effective method of protecting the health sector against future price rises would be to invest in energy efficiency and <a href="http://www.nrel.gov/learning/eds_distributed_energy.html">distributed energy generation systems</a>. This would help manage future price increases as well as reduce harmful air pollution from <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/health-and-climate-change/">burning fossil fuels</a> for electricity. Air pollution puts <a href="http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/en/our-work/monitoring-the-environment/monitoring-victorias-air/how-air-pollution-affects-health/ambient-air-pollution-and-hospital-emissions">many people in hospitals</a> with respiratory disease and cancer. Because of this, the previous Victorian government set aside $460 million to make public buildings, such as hospitals, more energy efficient and therefore healthier.</p>
<p>Carbon pricing is in fact a health protection measure. The <a href="http://www.who.int/heli/economics/econinstruments/en/">World Health Organisation</a>, the <a href="http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c5/">World Medical Association</a>, <a href="http://www.csiro.au/files/files/p6fy.pdf">the CSIRO</a>, the <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007-2008/news/title,6197,en.html">United Nations Human Development Program</a>, and the <a href="http://ama.com.au/node/7174">Australian Medical Association</a> all call, and have been calling for years, for a policy to discourage and reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of the harm they pose to human health. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13921/original/x77w9y84-1344232479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/13921/original/x77w9y84-1344232479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13921/original/x77w9y84-1344232479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13921/original/x77w9y84-1344232479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13921/original/x77w9y84-1344232479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13921/original/x77w9y84-1344232479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/13921/original/x77w9y84-1344232479.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Motor vehicle pollution is a killer: moves to reduce it should be welcomed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics, between 900 and 2,000 early deaths occur annually in Australia from motor-vehicle related air pollution alone. Coal-fired power generation <a href="https://theconversation.com/something-in-the-air-time-for-independent-testing-in-coal-areas-5763">carries a similar toll</a> - creating a health burden that, if reflected in the costs of electricity would effectively <a href="http://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/ATSE_Report_Hidden_Costs_Electricity_2009.pdf">double the cost of coal-fired power</a>.</p>
<p>Mr Davis is Health Minister of a wealthy state in a developed nation. He cannot possibly claim to be unaware of the substantial body of evidence, present in thousands of <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/health-and-climate-change">peer reviewed scientific journals</a> over several decades, that climate change poses far bigger risks to health than a small rise in energy prices - especially when it is offset by generous subsidies to prevent those on low incomes from energy poverty. Indeed, the EU expects that a substantial proportion of the costs of emission reductions will be offset by co-benefits <a href="http://www.env-health.org/policies/climate-change/acting-now-for-better-health/">arising from improved health</a>. And the cumulative health benefits are doubled if action is taken immediately, rather than delaying till 2015.</p>
<p>The basis for Mr Davis’s claims is a report commissioned by the Victorian Government. It was prepared by commercial consultant Sinclair Knight Merz and released to the <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/counting-the-carbon-costs/story-fnbdxfy6-1226412683788">Herald Sun</a>, but otherwise not available publicly. According to the Herald Sun, it estimates an increase of $13 million in health care costs as a direct result of the carbon price. </p>
<p>Mr Davis is not alone in making such claims; similar statements have been released by the <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/m-carbon-tax-bill-for-hospitals-schools/story-e6freuy9-1226390600021">NSW</a> and <a href="http://www.peterdutton.com.au/Home/LatestNews/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/298/Transcript-of-the-Hon-Peter-Dutton-MP-and-Liberal-Candidate-for-Bass-Andrew-Nikolic-at-St-Vincents-Hospital-Launceston.aspx">Queensland</a> governments. The Federal Shadow Health Minister Peter Dutton has <a href="http://www.peterdutton.com.au/Home/LatestNews/tabid/94/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/298/Transcript-of-the-Hon-Peter-Dutton-MP-and-Liberal-Candidate-for-Bass-Andrew-Nikolic-at-St-Vincents-Hospital-Launceston.aspx">attacked</a> the (Labor) Tasmanian Premier for refusing to frighten her electorate with similar claims.</p>
<p>These politicians have the job of preserving and safe-guarding public health. Instead of heeding the recommendations of every major medical body, those politicians see fit to attack a measure that is in their constituents’ best interests. In addition to the direct harm to health from fossil fuels, climate change already <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/29/1">claims 300,000 human lives annually</a>.</p>
<p>If not from science, where are Mr Davis and others getting their advice? Could it be from the Sunshine coast doctor responsible for the recent LNP motion to <a href="http://www.readfearn.com/2012/07/greenhouse-gas-theory-disproved-with-two-fish-boxes-and-a-roll-of-cling-film/">ban climate science from schools in Queensland</a>, who thought he could disprove 150 years of physics in his back yard with two eskies and glad wrap?</p>
<p>While the current legislation is hardly a sufficient effort to reduce emissions to the extent required, it is in line with widely accepted policy settings <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1492651/Factbox-Carbon-taxes-around-the-world">around the world</a> and it is a first step in the right direction.</p>
<p>What are the likely consequences of Mr Davis’s claims and other egregious misrepresentations of the price on carbon?</p>
<p>There is good reason to fear that those claims may be quite successful: we know that once a myth has been put into the public arena, <a href="https://theconversation.com/fighting-fact-free-journalism-a-how-to-guide-5125">it often resists any corrective effort</a>, no matter how readily it can be debunked. Claims that arouse fear can be politically very effective, especially when combined with a <a href="http://scx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/3/355">seductively simple antidote</a> - getting rid of the carbon tax. </p>
<p>The Australian media are notoriously incapable of differentiating fact from fiction, especially when it comes to the price on carbon. Indeed, we are not aware of any challenge to Mr. Davis’s claims, and those of his colleagues, in the corporate media.</p>
<p>George Orwell’s “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Truth">Ministry of Truth</a>” has been enshrined into Western culture as a symbol for the chilling inversion of reality that results when facts become irrelevant and propaganda paramount.</p>
<p>Victorians should be concerned that their “Ministry of Health” may likewise become known for opposing, rather than facilitating, public health measures that are aimed at managing the consequences of climate change.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Fiona Armstrong. Fiona is the Convenor of the <a href="http://www.caha.org.au/">Climate and Health Alliance</a>. She is a health professional, journalist, and has a Master in Politics and Public Policy from Macquarie University.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephan Lewandowsky receives funding from various publicly-funded granting agencies to conduct research in the public interest. He has no commercial interests of any kind.</span></em></p>
The ACCC has been vigilant about following up the 45 or so carbon price gouging complaints it gets each day. But who can stop the politicians? Their relentless carbon price scare campaigns seek to frighten…
Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/5615
2012-05-16T02:18:32Z
2012-05-16T02:18:32Z
Reframing climate change could deliver health benefits
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10676/original/krp47gpy-1337057838.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the benefits of using the health frame is that it makes the issues more tangible – here and now and about people, not just polar bears.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roderick Eime/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is a complex problem but appears to many people as lacking immediate impact on their lives. Reconceptualising it as a health issue may allow for both better understanding of the issue and greater scope for changing behaviour. </p>
<p>Climate change is often perceived as affecting people far from us in both time and space. And what doctors, psychologists and other health professionals have known for some time is that just <a href="http://www.apa.org/research/action/motivate.aspx">providing people with more facts</a> about an issue doesn’t always change their minds or cause them to act in an appropriate manner. In fact, how we say something may be as important as what we say. </p>
<p>Health-related behaviour can be <a href="ftp://filer.soc.uoc.gr/Psycho/Manola/2008-09/%E8%E5%F9%F1%DF%E5%F2%20%F3%F5%EC%F0%E5%F1%E9%F6%EF%F1%FE%ED%20%EA%E1%E9%20%F5%E3%E5%DF%E1/health%20behaviour%20change%20approaches.pdf">determined by a number of factors</a> including whether people think the problem is serious, feel they’re susceptible to it and are convinced they’re able to take effective action. While <a href="http://www.psandman.com/col/climate.htm">denial may result from</a> apathy or self-interest, it may also be a way of actively avoiding something deeply worrying that we feel powerless to change. </p>
<p><a href="http://theconversation.com/no-one-likes-to-change-their-mind-not-even-on-climate-6674">Cognitive dissonance</a> – the discomfort generated when there’s a discrepancy between beliefs or behaviours - occurs when we are presented with information that’s incompatible with our word views or firm beliefs, and we employ strategies to defend these. Denying the new information may be the easiest way to deal with the conflict.</p>
<p>Generating powerful emotions, such as fear or guilt, can create an “emotional dissonance” with people trying to avoid what is upsetting, leading to a different type of denial. So <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/1/34">fear-based appeals</a>, if not coupled with solutions, can actually reduce engagement. Our emotions and values are intricately tied up with how we respond to information and that‘s why framing of the issue is so important. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10671/original/t764gj4m-1337056906.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10671/original/t764gj4m-1337056906.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10671/original/t764gj4m-1337056906.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10671/original/t764gj4m-1337056906.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10671/original/t764gj4m-1337056906.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10671/original/t764gj4m-1337056906.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10671/original/t764gj4m-1337056906.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smoke from bushfires can cause respiratory problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Department of Environment and Conservation WA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Climate change can be seen as an environmental, moral, or economic issue. And it can be also framed as a health problem. One of the benefits of using the health frame is that it makes the issues more tangible – here and now and about people, not polar bears. </p>
<p>People are already familiar with health problems and accept their importance. While it can seem a somewhat nebulous concept when spoken of in its own terms, <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3200/ENVT.51.2.12-23">framing climate change</a> in terms of heart disease, asthma, food safety and infectious disease can make it more “real” and personally relevant. </p>
<p>Issue <a href="http://www.apa.org/research/action/motivate.aspx">frames that emphasise benefits</a> rather than focusing on costs, and tailoring messages as much as possible to particular audiences, will achieve better responses. The <a href="http://www.biomedcentral.com/qc/1471-2458/10/299">health frame offers solutions</a> and a positive vision of the future with multiple benefits. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://climatecommission.gov.au/">Climate Commission</a> has recently <a href="http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/key-messages_FINAL-FOR-WEB1.pdf">started using the health frame</a> to communicate about climate change. It has also recognised that health professionals are a source of trusted information for people. </p>
<p>In fact, there’s an emerging body of literature pointing to the health benefits of acting on climate change.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10670/original/ybtpd77q-1337056572.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10670/original/ybtpd77q-1337056572.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10670/original/ybtpd77q-1337056572.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10670/original/ybtpd77q-1337056572.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10670/original/ybtpd77q-1337056572.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10670/original/ybtpd77q-1337056572.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/10670/original/ybtpd77q-1337056572.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even increasing the proportion of vegetables and reducing meat consumption is better for both health and the environment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SteveR-/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Policies that reduce greenhouse emissions can result in significant health improvements and contribute to tackling the epidemic of chronic diseases now facing modern societies. <a href="http://download.thelancet.com/flatcontentassets/series/health-and-climate-change.pdf">According to medical journal</a> The Lancet, “the news is not all bad”. </p>
<p>Being less dependent on car use and more physically active - <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=NB10027.pdf">walking or cycling</a> - can benefit people by reducing the risk of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and promoting good mental health. </p>
<p>Reducing fossil fuel combustion from vehicle use and coal combustion can <a href="http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=NB10026.pdf">reduce air pollution</a>, a significant cause of cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and premature death. By <a href="http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0749-3797/PIIS074937970800682X.pdf">designing our cities and transportation systems</a> more efficiently, we can reduce emissions and help prevent a range of health impacts. </p>
<p>Even increasing the proportion of vegetables and reducing meat consumption in our diets <a href="http://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(08)00685-5/fulltext#sec6">can provide a win</a> for both health and the environment. Such multi-sectoral policies and approaches to daily life also have <a href="http://rocky.middlebury.edu/econ/repec/mdl/ancoec/0920.pdf">the capacity to generate</a> considerable economic savings. </p>
<p>Health professionals are well-placed to use the health frame for communicating the impact of climate change and illustrating the benefits mitigation strategies can have for health. Reframing climate change as a health issue helps people understand what climate change predictions mean for them and their loved ones, as well as to unite people across ideological divides and empower and motivate them to act. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marion Carey receives funding from the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria and VicHealth.</span></em></p>
Climate change is a complex problem but appears to many people as lacking immediate impact on their lives. Reconceptualising it as a health issue may allow for both better understanding of the issue and…
Marion Carey, Adjunct Associate Professor (Research), Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.