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.
Matt York/AP Photo
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.
Sydneysiders cool off in heatwave conditions gripping eastern Australia in January 2017.
AAP Image/Joel Carrett
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.
Drought-reduced crop yields could threaten food supply in Australia.
David Kelleher/Flickr
James Whitmore, The Conversation and Michael Hopkin, The Conversation
The Australian Academy of Science has warned that sick, older, poor and isolated Australians are at most risk from the health impacts of climate effects such as drought, fires, floods and heatwaves.
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…
US President Barack Obama speaks during the Climate Summit 2014 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, New York, USA, 23 September 2014.
JUSTIN LANE/EPA
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…
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…
Poorer people are more vulnerable to the impact of extreme weather events. Pictured: the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.
DFID - UK Department for International Development/Flickr
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…
Not so cheap: coal has wider costs than the price of digging it up.
Calistemon/Wikimedia Commons
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…
The largest impacts will occur in poorer and vulnerable populations.
'Collecting water' by UNAMID
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…
Green and gone: Perth’s Burswood Park Golf Course is about to make way for a football and casino complex.
Moondyne/Wikimedia Commons
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…
Melbourne is facing more frequent hot days in the future.
Wikimedia Commons
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…
The Barossa in January: not always ideal cycling conditions.
AAP/Dan Peled
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…
China’s industrialisation has followed the same path, but the rules of the game have changed.
Jonathan Kos-Read
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…
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…
Children suffer around 90% of the disease burden from climate change.
Flickr/SeemaKK
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…
If health ministers want to keep people out of here they should be supporting - not opposing - action on climate change.
Dan Cox
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…
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.
Roderick Eime/AAP
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…