Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the twenty-first century, according to a report in the medical journal The Lancet, coming from scientists who underscore the need for urgent action.
“This is not a disaster movie with a happy ending, but something real,” said Professor Anthony Costello, director of the report, who asserted that “climate change is a health issue that affects billions of people and not just an environmental problem that affects polar bears and forests.”
The report is a joint effort of experts in health, anthropology, geography, climatology, engineering, economics, law and philosophy, and is intended as a model for governments to act in a multidisciplinary approach in combating climate change.
“The impact of what is happening is not something we perceive in the distant future, but for our lives and, finally, in the lives of our children and grandchildren,” Costello warned in a press conference where he presented the report.
The main highlight of the report is on the health implications of climate change, from the observation that at temperatures between 2 and 6 degrees higher, the world will be most affected by endemic tropical diseases such as dengue and malaria.
The authors of the report refer to heat as the ‘silent murderer’ that killed some 70,000 people in Europe in the summer of 2003 and which, as cause of death, is not registered among tens of thousands of people every year in countries of the Third World.
If not remedied through reduction of CO2 emissions, more people from poor countries will die due to high increase of the transmission of malaria and other infectious diseases.
The gap between rich and poor countries in this regard is devastating, says the report published by The Lancet: “The lost years of healthy life as a result of global environmental change is 500 times greater in Africa than in European nations, despite the fact that African nations contribute little to global warming.”
Via The Lancet
