GLOBAL WARMING
Health Impacts of Global Warming
All studies which predict the future have a degree of uncertainty. Nevertheless, many fields of study have refined their understanding of natural processes to an extent that they now have a basis for predicting the consequences of change – in this case, increased global temperatures.
Let’s start with a report to Congress by the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Julie Gerberding. This federal report puts the spotlight on the human consequences of global warming, although deletions where made before it was officially released. These changes were made by non-scientific White House staff. It is an example of the Bush administration’s consistent efforts to hide from the public and from Congress, the truth about Global Warming and its potential consequences, as documented elsewhere on this site. Here is the complete testimony including the White House deletions and a news article about the deletions.
Some excerpts of Dr. Gerberding’s original testimony:
Scientific evidence supports the view that the earth’s climate is changing. A broad array of organizations (federal, state, local, multilateral, faith-based, private and nongovernmental) is working to address climate change. CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern.
One of the most likely climate change projections is an increase in frequency of hot days, hot nights, and heat waves. The United States is expected to see an increase in the severity, duration, and frequency of extreme heat waves.
Climate change is anticipated to alter the frequency, timing, intensity, and duration of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and floods. The health effects of these extreme weather events range from loss of life and acute trauma, to indirect effects such as loss of home, large-scale population displacement, damage to sanitation infrastructure (drinking water and sewage systems), interruption of food production, damage to the health-care infrastructure, and psychological problems such as post traumatic stress disorder.
Climate change can affect air quality by modifying local weather patterns and pollutant concentrations. Some studies have shown that higher surface temperatures, especially in urban areas, encourage the formation of ground-level ozone.
Studies have shown that some plants, such as ragweed and poison ivy, grow faster and produce more allergens under conditions of high carbon dioxide and warm weather. As a result, allergic diseases and symptoms could worsen with climate change.
Altered weather patterns resulting from climate change are likely to affect the distribution and incidence of food- and water-borne diseases.
Vector-borne and zoonotic diseases (diseases of animals, such as rabies or psittacosis, that can be transmitted to human beings), such as plague, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, malaria, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, and dengue fever have been shown to have a distinct seasonal pattern, suggesting that they are weather sensitive.
Climate change is predicted to alter agricultural production, both directly and indirectly. This may lead to scarcity of some foods, increase food prices, and threaten access to food for Americans who experience food insecurity.
The effects of climate change will likely vary regionally and by population. The northern latitudes of the United States are expected to experience the largest increases in average temperatures; these areas also will likely bear the brunt of increases in ground-level ozone and associated airborne pollutants. Populations in mid-western and northeastern cities are expected to experience more heat related illnesses as heat waves increase in frequency, severity, and duration. Coastal regions will likely experience essentially uniform risk of sea level rise, but different rates of coastal erosion, wetlands destruction, and topography are expected to result in dramatically different regional effects of sea level rise. Distribution of animal hosts and vectors may change; in many cases, ranges could extend northward and increase in elevation. For some pathogens associated with wild animals, such as rodents and hantavirus, ranges will change based on precipitation changes. The west coast of the United States is expected to experience significant strains on water supplies as regional precipitation declines and mountain snowpacks are depleted. Forest fires are expected to increase in frequency, severity, distribution, and duration.
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Here are Statements by the author of a recent study on the effects of warming on health damage from air pollution, as quoted in “Science Daily”(Jan. 4, 2008) Full article.
Said Jacobson of his study, which on Dec. 24 was accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. "The study is the first specifically to isolate carbon dioxide's effect from that of other global-warming agents and to find quantitatively that chemical and meteorological changes due to carbon dioxide itself increase mortality due to increased ozone, particles and carcinogens in the air."
According to Jacobson, more than 30 percent of the 1,000 excess deaths (mean death rate value) due to each degree Celsius increase caused by carbon dioxide occurred in California, which has a population of about 12 percent of the United States.
Climate change, ambient ozone, and health in 50 US cities: We investigated how climate change could affect ambient ozone concentrations and the subsequent human health impacts. The average number of days/summer exceeding the 8-h regulatory standard increased 68%. The results presented here indicate that with other factors constant, climate change could detrimentally affect air quality and thereby harm human health. Climatic Change, Volume 82, Numbers 1-2, May 2007, pp. 61-76(16)