Human health to feel impact of warmer future

[Matilda]

"The Federal Government's Climate Commission is predicting a warmer Pacific will produce more heart attacks, strokes, exhaustion and more heat-related deaths.

(snip)

"The report also says there is the potential for a greater spread of disease transmitting mosquitoes as rainfall patterns change."

'It's not only mosquitoes that will thrive in warmer and wetter conditions but it will also be influenced by their natural host populations before they spill over into humans,' he said.

'And that includes malaria if it were reintroduced to Australia, dengue fever, and other other viral diseases ... Japanese encephalitis, which is quite easily spread from Indonesia and PNG down into Australia in a much warmer world, so they are the two types of diseases spread between humans and those spread by mosquitoes."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-16/humans-to-feel-heat-of-warmer-future/4466276


You might think that even a slight possibility of diseases virtually unknown to us appearing in western communities would be enough to make people think that it's better to err on the side of caution and take action. This is what I don't understand - taking action isn't going to hurt anybody, but not acting could be devastating. I can't understand people who choose to remain both blind and stupid.

[Speck Tater]

1. There's a fundamental problem that prevents anything from getting done about AGW

Each person can tell themselves that "for me to give up my SUV would do nothing unless everybody else also gives up their SUVs, and since that's not going to happen, I might as well keep my SUV."

In a sense, that's a rational choice. Why should I deprive myself if nobody else is willing to join me in deprivation to save the planet? Are you going to give up your car? Right now? Are you going to eat only local foods? Right now? Or are you going to wait for everybody else to do it first?

[Matilda]

2. That's definitely true, and a huge part of the problem.

I do wonder whether we will ever come to the point where so many mod cons, taken for granted now, will be banned. But I suspect that before we get to that, humans might be dying out anyway.

When the temperature hit 43 deg. celsius in Sydney last week, I was so glad I was working in an air-conditioned office, but all the while I was aware that it's part of the problem, and one of the contributing factors to our record high temperatures.