Climate change threatens 50 years of progress in global health, study says

[nitpicker]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/23/climate-change-threatens-50-years-of-progress-in-global-health-study-says

Climate change threatens 50 years of progress in global health, study says


Climate change threatens to undermine half a century of progress in global health, according to a major new report. But the analysis also concludes that the benefits to health resulting from slashing fossil fuel use are so large that tackling global warming also presents the greatest global opportunity to improve people’s health in the 21st century.

The report was produced by the Lancet/UCL commission on health and climate change, a collaboration of dozens of experts from around the world, and is backed by Margaret Chan, head of the UN World Health Organisation.

“We see climate change as a major health issue and that it is often neglected in the policy debates,” said Professor Anthony Costello, director of the UCL Institute of Global Health and co-chair of the commission. “On our current trajectory, going to 4C [of warming] is somewhere we don’t want to go and that has very serious and potentially catastrophic effects for human health and human survival and could undermine all of the last half-century’s gains. We see that as a medical emergency because the action we ned to do to stop that in its tracks and get us back onto a 2C trajectory or less requires action now – and action in the next ten years – otherwise the game could be over.”

The comprehensive analysis sets out the direct risks to health, including heatwaves, floods and droughts, and indirect – but no less deadly – risks, including air pollution, spreading diseases, famines and mental ill-health. A rapid phase-out of coal from the global energy mix is among the commission’s top recommendations, given the millions of premature deaths from air pollution this would prevent.

(snip)

[nitpicker]

1. Lancet has control over report text

http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/climate-change#Jun23

[nitpicker]

2. Reuters re the report

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/22/health-climatechange-idUSL8N0Z82SQ20150622

Climate change health risk is a "medical emergency", experts warn

* Climate change threatens 50 years of health gains
* Global warming brings risks of disease and disability
* Healthier cities, greener transport can ward off disease
* Tackling it could be great global health opportunity

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - The threat to human health from climate change is so great that it could undermine the last 50 years of gains in development and global health, experts warned on Tuesday. Extreme weather events such as floods and heat waves bring rising risks of infectious diseases, poor nutrition and stress, the specialists said, while polluted cities where people work long hours and have no time or space to walk, cycle or relax are bad for the heart as well as respiratory and mental health.

Almost 200 countries have set a 2 degrees C global average temperature rise above pre-industrial times as a ceiling to limit climate change, but scientists say the current trajectory could lead to around a 4 degrees C rise in average temperatures, risking droughts, floods, storms and rising sea levels. "That has very serious and potentially catastrophic effects for human health and human survival," said Anthony Costello, director of University College London's (UCL) Institute for Global Health, who co-led the report. "We see climate change as a major health issue, and that's often neglected in policy debates," he told reporters at a briefing in London.
(snip)

The report said direct health impacts of climate change come from more frequent and intense extreme weather events, while indirect impacts come from changes in infectious disease patterns, air pollution, food insecurity and malnutrition, displacement and conflicts. "Climate Change is a medical emergency," said Hugh Montgomery, director of UCL's institute for human health and performance and a co-author on the report. "It demands an emergency response using technologies available right now."

The panel said there were already numerous ways to bring about immediate health gains with action on climate change. Burning fewer fossil fuels reduces respiratory diseases, for example, and getting people walking and cycling more cuts pollution, road accidents and rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Cardiovascular disease is the world's number one killer, leading to some 17 million deaths a year, according to World Health Organization data. "There's a big (energy) saving in people using calories to get around, and there are some immediate gains from more active lifestyles," Montgomery said. (Reporting by Kate Kelland)

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Climate change could wipe out progress in health – or be a great global health opportunity

http://www.umu.se/english/about-umu/news-events/news/newsdetailpage/climate-change-could-wipe-out-progress-in-health---or-be-a-great-global-health-opportunity.cid253680

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Climate change could wipe out progress in health – or be a great global health opportunity[/font]

[font size=4][2015-06-23] The threat climate change poses to human health is possibly so great that it could wipe out health progress over the past 50 years. But getting to grips with climate change could also present major opportunities for global health. Details can be found in a major international research report published in the journal The Lancet.[/font]

[font size=3]“Impact of climate change on global health could be enormous, not only through the direct health effects, but also because of reduced social stability if people are forced to move or flee,” said Peter Byass, Professor of Global Health at Umeå University, who has been a senior adviser to the work of the Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change.

“Meanwhile, we know that mitigation and adaptation around climate change can have positive health effects, for example both by reducing emissions and improving dietary habits. Effective climate action may actually prove to be one of the greatest opportunities to also improve global health that we have ever had,” says Peter Byass.

The work behind the report, published this week by the journal The Lancet, involved a number of European and Chinese climate scientists, environmental scientists, natural scientists, social scientists, medical and health scholars, engineers, energy policy experts, and others.

…[/font][/font]

[The2ndWheel]

4. The funny part?

50 years of progress in global health is also one of the things that is changing the climate. More people staying alive and healthy for longer amounts of time, means more people needing, wanting, and doing. All of that requires energy and room. That helps change the climate, crowd out other species, etc.

Our success as a species breeds the change we fight against. Just another limit that humanity must get around on a finite planet.

[MisterP]

6. more of us, more for us

old dreams die hard, and side effects just didn't exist in the technocrats' world: now these visions look as quaint as energy too cheap to meter and the 4-hour workweek
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RjFf5zB_-NI/AAAAAAAAAhA/gkfmUa9-sIw/s1600-h/Superfarm+year+2020.jpg
now, since the 70s a new suite of excuses was made to keep even those who wanted it from the Pill, because nationhood springs from between women's legs--but permaculture ain't gonna keep up 12 billion of us

http://paleofuture.com/blog/2009/5/11/factory-farms-of-the-future-1961.html
http://paleofuture.com/blog/2011/1/19/space-farmer-of-the-year-2012-1982.html
http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2007/04/superfarm-of-year-2020-1979.html

[pscot]

5. Population control...the hard way