What Is Climate Change Doing To Our Health?

World Economic Forum - Marcus Ranney*

Many people view climate change as a geographic and physical phenomenon, but there is a very real risk to our health too. Image: REUTERS/Zoran Milich

We come together in Davos this year to discuss the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the previous ones outstripping our planet's ability to sustain itself, consuming and dumping millions of tonnes of fossil fuels into our fragile ecosystem.
Man-made greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by our economic and population growth. This has led to the highest atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in at least the last 800,000 years.

Source: IPCC

Several reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) have, year after year, demonstrated successive record breaking events across a range of geological parameters.
In the last century, the world has warmed by approximately 0.75 degrees Celsius, with each of the last three decades being successively warmer than any preceding decade since 1850.
Since the beginning of the industrial era, oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide has resulted in its acidification; with a 0.1 pH decrease of ocean surface water corresponding to a 26% increase in acidity.
Ocean warming has dominated the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971-2010.
The annual mean sea-ice extent has been reducing at a rate of 3.5-4.1% per decade in the Arctic and 1.2–1.8% per decade in the Antarctic.
Arctic sea-ice extent has decreased in every season and in every successive decade since 1979.
 Over the period 1901 to 2010, the global mean sea level has risen by an average of 19 centimeters.

Source: IPCC

What if we don't act now?
If current levels of greenhouse gas emissions are to continue, this will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems, with uneven distributions, generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities.
Many people view climate change as a geographic and physical phenomenon, but there is a very real human and biological side too, with a host of related public health issues. If left unchecked, global warming will cause hundreds of millions of deaths across the world in the coming decades.
According to the World Health Organisation, taking into account only a subset of the possible health impacts, and assuming continued economic growth and progress in public health, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 to 2050; 38,000 due to heat exposure in the elderly; 48,000 due to diarrhea; 60,000 due to malaria; and 95,000 due to malnutrition in children
This does not include the immeasurable deaths that will occur due to extreme climate events and forced migration. Broadly speaking, the effects on our health can be divided into four main categories.

1. Heat stroke and cardiovascular disease
Extreme weather events will affect rates of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in several ways. Directly, the stress of an extreme event or anxiety over its recurrence is associated with increased myocardial infarctions (or heart attack) and sudden cardiac death. Indirectly, the displacement caused by a disaster is frequently associated with interruptions of medical services putting populations with chronic conditions at risk.
Cities and urban sprawl are more exposed to this risk due to the 'Urban Heat Island' (UHI) effect. High concentrations of buildings cause the generation and absorption of heat, making the urban centre as much as 3-5 degrees Celsius warmer than surrounding areas. This places added strain on the temperature regulating components of the body, principal of which are vasculature tone and body fluid content, influencing blood pressure control, cardiac output through fluid redistribution and kidney function.
Prolonged exposure can cause heat cramps and exhaustion leading to heat stroke and death; exacerbating pre-existing chronic conditions such as various cerebral and cardiovascular diseases, particularly in the elderly and frail. In the absence of any adaptation of the population, modeling done by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has reported that heat-related deaths would be expected to rise by around 257% by the 2050s from its current annual baseline in the UK as a surrogate for the developed world.
An international study conducted in China, meanwhile, looked at population risk to CVD with changing temperature rather than just its rise. The study found those to be at the greatest risk were individuals who were subjected to fluctuating temperatures (both a rise and fall in ambient temperature), with cold effects lasting longer than hot effects.

2. Air pollutants and respiratory disorders
With a rise in air allergens, decrease in air quality and rising ozone levels, respiratory conditions - which already affect 334 million people with asthma globally and 210 million people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) – will be exacerbated.
Climate change has the potential to impact airway diseases by increasing ground level ozone and fine particle concentrations in the air. Air pollution is able to overcome the mucosal barrier in the lungs by inducing airway inflammation, resulting in allergen-induced respiratory responses. In addition, air pollutants fewer than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5) and ozone may alter the allergenicity of aeroallergens like pollen, thereby promoting further airway sensitization.

Source: State of World Allergy Report 2008

These microscopic droplets lodge deep into lung tissue, causing serious health problems. Inhaling them triggers a variety of reactions including chest pain, coughing, throat irritation, and congestion; and worsens allergies, bronchitis and emphysema, by reducing lung function and inflaming the linings of the lungs - repeated exposure of which can permanently scar lung tissue. A study by the European Respiratory Society estimated that there would be 1,500 more annual ozone associated deaths by the year 2020 in the UK alone.

3. Vectorborne and zoonotic diseases (VBZD)
VBZDs are infectious diseases, the transmission of which involves either animal hosts or vectors serving as zoonotic reservoirs for human pathogens or as means in which they move between species. We are seeing an increasing emergence in zoonotic disease outbreaks with the majority of recent major human infectious disease outbreaks worldwide such as SARS, MERS and HIV/AIDS, originating in animals.
The link between malaria and extreme climatic events has long been studied. In India, excessive monsoon rainfall and high humidity has been identified to enhance mosquito breeding and survival. Recent analyses have also shown that the malaria epidemic risk increases five-fold in the year immediately after an El Niño event.
The use of a meteorological model and biological data regarding the brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus, clearly indicates the climatic zone favorable for this tick species reproduction has expanded by 669% since the 1960s in Europe alone. By observing the activity of such tick vectors, over relatively short periods of time, provides evidence towards this growing problem. The same being true of other vectors like sandflies, mosquitoes, fleas, larvae, worms, insects, snails or other cold-blooded animals.

Source: WHO - Climate change and human health - risks and responses

4. Malnutrition through food and water
According to the United Nations Development Programme, some 3.7 billion people worldwide are currently malnourished. Extreme weather events and changes in temperature and precipitation patterns will directly damage or destroy crops and other food supplies, as well as interrupt transportation chains.
Indirectly, there is potential for harm from malnutrition resulting from damage to agricultural crops and related trade, economic, and social instability; diversion of staple crops for use in biofuels, impaired ability to grow crops due to changing environmental conditions and water availability; and the reduced availability and nutritional quality of protein from fisheries, aquaculture, and other marine-based foods.
Food and water can also be a source of exposure to illnesses, resulting from the ingestion of microbes, chemical residues (such as pesticides, biotoxins) or other toxic substances. With a rise in the number of natural disasters and changing weather patterns, there will be a reduction in the supply of fresh drinking water. The WHO already estimates there are approximately 760,000 child deaths annually due to diarrheal diseases, and this huge number will only be compounded by the rise in floods, droughts and famines that climate change will bring.
The people of the world cheered their own fate and that of future generations this December in Paris, as 157 world leaders along with 40,000 delegates from 196 countries, came together to craft a legally binding climate accord, which could once and for all address the impact of climate change on our planet.
If we can work together to achieve these goals, then surely our human spirit of cooperation and excellence will allow us to create a remedial response to the damage of the last few centuries. To turn the clock back on our current unsustainable way of life and create a world which we are not dependent on oil and natural gas and one where we live within our means to create a lasting legacy for mankind which we can be proud of. This would be a truly fitting outcome for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

*Author: Marcus Ranney is Vice-President of RoundGlass Partners, India, and a Global Shaper. He is participating in the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos.

Links

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World's Oceans Absorbed As Much Heat In Last 18 Years As In Previous 130, Us Study Finds

ABC News - AFP

Surface waters are thought to have previously absorbed the bulk of heat taken up by the ocean (AFP: Romeo Gacad, file photo)

The oceans have soaked up as much heat from global warming over the last two decades as during the preceding 130 years, a study by US scientists has found.
While this accelerated absorption has helped keep human habitats cooler, in the long run it could be a ticking time bomb that disrupts weather and climate globally, the scientists warned.
"We estimate that half of the total global ocean heat uptake since 1865 has accumulated since 1997," a team of scientists led by Peter Gleckler of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California reported.
A third of that recent build up, they found, occurred at depths of 700 metres or greater, beyond the reach of sunlight.

Key points: Oceans soak up as much heat in last 18 years as in previous 130, scientists say. A third of recent build up occurred at depths of 700 metres or greater. Oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat generated by man-made greenhouse gases.

This may explain a pause or "hiatus" in warming observed at the sea surface since the end of the 20th century, the study said.
Some had interpreted this as a slowdown in warming overall.
Surface waters are thought to have previously absorbed the bulk of heat taken up by the ocean.
Why the ratio is changing is not fully understood.
The findings, published, in Nature Climate Change, were based in large part on observation.
The earliest data was gathered in the 19th Century by the HMS Challenger expedition, a scientific foray launched by Britain's Royal Society that is often credited with laying the foundation for modern oceanography.
More recent inputs came from multi-decade ship logs, and — for measurements up to 2,000 metres deep — so-called Argo floats scattered across the oceans.

Absorption 'could play havoc with weather'
Covering two-thirds of Earth's surface, the oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat generated by man-made greenhouse gases.
In a stroke of luck for humankind, this has made the surface of the planet less hot than it would otherwise have been.
But there could be severe consequences further down the road, scientists cautioned.
"It's a bit of a mixed blessing," said John Shepherd, a researcher at the University of Southampton's National Oceanography Centre, who was not involved in the study.
If the extra heat remains in the ocean it could disturb sea and atmospheric circulation, playing havoc with weather patterns, he explained.
If it is released back into the atmosphere, it could accentuate warming already poised to punch through the threshold for dangerous impacts.
The ocean's ability to absorb surplus heat is not unlimited, and "certainly not a cure for climate change," Mr Shepherd said.
At current rates, Earth is on track for warming of about three degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

"The Earth is still warming, and the oceans have been taking up the bulk of that heat."
Matt Palmer, a climate scientist at Britain's national Met Office

There is growing scientific evidence that even an increase of 2C — once considered a safe upper boundary — could unleash severe human misery.
Matt Palmer, a climate scientist at Britain's national Met Office, said the study "shows the strengthening of the climate change signal over time, and that more of this signal is finding its way into the deep ocean".
The results showed that the so-called hiatus was merely a surface phenomenon, he added.
"The Earth is still warming, and the oceans have been taking up the bulk of that heat."
Because the carbon dioxide which drives global warming stays in the atmosphere for centuries, oceans will continue to heat up long after humanity stops spewing carbon pollution into the air.
Besides heat, the oceans are also a sink for carbon dioxide, which has caused sea water to become a quarter more acidic since the onset of the Industrial Age.
That acidification, already at its highest level in 300 million years, has ravaged coral reefs, and could have even broader consequences for other marine fauna and flora.

Links

• 2015 among top five hottest years for Australia: BoM
• Melting icebergs could be slowing climate change: scientists
• SpaceX fails to re-land launch rocket, climate change satellite heads into space

2015 A 'Tipping Point' For Climate Change: Experts

PHYS.ORG - Marlowe Hood (AFP)

2015 was almost certainly the hottest on record for the planet as a whole.

When future generations write the history of humanity's faltering quest to repair Earth's climate system, 2015 will have its own chapter.
Nature, along with the usually fractious family of nations, conspired to make it a landmark year: almost certainly the hottest on record for the planet as a whole, and a rare moment of unity when 195 states pledged to curb the carbon pollution that drives global warming.
Whether the December 12 Paris Agreement is the key to our salvation or too-little-too-late depends on what happens starting now, experts and activists told AFP.
"The most compelling thing you can say about Paris is not that it saved the planet, but that it saved the chance of saving the planet," said Bill McKibben, founder of the grassroots organisation 350.org and an architect of the worldwide movement to divest from fossil fuel companies.
Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program at the Harvard Kennedy School, was also chary: "We will only be able to judge whether it is truly a success years, perhaps decades, from now."
But whatever lies ahead, they all agree, the last year has been a "tipping point" on climate change.

Trend in the average temperature of the Earth's surface 1880 - 2015.

"Paris represented a real sea change in seriousness in coming to grips with the issue," said Alden Meyer, a veteran climate analyst from the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists who has followed the UN process for nearly three decades.
Much of that seriousness was driven by a crescendo of deadly extreme weather and the growing confidence of science in connecting the dots with long-term shifts in climate.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will likely report Wednesday on record-breaking heat in 2015.

The 'golden spike'
They could point to the most powerful hurricane ever registered; freakish, above-freezing temperatures—if only for a day—at the North Pole in December; or life-threatening droughts in eastern and southern Africa.
Some of that will be chalked up to El Nino, a natural weather pattern that creates havoc along the tropical and southern Pacific Rim every five or six years. But the very fact that this El Nino is the most intense ever measured may itself be a by-product of global warming.

Bill McKibben (L) representing the grassroots organisation 350.org (USA) receives the Right Livelihood Award from Jakob von Uexkull (R) during a ceremony at the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm on December 1, 2014.

Scientists reported last week that climate change has probably pushed back the next Ice Age by 50,000 years.
That may sound like good news, but more than anything it is a stunning testament to the extent to which human activity—mainly burning fossil fuels—has played havoc with the planet's thermostat.
Experts have also come a step closer to concluding that our impact on Earth's bio-chemical systems has been so massive as to justify the christening of a new geological era.
The "golden spike", or start date, for the Anthropocene—the "Age of Man"—will probably be the mid-20th century.
What Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka, calls a "greater planetary consciousness" on climate has shown up in business and politics as well.
In the World Economic Forum's annual survey on global risks over the coming decade, released last week, some 750 experts put "failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation" at the top of the list for the first time.

Wildfires in Australia fanned by hot, dry conditions engulfed more than 100 homes outside Melbourne in early December 2015.

"Mitigation" means cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and "adaptation" refers to coping with the consequences of climate change.
In third and fourth position are "water crises" and "large-scale involuntary migration".

Record clean energy investment
In the business arena, the balance of investment is shifting away from fossil fuels and towards renewables, Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported recently.
Despite tumbling oil and gas prices, global investment in clean energy reached $329 billion (300 billion euros) in 2015, a new record, Bloomberg said.
US President Barack Obama has dealt the US coal industry—already reeling from bankruptcies—another body blow in announcing a freeze on new coal mine permits on federal land.
The 2015 watershed on climate change has crystallised a gradual shift from debate over the reality and extent of global warming, to a discussion on what to do about it.
"After having concentrated for years on the problems generated by climate change, we are seeing across the globe solutions responding to the crisis," said Pascal Canfin, a former French government minister and the new head of WWF France.
But Canfin and others caution against undue optimism.
"There's a huge amount of resistance and inertia built into the system," said Huq. "Changing the global economy is not a trivial matter."
Much of that resistance will come from the fossil fuel industry, faced with the fact that 80 percent of known reserves must stay in the ground to have even a shot at holding global warming to "well below two degrees Celsius" (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above mid-19th century levels, much less the 1.5 degree target climate-vulnerable countries fought so hard to include in the Paris Agreement as an aspirational goal.
"The writing is on the wall for coal. But the oil and gas industry is much bigger and more powerful," said Meyer. "You don't want to delude yourself that they are going to go away quietly."

Link

• 2015 set to be hottest year on record: UN