Global warming kills

Researchers believe that the effects of global warming cause about 150,000 deaths each year around the world. They fear that the number may well double by 2030 even if we started getting serious about emissions reductions today.

A team of health and climate scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison published these findings last year in the science journal Nature. Besides killing people, global warming also contributes to some five million human illnesses every year, the researchers found.

Some of the ways global warming negatively affects human health — especially in developing nations — include:

• Speeding the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever;
• Creating conditions that lead to potentially fatal malnutrition and diarrhea;
• Increasing the frequency and severity of heat waves, floods and other weather-related disasters.

Also, a study by Stanford civil and environmental engineer Mark Jacobson shows a direct link between rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air and increased human deaths. He found that the added air pollution caused by each degree Celsius increase in temperature caused by CO2 leads to about 1,000 additional deaths in the U.S. It also leads to more cases of respiratory illness and asthma. Jacobson estimates as many as 20,000 deaths related to air-pollution may occur worldwide each year with each degree (Celsius) of temperature increase.

“This is a cause and effect relationship, not just a correlation,” emphasizes Jacobson.

[Source: EarthTalk, from e-magazine, 28 Knight Street, Norwalk, CT 06851. Phone: (203) 854-5559/x106 - FAX: (203) 866-0602, earthtalkcolumn@emagazine.com]