The Impact of Global Warming On Health: An Endless Summer Ahead?

Posted on | August 5, 2010 | Comments Off on The Impact of Global Warming On Health: An Endless Summer Ahead?

Mike Magee

In 2009 President Obama joined other global leaders in New York City for the Opening Session of the UN. One of the transboundary issues discussed was Global Warming.

All agreed that the Kyoto Protocol had failed. It failed because the target to decrease emissions by some 5% was too low. It failed because large transitional nations like India and China were excluded. And it failed because US leadership opted out. (1,2)

Predictably world leaders now have a deeper hole out of which they must dig. In doing so they would do well to focus on health as an outcome measure, and define strategies to manage the obvious consequences of this impending crisis. Where Kyoto focused on strategies to mitigate rises in carbonization of the environment, the chief culprit in global warming, by both reducing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere and creating carbon sinks to draw off the substance, we’re now faced with a more serious challenge. Not only do we need to plan mitigation, but we also need to prepare and resource intervention to deal with inevitable, at least short term, human injury and disease fall-out. (3)

Record temperatures around the globe this summer have resulted in loss of life and livelihood. Beyond this, climate change has begun to impact human health in the following ways: (CONTINUE….)