According to Lancet’s new study, climate change is responsible for rising numbers of deaths and health problems and creating perfect conditions for spreading infectious diseases.
These annual reports included 44 indicators of global health-related climate change. They also included deaths from heat exposure, hunger, and infectious diseases. These were disturbing results.
“Climate change is first and foremost a health crisis,” Dr. Renee Salas was an attending physician and assistant professor in emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School who contributed to the writing of one of the reports.
One survey examined global statistics. The other surveyed health conditions in the U.S. Both were able to determine the health indicators. “code red, “The reports stated.
“Code Red is not even a hot enough color for this report,” According to The Associated Press, Dr. Michele Barry from Stanford University’s tropical medicine department said that. This survey is significantly lower than last year’s. “this one is the sobering realization that we’re going completely in the wrong direction,” Barry stated.
The reports came less than two weeks before the scheduled start of the United Nations’ 26th Annual Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
“Global leaders will have an opportunity at COP26 — perhaps the last opportunity — to move things and tackle the climate and health crisis,” Anthony Costello is a former director for the World Health Organization and was co-chair of one of the Lancet surveys. “All countries must commit to much more ambitious climate plans that incorporate health, equity, and societal support.”
Reports indicated that vulnerable populations (older and very young people) were exposed to dangerous heat levels in 2013. Researchers estimate that over 65s are more likely to be exposed to extreme temperatures in 2005 than the average 1986-2005.
Heatwaves, wildfires, and drought caused the most severe problems in the United States. Dr. Jeremy Hess is an environmental health professor at Washington University. He said he witnessed the effects while working in Seattle’s emergency rooms.
“I saw paramedics who had burns on their knees from kneeling to care for patients with heat stroke,” He said. “And I saw far too many patients die” from exposure to high temperatures.
The global survey said 65 of the 84 countries help fund the burning of fossil fuels. Doing so is tantamount to “caring for the desperately ill patient while somebody is handing them lit cigarettes and junk food,” said Dr. Richard Jackson, a UCLA public health professor who wasn’t part of the study, The AP reported.