2.4 Public health and sustainability  (Page 6/12)

Specific regional effects have may be more severe. Vulnerable regions include temperate zones predicted to experience disproportionate warming, areas around the Pacific and Indian Oceans that are currently subject to variability in rainfall, and large cities where they experience the urban heat island effect ( Patz et al., 2005 ). The Chicago area is one urban area where analysis has been performed to determine the specific health effects that are projected due to climate change (see Figure Projection for Future EHW-like Summers in Chicago ). Those effects are similar to the ones described above.

An evaluation of the reductions in adverse health effects that could be achieved by 2020 in four major cities with a total population of 45 million found that GHG mitigation would “reduce particulate matter and ozone ambient concentrations by about 10% and avoid some 64,000 premature deaths, 65,000 person-chronic bronchitis case, and 37 million days of restricted activities ( Cifuentes, Borja-Aburto, Gouveia, Thurston&Davis, 2001 ). The cities’ ozone levels are estimated to increase under predicted future climatic conditions, and this effect will be more extreme in cities that already suffer from high pollution. The estimates of elevated ozone levels could mean a 0.11% to 0.27% increase in daily total mortality ( Bell et al., 2007 ). Therefore, reduction of GHG emissions, along with actions to mitigate the effects of climate change are likely to reduce the public health outcomes associated with climate change.

Conclusions

The implications of climate change on public health are broad and vast. The interconnectedness of all of earth’s systems and human health is an area that is a challenge to study; the climate change scenarios are variable. Public health is directly tied to the human ecosystem that we create through our unsustainable activities. The deterioration of public health on this planet is perhaps the most important consequence of our own unsustainable choices. Without good public health outcomes, human life on this planet is threatened and ultimately our actions could cause significant changes in human health, well-being and longevity. It is not the earth that is at stake - it is humanity.

Review questions

Resources

Health Impacts of Climate Change – Society of Occupational and Environmental Health (External Link)

References

Bell, M. L., Goldberg, R., Hogrefe, C., Kinney, P. L., Knowlton, K., Lynn, B., . . . Patz, J. A. (2007). Climate change, ambient ozone, and health in 50 US cities. Climatic Change, 82 , 61-76.