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    Climate Change Could Mean Bad News For Your Body Too

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    Angel Gongob
    This letter discusses the impacts of climate change and calls for action from lawmakers. It notes that climate change impacts like extreme weather events and shrinking Arctic sea ice are exceeding scientists' previous predictions. Greenhouse gas emissions also reached new highs last year. The letter argues that a price on carbon is needed to account for the external costs of fossil fuels on society through increased health and disaster recovery costs. It urges supporting politicians willing to tackle climate change and create a better future for children.

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    Climate Change Could Mean Bad News For Your Body Too

    Uploaded by

    Angel Gongob
    40 views2 pages
    This letter discusses the impacts of climate change and calls for action from lawmakers. It notes that climate change impacts like extreme weather events and shrinking Arctic sea ice are exceeding scientists' previous predictions. Greenhouse gas emissions also reached new highs last year. The letter argues that a price on carbon is needed to account for the external costs of fossil fuels on society through increased health and disaster recovery costs. It urges supporting politicians willing to tackle climate change and create a better future for children.

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    Climaate Change

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    This letter discusses the impacts of climate change and calls for action from lawmakers. It notes that climate change impacts like extreme weather events and shrinking Arctic sea ice are exceeding scientists' previous predictions. Greenhouse gas emissions also reached new highs last year. The letter argues that a price on carbon is needed to account for the external costs of fossil fuels on society through increased health and disaster recovery costs. It urges supporting politicians willing to tackle climate change and create a better future for children.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    40 views2 pages

    Climate Change Could Mean Bad News For Your Body Too

    Uploaded by

    Angel Gongob
    This letter discusses the impacts of climate change and calls for action from lawmakers. It notes that climate change impacts like extreme weather events and shrinking Arctic sea ice are exceeding scientists' previous predictions. Greenhouse gas emissions also reached new highs last year. The letter argues that a price on carbon is needed to account for the external costs of fossil fuels on society through increased health and disaster recovery costs. It urges supporting politicians willing to tackle climate change and create a better future for children.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    Climate change could mean bad news for your body too

    June 19, 2007|By Kristen Gerencher, MarketWatch

    Heat waves. Droughts. Floods. More infectious diseases and injuries borne of weather extremes.The
    projected effects of climate change may sound apocalyptic, but public-health scientists say there are
    ways to prepare for global warming's expected assaults on the body by educating people about the
    health risks of heat waves and enhancing disease surveillance.

    "It's not necessarily going to be of biblical proportions, but our living conditions are at risk of
    deteriorating somewhat with the effects of global warming, which is why it's so important to do
    something about it," said Gina Solomon, an internist and senior scientist at the Natural Resources
    Defense Council in San Francisco. "The world of the next generation will be likely to be less healthy,
    more dangerous and less pleasant to live in," she said. While experts debate the exact health effects of
    climate change, many scientists agree that a growth in heat waves is among the most inevitable. In
    many areas of the U.S., Earth's rising temperature will increase the intensity, number and duration of
    heat waves in the summer and bring more winter precipitation as rain, said Paul Epstein, associate
    director for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

    Freeze/thaw cycles

    As the temperature in normally colder areas hovers around the freezing mark, precipitation is subject to
    more frequent freeze and thaw cycles that cause ice. That puts people at greater risk of motor vehicle
    accidents and falls that result in orthopedic injuries, he said. Climate change also allows insects and
    other disease carriers to migrate farther north and to higher elevations, potentially introducing diseases
    such as hantavirus and Dengue fever into new areas. "In general, insects and rodents are the key vectors
    of disease, and they love disturbance," Epstein said. "They do very well when there are droughts and
    floods, etc."

    "Heat waves, the spread of infectious disease and winter weather anomalies are the three big [climate-
    change issues] directly for human health," he said. "But the pests and diseases that affect livestock,
    wildlife, agricultural and marine systems are also going to affect public health in very profound ways
    because that's what provides us with life-support systems, meaning air, water and food."

    At highest risk of potentially life-threatening illness and death from the effects of climate change are the
    elderly, the very young and those with chronic conditions such as heart disease or diabetes, experts say.

    Increases heart risks

    Extreme heat, for example, affects the circulatory system in ways that tax those who already have
    problems regulating blood flow. Night-time temperatures that don't drop substantially from midday
    highs put extra stress on the body.When humans get hot, their hearts beat faster and their bodies
    attempt to cool off by sweating, which calls for increased blood flow to the vessels near the skin and
    decreased blood flow to vessels around major organs, Solomon said.
    Climate change
    January 27, 2012

    All presidents since Richard Nixon have promised clean energy, and all presidents since George
    H.W. Bush have promised to tackle climate change. On Tuesday night, President Obama
    referred to climate change only to declare how impossible it is to tackle it in the coming year.
    He was too polite to openly call out those lawmakers who have created this sad situation by
    embracing anti-science propaganda and misleading the American public to please their big
    campaign contributors.

    This has to change. Symptoms of progressing climate deterioration have now exceeded
    scientists' prediction of a few years ago. Arctic sea ice continues to shrink. The frequency of
    extreme weather events have grown dramatically, just as predicted by the climate models. Last
    year, the U.S. had more billion-dollar weather disasters than ever before. Worldwide
    greenhouse emissions were the highest in history. We are drawing dangerously close to
    irreversible tipping points. These so-called external costs are not accounted for in fuel and
    power costs, but are nonetheless exacted from society through higher health care,
    infrastructure and disaster relief costs. These costs will continue to grow.

    The only way to solve this is to put a price on fossil carbon, returning all revenue back to the
    American people, and let the market decide how best to answer that price signal. We need to
    support lawmakers who have the courage to stand up for a better future. We owe it to our
    children.

    --Rick Knight, Chicagoland Citizens Climate Lobby, Brookfield

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