As our climate changes, the risk of injury, illness, and death from the resulting heat waves, wildfires, intense storms, and floods rises. The disastrous floods in India and United States (Nilam and Sandy) are a most recent example of the changing climate in India and the world.
Poor Air- Three key ingredients—sunlight, warm air and pollution from power plants and cars burning coal and gasoline—combine to produce ground-level ozone (smog), which humans experience as poor air quality. Higher air temperatures increase smog and cause major health risks to all breathing the polluted air. Asthma patients, people with bronchitis problems, cardiovascular patients or others suffering from severe sinus issues, suffer the most when the air is of poor quality.
Allergies- Warmer temperatures and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stimulate some plants to grow faster, mature earlier, or produce more potent allergens. Common allergens such as ragweed seem to respond particularly well to higher concentrations of CO2, as do pesky plants such as poison ivy. Allergy-related diseases such as itching, rashes, boils, rank among the most common and chronic illnesses due to warming of the climate.
Heat Strokes- Extreme temperatures caused by climate change can directly cause death as in heat strokes - especially in the old and the young. Studies based on heat wave events predict a 145% increase in deaths in New York in the last few years. The effects of global warming in India led to an astonishing rise in mercury at 47⁰C in Nagpur in May 2012. Hundreds of poor die every year in India due to extreme hot temperatures and lack of adequate rain in the wet monsoon months. Whereas adverse impacts of climate change in India and other countries of the world on agriculture, adds another 300 million victims of malnutrition deaths.
Spreading diseases- Scientists expect a warmer world to bring changes in "disease vectors"—the mechanisms that spread vector-borne diseases. Insects previously stopped by cold winters are already moving to higher latitudes (toward the poles). Warmer oceans and other surface waters may also mean severe cholera outbreaks and harmful bacteria in certain types of seafood. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that warmer climates will increase malaria-carrying mosquitoes and put 65% of the world’s population at risk of malarial infection-an increase of 20% from the 1990s. The number of people that died of dengue in 2012 in Delhi and adjoining areas is a typical example of this.
“Global weather is rapidly changing, therefore harnessing alternate sources of “clean” energy such as solar and wind energy - that do not emit carbon dioxide is one of the surest ways to reduce global warming in India and avoiding, if any escaping the hazardous effects on global warming on our health”, says Jatin Singh, CEO of Skymet Weather Services.
Photo by Ben Heine.