Death by Climate Change

“Impact of Regional Climate Change on Human Health,” a new report in the latest edition of Nature, makes for sobering reading. A combined effort from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the World Health Organization, the report reviews the evidence connecting changes to climate conditions and threats to human health. The study looked at both empirical data from past observations and model-based simulations of future interactions. Unusually, the full report is available to non-subscribers; a good summary can be found at SciDev.net.

The nations that have been, and will be, hardest-hit by climate-related health effects are those least able to respond; they’re also the least responsible for the global temperature increases both over the past century and (with the arguable exceptions of India and China) likely over the next. This is not a happy article, or a study full of solutions; it does, however, underscore why global warming is so dangerous — and why the need to respond to environmental risks can’t be disconnected from the need to respond to global poverty.
The World Health Organization now estimates that at least 150,000 deaths each year are directly attributable to the effects of climate disruption. Over the next 25 years, that risk will rise substantially.

Read more, here: Worldchanging.