The threat posed by climate change to human health is far greater than the predicted economic impact, according to a paper by Australian researcher Tony McMichael.
Human health will be affected in a myriad of ways by wildfires, floods and heat waves, the paper added. Climate change was already hurting human life-support systems leading to loss of livelihood. Professor McMichael said that global warming would affect seasonality of many disease conditions and alter the way in which they affected humans.
"While it is unlikely to cause entirely new diseases it will alter the incidence, range and seasonality of many existing health disorders," he wrote. "So, for example, by 2080 between 20 and 70 million more people could be living in malarial regions due to climate change."
According to the World Health Organization, 25 percent of all diseases on Earth are caused by unclean food, air, water and soil. With increasing climate change these parameters are bound to get worse, Professor McMichael said.
"Food supplies need continuing soil fertility, climatic stability, freshwater supplies and ecological support (such as pollination). Infectious diseases cannot be stabilised in circumstances of climatic instability, refugee flows and impoverishment," he pointed out.
McMichael called on world leaders and policy makers to take bold decision and advocate innovative approaches to avert the impact of climate change on health. The complete report is available in the British Medical Journal.
