Global Warming is Global Warning

As former Vice President Al Gore said, “Global warming will be the greatest environmental challenge in 21^st century,” from the movie Inconvenient Truth, the global warming indeed represents one of the biggest threats to human health now particularly the health of our future generations. According to McMicheal’s article, the global temperature has risen approximately 0.5’C over the past century and unfortunately it seems like this global mean temperature increase will be continuous for a long time.  Rising global temperature foresees possible related impacts on human life such as extreme weather events, air pollution, water-food borne disease and vector-rodent borne disease (2). These direct and indirect effects of global climate change on the health would aggravate levels of diseases and furthermore result in increasing in the morbidity and mortality of human lives. The impact of human activities on the earth climate system over the past century is probably major cause of global climate change because this is global human actions not merely action of individuals. The one of the serious contributions of global climate change is from the use of great amount of fossil fuels such as oil and petroleum which eventually resulted in increasing amount of carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) in the atmosphere. These accumulations of carbon dioxide are now higher than ever before and will ultimately cause the global warming. 

Health impacts of climate change include the direct impacts of extreme events such as storms, floods, heat waves and wild fires and the indirect effects of longer-term changes, such as drought, changes to the food and water supply, resource conflicts and population shifts (1).
Projected climate changes are likely to affect the health status of millions of people, particularly those with low adaptive capacity (2). Climate change is expected to continue to contribute to the global burden of disease and premature deaths, especially in developing countries. The health impacts of extreme climate-related events include increasing mortality, vector-borne diseases, effects of poor air quality, and possible impact of psychological stresses from experiencing of extreme events (2).

As the earth’s temperature continues to increase, we can expect on significant change in infectious diseases pattern around the globe. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that rising temperature may results in the altered spatial distribution of some infectious disease which increase or decrease of the range and transmission of potential threats (4). Rising temperature could result in larger mosquito population at higher elevation in the tropics which could in turn contribute to the spread of malaria, dengue and other infectious borne infections (4). Back in my college years around 2001 in Hawaii, we had dengue fever outbreaks starting from Maui to all over the islands which resulted in sickened more than 100 people in Hawaii. More rainfall in certain areas and warmer temperatures overall around tropical areas provided optimal conditions for mosquito which spread the virus that causes dengue to breed and expand into new territories. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has reported that by 2085 climate change will put an estimated 3.5 billion people at risk of dengue fever which is a disaster (4). Global warming favors the spread of diseases since the extreme weather events create conditions conducive to disease outbreaks. This climate change associated with infectious diseases will threaten not only human lives but also wildlife, livestock and all creatures in forest and marine. Therefore we must develop laboratory-based surveillance systems that can provide early warning of an impending dengue epidemic to abate more victims.

We cause air pollution directly through our use of electricity, fuels, and transportation by emitting greenhouse gas mainly carbon dioxide due to rapid expansion of industrialization. According to the Healthy People 2000 report, an estimated 50,000 to 120,000 premature deaths are associated with exposure to air pollutants every year in U.S. and people with asthma experience more than 100 million days of restricted activity, costs for asthma exceed $4 billion, and about 4,000 people die of asthma (5). Air pollution causes not only asthma, but more serious disease that ranged from the changes to difficulty breathing, wheezing, coughing and aggravation of existing respiratory and cardiac conditions (2).  The International Union of Air Pollution Prevention and Environmental Protection Associations (IUAPPA) was organized on 1964 to promote the exchange of information and development of understanding on air pollution prevention and environmental protection among 40 countries. IUAPPA designed various programs, conferences worldwide to help address the key atmospheric and environmental challenges of the global air pollution (7).

Serious floods have occurred in developing countries where the dangers associated flooding can be very devastating. Floods can be caused from rising sea levels which leads to increased coastal flooding through direct inundation and an increase in the base for storm surges, allowing flooding of larger areas and higher elevations (1).  Recent reports by the National Academy of Sciences and others have concluded that increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases can be expected to cause a global warming that could raise sea level a few feet in the next century. Estimates for the year 2025 range from five to twenty-one inches above current sea level, while estimates of the rise by 2100 range from two to eleven feet (8).

Despite the warnings being given about the harmful effects of global warming and other environmental problems, most individuals are doing very little about it today. Various methods and suggestions are being offered to reduce the effects of global climate changes. For example, we can simply save the earth by recycling on an everyday basis at home. And the benefits of recycling are many, from reducing the effects of industrial production to saving money as well as the earth.

There are lots of things we can do to postpone a global warming. According to Time magazine there are 51 things we can do to save the earth and I will list several of them. First, we can substitute ethanol as an alternative fuel that could finally wean the U.S. from its expensive oil habit and in turn prevent the millions of tons of carbon emissions. Second, replacement of light bulbs to fluorescent light bulb will be beneficial since the cost of fluorescent light bulb is three to five times as much as conventional incandescent bulbs yet use one-quarter the electricity and last several years longer. Third, hanging clothes dry instead of using dryer after washing in a warm water rather than hot water will be helpful to reduce electricity and energy. Fourth, recycling plastics, glass and paper is another ways to save the earth. Almost everybody is used to receiving junk mail in the mailbox which most are completely worthless. If we dismay the usage of this worthless paper mails, it would save at least 150,000 trees annually as these would not be cut down for the requirement of paper (3). Many people therefore report to recycled paper or the use of Internet to spread their message to people now. Also paying your bill online will help to reduce labor of delivery and transportation as well as saving your money from purchasing stamps. In addition, we can reduce plastic pollution by simply using a cloth bag instead of wasting plastic ones at the grocery stores. Imagine how plastics cause global climate change. Foremost, the disposals of plastic products are not biodegradable and more seriously it produces greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing. If the greenhouse gas emissions reach dangerous concentration levels, it leads to changes in the temperatures globally and changes in the levels of the sea and other bizarre climatic conditions like I have mentioned earlier. Therefore, recycling can help reduce the need to manufacture paper, plastics, metals and glass and this would save energy needed to manufacture new products (3).

            Meanwhile there are things we can do to postpone global climate change, further research is immediately needed to better understand the complex linkages among climate and the health. Climate change displays a wide range of challenges to human health because it will bring other social and environmental factors that also affect the health outcomes. Significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, recycling and further research for education and prevention of global climate changes can be fulfilled at both governmental and individual levels.

Human health is ultimately dependent on the health of the planet and its ecosystem: therefore reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be seen as a public health priority. 

Most importantly, the United States needs to play a leadership role in addressing global warming now since our former President Bush has been downplayed the urgency of global warming for last 6 years. The United States has long been the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases while we also have the greatest financial, technical and political resources to set global action in motion. The U.S. has received worldwide criticism for failing to adopt the greatest international agreement for the reduction of some greenhouse gases, the Kyoto Protocol, which has been accepted by nearly every other country but U.S. It is mainly because President Bush thought that this protocol would harm American ECONOMY ($). However, the international compromise on safety precautions against greenhouse gases needs to be the first step to protect our lives (9). At individual level, probably your choice of vehicle is your single most important environmental decision to prevent pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. And when it comes to buying appliances, purchase a highly efficient model that has the Energy Star, awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency. We can monitor your newspaper's coverage of this issue and write in response to any stories or letters that dismiss global warming. Finally we can contact our senates, governor, and state legislators to promote energy efficiency, nonpolluting transportation alternatives, and the development of clean, renewable sources of energy for cleaner earth. Policy makers need to address global warming in preventive strategies to slow global warming, offsetting global warming through climatic engineering and adaptation to the new climate (8). Then we can reverse the greatest environmental challenges in the 21^st century to the greatest resolutions.

 

1.     Ebi, K.L., Mills, D.M., & Smith, J.B (2006). Climate Change and Human Impacts in the United States: An Update on the Results of the U.S. National Assessment. Environmental Protection Agency., Volume 114, Number 9

2.     MnMicheal, A., Woodruff, R.F., & Hales, S (2006). Climate Change and Human Health: Present and Future Risks., Lancet , 367: 859-869

 

3.     Park, A., (2007) 51 Things we can do to save the environment. Retrieved February 14, 2009 from http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/environment/article/0,28804,1602354_1603074,00.html

4.     IPCC (200) Executive Summary Climate Change and Water  Retrieved from February 14, 2009 from http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/ccw/executive-summary.pdf

5.     Healthy People 2000, Environment Health, Retrieved on February 22, 2009 from http://www.healthypeople.gov/Document/HTML/Volume1/08Environmental.htm

6.     U.S. Environment Protection Agency, Global Change Air Quality Assessment: CSp and the role of EPA. Retrieved from February 20, 2009  from http://www.epa.gov/appcdwww/apb/globalchange/quality.htm

7.     The International Union of Air Pollution Prevention and Environmental Protection Associations, Retrieved on February 22, 2009 from UAPPA http://www.iuappa.com/about.htm

8.     Potential Impacts of Sea Level Rise on the Beach at Ocean City, Maryland (1985, 1.0 MB PDF), was edited by James G. Titus with papers by James G. Titus, Stephen P. Leatherman, Robert G Dean, Craig Everts, and David Kriebel (EPA 230-10-85-013). Retrieved on February 21, 2009 from http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/GlobalWarming.nsf/content/ResourceCenterPublicationsSLROcean_City.html

9.     Kyoto Protocol, Retrieved on February 22, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol