The direct and indirect health impacts of climate change are one of the most underreported aspects of the climate crisis. The medical and scientific journals are filled with examples of diseases shifting along with the shifting climatic conditions, but the links between the environment and personal health rarely make it into the media. In the last column I talked about the direct impacts of greenhouse gases on our health. This time, let’s focus on why the American Public Health Association has determined that the changing climate being wrought by the accumulation of those gases in the atmosphere are triggering a health emergency.
Medical professionals in the U.S., warns the CDC, may be thoroughly unprepared to treat diseases that have been previously confined to tropical Africa and Latin America. The World Health Organization says that climate change presents “the biggest health threat facing humanity.” Bugs and bacteria, it turns out, can adapt much better to a changing environment than we humans.
