It is no lie that our planet has been experiencing a serious climate change for some time now. Climate change is not only hurting Earth’s atmosphere, but its inhabitants as well. According to various claims, climate change has many consequences, one of those being an increase in deaths. Consequences of climate change that present health risk include: air pollution, heat waves, droughts, flooding, and destruction of habitats.
The spike in length of hot weather has been reported to cause an increase in heart failure. According to a study conducted by Alexandra Schneider, a senior scientist, “when temperatures rose from 20 degrees Celsius to 25 degrees Celsius, deaths from cardiovascular disease rose by 9.5 percent.” (ClimateWire and Irfan, 2014) When the weather dropped in temperature the percentage of deaths caused by cardiovascular disease went down as well. Along with the change in temperature has come the increase of air pollution which poses a serious health risk increasing the amount of hospital visits for heart attacks and asthma.
This epidemic is taking its course world wide and reportedly has lead to an increased outbreak of disease overseas. The weather conditions have lead to an increase in the pest population, which carry diseases that contaminate water and food. One of the diseases that has taken its course rapidly is cholera. Cholera is “an infectious disease that causes severe watery diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration and even death if untreated.” (WebMD, 2014) Since, this disease is most popular in third world countries where the access to treatment is rare the amount of deaths are high. The change in weather and air pollution has allowed diseases to rapidly reach a wider range.
Although these claims are supported with research and studies, “there are several hypotheses, and nothing is really 100 percent clear.” (Schneider, 2014) The evidence is convincing, but the main goal of scientist is to figure out exactly what health factors change with the temperature and why these factors change?
Photo Courtesy of mkalty.org
References
Climatewire, Irfan, U. (2014) Air Pollution and Extreme Weather Combine to Kill. Retrieved from www.scientificamerica.com
Jalleh, Martin. A changing climate for disease and death. Retrieved from twnside.org.sg
Cholera. Retrieved from www.webmd.com
If you are this concerned with the issue of Global Warming then you should help out the cause! I am also extremely concerned about Global Warming and the effects that it has on our world. For more information you can check out my blog post (http://sites.psu.edu/siowfa14/2014/09/07/is-the-world-getting-hotter/)! If not, like I said in my post, “you can help out just by doing the simplest things such as recycling, using less air conditioning/heat, driving less, using less hot water, planting a tree, turning off the lights when you go out, and many more. It is simple actions like that which can make the biggest difference.” Please spread this information on so we can beat Global Warming!