Environmental Determinants of Health Lecture 11: Climate Change

Weather pattern trends

Heavy downpours in the Northeast and destructive tropical storms and hurricanes increasing

Ocean pH trends

Oceans are 30% more acidic than during pre-industrial times

Surface temperature trends

US average temperature has risen 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years

Climate-smart design

one of the key elements of global warming preparedness; building infrastructure and communities that reduce global warming and climate-induced health impacts

Identifying vulnerabilities

one of the key elements of global warming preparedness; finding who is most at risk for a climate-induced health impact

Tracking

one of the key elements of global warming preparedness; surveillance of disease

Public education

one of the key elements of global warming preparedness; teaching the population how to prevent climate-induced health impacts

Sea level trends

8 inch increase in parts of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts

Ocean temperature trends

Atlantic sea surface temperature is above average by 4 degrees Fahrenheit

Inertia

Some impacts of anthropogenic climate change are slow to become apparent; this means that some effects of climate change have yet to emerge and that trying to reverse climate change will take many years of reducing greenhouse emissions before change can be seen; even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases never rose above year 2000 levels, a further warming of about .1 degrees Celsius per decade would be expected

Greenhouse effect

Sun's radiation passes through the Earth's atmosphere and is absorbed or reflected. What is reflected is in the infrared spectrum which is absorbed and re-emitted by greenhouse gas molecules. The more greenhouse gas, the more infrared radiation there is to warm the Earth.

Health impact assessment approach

To study climate-health impacts by predicting future health impacts by modeling future climate-related exposures and assuming historical exposure-response relationships will still operate (extrapolating the future)

Epidemiological approach

To study climate-health impacts by quantifying historical relationships between climate-related "exposures" and human health outcomes (looking to the past)

New York Climate and Health Project

a health impact assessment approach to determining health impacts in NYC during the 2020s, 2050s, and 2080s; they predict great burden from heat induced illness and some increase in ozone related illness

Six greenhouse gases

carbon dioxide, ozone, nitrous oxide, methane, water vapor, halocarbons

EPA and the Carbon Rule

first nationwide regulatory limits on carbon pollution from new power plants

Human drivers of climate change

increasing carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, increasing carbon emissions due to land use like deforestation for land use, historical data showing changes in the amount of greenhouse gases after the industrial revolution

Adaptation

initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against actual or expected climate change effects

Mitigation

interventions to reduce emissions or enhance sinks of greenhouse gases

Climate health impacts

water-borne diseases, food-borne diseases, vector-borne diseases (dengue fever), air pollution, heat waves, extreme storms, pollen allergies, mental health impacts, environmental refugees