This post is by Sheryl Canter, an online writer and editorial manager at Environmental Defense Fund.
Global warming can endanger your health in many different ways. The more intense storms it brings not only cause direct loss of life, but also illness and death from contaminated food and water. Heat waves can cause lethal heat strokes, and also ozone smog that triggers breathing problems.
For more on where the dangers lie and what you can do to protect yourself, check out our article on Health Dangers from a Warming Planet, part of our coverage of National Public Health Week and the impact of climate change on our nation’s health.
9 Comments
FYI, local warming will be worse in the Western U.S. — by fifty percent.
A thought….could global warming mean fewer cold-related deaths? Here’s a story from the BBC that says just that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7240463.stm
Quoting from the story:
“While summers in the UK became warmer in the period 1971 – 2003, there was no change in heat-related deaths, but annual cold-related mortality fell by 3% as winters became milder – so overall fewer people died as a result of extreme temperatures.”
And: “A seriously hot summer between now and 2017 could claim more than 6,000 lives, the Department of Health report warns. But it also stresses that milder winters mean deaths during this time of year – which far outstrip heat-related mortality – will continue to decline. The report is to help health services prepare for climate change effects. — However, even 6,000 deaths pales in comparison with the number of cold-related deaths, which in the UK currently average about 20,000 per year.”
Just food for thought…
The UK is well aware of the danger to health from global warming. Here is a link to a recently released report:
Health Effects of Climate Change in the UK 2008 [PDF]
I didn’t see anything in the UK PDF report you sited at 4:50 pm on April 14 that talked about the cold-related deaths decreasing as warming increases. Couldn’t this decrease in cold-related deaths be one of the few benefits of a warming planet? Why doesn’t anyone talk about this?
We all know that warming temperatures will cause more heat waves and heat-related deaths, but why deny that heat-related deaths are much fewer than cold-related deaths? We also then would have fewer blizzards and cold waves. Why this spin on things? Why not talk about all aspects of climate change as the BBC story of February 12, 2008 did?
“why deny that heat-related deaths are much fewer than cold-related deaths”
Um, because it’s not true?
Take a look at today’s post about our new report on public health preparedness. We did a nationwide survey of public health officials. See what they say about it.
Wait a minute….not true? So, that story that I linked to from the BBC (I posted it on April 10 above) quoting UK health officials is false?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7240463.stm
“A seriously hot summer between now and 2017 could claim more than 6,000 lives, the Department of Health report warns….However, even 6,000 deaths pales in comparison with the number of cold-related deaths, which in the UK currently average about 20,000 per year.” – 20,000 deaths from cold is MORE that 6,000 deaths from heat, right? So in this context, a warming planet would SAVE lives in the UK since the IPCC says the greatest warming will occur in northern latitudes where most of these cold deaths occur.
So, at least in the UK, cold deaths still outnumber warming deaths by a large margin. But I suppose if you change ‘warming-related deaths’ and ‘cold-related deaths’ to ‘climate change-related deaths’, then it doesn’t matter (I noticed that your new report on public health preparedness used ‘climate change’ more than ‘global warming.’ They should be asked how many deaths are caused by cold and how many by heat and then come up with a nationwide figure.
Do you at least admit that people do freeze to death at times? Does the UN’s World Health Organization have any stats on heat vs. cold fatalities? I’m going to try and find out. Those figures would be interesting. Maybe the UK is an anomoly.
Maybe more people die of cold than heat in a specific northern place, but globally, vastly more people will die from global warming than ever died of cold before human activities started changing the climate.
You did not answer kenzrw’s question. However it is true that warm kills far less people than cold. How can you say that more people will die from global warming? Now that global warming has ended the number of deaths from cold will double.
Most everywhere in the world, the number of heat-related deaths generally cannot hold a candle to the number of cold-related deaths; and the case of the Czech Republic is no exception. Not only are overall numbers of deaths smaller in the warmest part of the year than in the coldest part of the year, approximately half of the heat-related excess deaths typically would have occurred anyway, merely being hastened by a few days to a few weeks by the unseasonably warm temperatures that caused them. Hence, as is evident in study after study, cold (both seasonable and unseasonable) kills far more people than does heat.