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How Climate Change Affects Health

Nadia Wisniewska

Stockton University

GNM2310 Algebraic Problem Solving

Mrs. M. Doran

3/8/23
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REFERENCES

Romanello, M., McGushin, A., Claudia Di Napoli, Drummond, P., Hughes, N., Jamart, L., Kennard,

H., Lampard, P., Baltazar Solano Rodriguez, Arnell, N., Ayeb-Karlsson, S., Belesova, K., Cai,

W., Campbell-Lendrum, D., Capstick, S., Chambers, J., Chu, L., Ciampi, L., Dalin, C., …

Dominguez-Salas, P. (2021). The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate

change: code red for a healthy future. The Lancet (British Edition), 398(10311), 1619–.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01787-6

In this article, the authors link the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change.

Whilst the whole world was concerned with the human pandemic, the Earth was still in full

swing of climate change and it went unnoticed. Many people were more focused on family

and health, which is highly understandable, but during that time record breaking heatwaves

and massive wildfires killed off millions of people. Paired with the sevarity of the pandemic

among natural disaters created food insecurity and social crises with a death toll over four

million. Climate change weakens overall health and with annual rising temperatures in

addition to COVID-19, it is becoming much harder to work in physical labor, putting many

people out of work due to health factors. Because of this, the world is suffering an economic

collapse that can be linked to mental health disorders among other stress related illnesses.

This relates to my project because the annual rising global temperatures are putting many

people out of work due to health problems, this paired with the COVID-19 pandemic, has

made millions of people loose work creating indirect health issues like depression.

Watts, N., Adger, W. N., Agnolucci, P., Blackstock, J., Byass, P., Cai, W., Chaytor, S., Colbourn, T.,

Collins, M., Cooper, A., Cox, P. M., Depledge, J., Drummond, P., Ekins, P., Galaz, V., Grace,
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REFERENCES

D., Graham, H., Grubb, M., Haines, A., … Costello, A. (2015). Health and climate change: policy

responses to protect public health. The Lancet (British Edition), 386(10006), 1861–.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60854-6

This article highlights the dangers of climate change and how it affects human sustainability

on Earth. If climate change persists at the level it does now, humans will begin to die off in

heat waves, famine and extreme weather. Heat waves are of great concern as they can be

deadly and cause exteme dehydration to the vulnerable populations such as children, women

and the elderly. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts the number of deaths to go

up drastically in the future if no changes are made that lessen human environmental impact.

Changes that can be made include electric vehicles, clean energy and refusing single use

plastic. Some health problems linked to climate change include, but not limited to,

cardiovascular diseases, mental health, and even poisoning. There are also indirect risks like

disease and social conflict that arise with climate change which are equally as deadly.

This is relvant to my project because the article outlined and discussed the disadvantages of

climate change and how truly deadly it can be. The authors put an emphasis on how pollution

and overall climate change is directly linked to health problems, and how some problems

may be indiret. They also offer some solutions an everyday person could switch to in order to

battle climate change.

Watts, N., Adger, W. N., Ayeb-Karlsson, S., Bai, Y., Byass, P., Campbell-Lendrum, D., Colbourn, T.,

Cox, P., Davies, M., Depledge, M., Depoux, A., Dominguez-Salas, P., Drummond, P., Ekins,

P., Flahault, A., Grace, D., Graham, H., Haines, A., Hamilton, I., … Costello, A. (2017). The
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REFERENCES

Lancet Countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change. The Lancet (British Edition),

389(10074), 1151–. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)32124-9

In this article, the authors state that 12.6 million deaths are linked to fixable climate factors,

flood, heatwaves, fires and drought being the main issues. These all fall under extreme

weather and are all caused by greenhouse emissions from human activities. Extreme weather

kills millions of people a year and will continue to do so if nothing is done about green house

gas emissions. Steady rises in global temperature allow viruses and diseases to grow and

mutate to be even more deadly and infectious. Most diseases now have already been changed

by the climate and will continue to do so, using more renewable energy sources is a clear

answer to these problems. Urban and low income community areas usually have a higher

amount of ambient air pollution then reccomended by the WHO which can be deadly as, air

pollution kills 18,000 people per day.

This correlated with my project because the authors link air bourne pollution with rises in

death rate. Due to greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures rise creating an unsafe

environment for human health.