The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). published a report on the effects of a changing climate and environment on human health. What are the dangers we face? And also: what do we not yet know about the health hazards that await us?
The research describes various paths along which climate and environmental damage can lead to health damage. First of all, there are direct effects, such as unhealthy high temperatures and the deadly consequences of flooding. But there are also all kinds of indirect effects: famines, the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue and even mental health problems.
Indirect effects
Little is known about many of these indirect effects – it is simply more difficult to oversee long chains of cause and effect. The KNAW has therefore drawn up a thick report to indicate where our knowledge is still lacking. And so more research needs to be done. For example, there are indications that loss of biodiversity makes humans more susceptible to infectious diseases. Various explanations have been put forward for this, such as the lack of other hosts, which means that pathogens are more likely to attack humans. But definitive evidence for this is lacking.
What do we know about the health threats that a changing climate and environment confront us with? And what could be the start of a solution? We list three important health issues:
1. Heat
Heat is dangerous to health. At the end of this century, as many as 2 billion people could live in an area where the average temperature is 29 degrees or higher. This means that the mercury often does not drop below that temperature even at night. As a result, people cannot lose heat sufficiently, which leads to dehydration and heat strokes, among other things.
Previously, Change Inc. about a study on heat stress in 93 European cities, which shows that 6,700 people died there in 2015 due to extreme temperatures. Cities are extra sensitive to global warming due to the so-called urban heat island effect. A large city consisting of stones, asphalt and concrete can easily be 4 degrees warmer than its surroundings. A possible solution? Plant more trees. The same study shows that more than a third of urban heat victims could be prevented by doubling the canopy of trees.
2. Air pollution
In addition to the fact that the earth is warming up due to the emission of all kinds of greenhouse gases, the air we breathe is chock full of harmful particulate matter. This is caused by industry, exhaust fumes from cars and all kinds of other emissions.
Particularly incomplete combustion processes produce harmful by-products. In many African and Asian countries, for example, cooking is still done over open fires – on small, poorly controlled fire pits. The WHO estimates that 4.3 million people die prematurely every year from air pollution in their own homes.
The Dutch entrepreneur Anne Osinga is trying to do something about this. She developed the Mimi Moto: a small and cheap cooking appliance that works on biomass pallets. Because this produces a much cleaner combustion than cooking with charcoal, a lot of health damage can be prevented. In addition, local residual flows such as coconut husks and waste from the coffee industry are used for the pallets. This also makes the cooking appliance financially viable for many households in the Global South, Osinga told Change Inc.
3. Water pollution
Much of the waste we produce ends up in the water. Consider, for example, the plastic soup floating in the Pacific Ocean. But the health risks for humans often arise on a much smaller scale. Such as microplastics that end up in drinking water, or industries that discharge PFAS into surface water.
The KNAW points out that many of these health risks are currently still poorly understood, and calls for research into the health effects of waste materials – also in lower concentrations, and in the longer term.
One of the schools of thought is drug residues. Residues of antibiotics in the water, for example, can cause bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics – ultimately with major consequences for combating infections in humans. The Dutch Coalition for Sustainable Pharmacy is therefore committed to improving the processing of medicines. Among other things, the coalition is committed to collecting urine from patients in urine bags and purifying hospital sewage, program manager Brigit van Soest-Segers previously told Change Inc.
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2023-06-02 14:29:00
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