http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060209/hl_nm/climate_dc
LONDON (Reuters) - Global warming is already causing death and
disease across the world through flooding, environmental
destruction, heatwaves and other extreme weather events, scientists
said on Thursday.
ADVERTISEMENT
And it is likely to get worse.
In a review published in The Lancet medical journal, the scientists
said there was now a near-unanimous scientific consensus that
rising levels of greenhouse gases would cause global warming and
other climate changes.
"The advent of changes in global climate signals that we are now
living beyond the Earth's capacity to absorb a major waste
product," said Anthony McMichael of the Australian National
University in Canberra and his colleagues, referring to greenhouse
gases.
The scientists' review of dozens of scientific papers over the last
five years said health risks were likely to get worse over time as
climate change and other environmental and social changes
deepened.
"The resultant risks to health ... are anticipated to compound over
time as climate change along with other large scale environmental
and social changes continues," they wrote.
The review said climate change would bring changes in temperature,
sea levels, rainfall, humidity and winds.
This would lead to an increase in death rates from heatwaves,
infectious diseases, allergies, cholera as well as starvation due
to failing crops.
They said climate change may already have led to lower production
of food in some regions due to changes in temperature, rainfall,
soil moisture, pests and diseases.
"In food insecure populations this alteration may already be
contributing to malnutrition," it said.
The scientists said sea levels had risen in recent decades, and
people had already started moving from some low-lying Pacific
islands. Such population movements often increased nutritional and
physical problems and disease, they said.
"The number of people adversely affected by El Nino-related weather
events over three decades, worldwide, appears to have increased
greatly," it said, referring to the weather pattern caused by
warming of the Pacific Ocean off South America.
The review called for research to identify groups vulnerable to
climate change and said health concerns should be included in
international policy debates about global warming.
"Recognition of widespread health risks should widen these debates
beyond the already important considerations of economic
disruption," they said.