Health Risks
Despite government’s refusing to call it a crisis, instead opting to call it ‘climate change’ - they estimated in 2017 that there would serious consequences for human health
“In relation to climate change, the government’s own recent risk assessment showed that heat-related deaths may amount to around 4,000 per year in the UK”
🔗 Source: UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 Page 12-13
And though the 2022 report risk assessment doesn’t put a figure on it
2020 excessive mortality figures show that 4000 per year deaths is conservative
2020 is the hottest year we have on UK government record *we have 2021 but it wasn’t as hot as 2021 in the UK). It show that as a result of 3 periods where level 3 heat alerts were issued AND the the Central England Temperature was greater than 20°C 2556 total excess death were recorded.
🔗 Source: Heat mortality monitoring report: 2020
In 2022 the UK had its first MET level 4 red extreme heat warning
So far in 2022 we have had level 3 warning from 8th - 9th July, 17th - 19th July and for the first time level 4 in 15th July,
A Level 4 Heatwave Alert means the "heatwave is so severe and/or prolonged" that "illness and death may occur among the fit and healthy - and not just in high-risk groups".
🔗 Source: What do the Heatwave alert levels mean?
In 2020 the MET office made a scary prediction for the end of the century
which came true by 2022
“Overall, summer 2020 was warmer, wetter and duller than average with June, July and August all seeing some settled, hot spells. The highest temperature of the summer, 37.8°C, was recorded at Heathrow Airport on 31st July 2020; this made it the third hottest day ever recorded in the UK.
There was a major summer heatwave in the first half of August for England and Wales. Temperatures reached 36.4°C at Heathrow and Kew Gardens on the 7th and 34°C was exceeded somewhere in the UK on six consecutive days. There were also five ‘tropical nights’ on 8th, 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th where temperatures locally remained above 20°C.
Met Office research published this summer explained that the chances of extreme high temperatures in parts of the UK are increasing and, under a high CO2 emissions scenario, by the end of the century the UK could potentially be seeing 40°C days every 3-4 years on average.”
🔗 Source: A look back at the weather and climate in 2020
“This is in addition to the risk to life posed by severe flooding events and the increased spread of diseases formerly considered ‘tropical’ to countries such as the UK”
🔗 Source: IPBES Workshop Report on Biodiversity and Pandemics
How everything links to increase the risk of a zoonotic disease emerging
“The interaction of humans or livestock with wildlife exposes them to the risk of spillover of potential pathogens. For many zoonoses, livestock serve as an epidemiological bridge between wildlife and human infections. The drivers of zoonotic disease emergence are changes in the environment—usually the result of human activities, ranging from land use change to changing climate; changes in animals or human hosts; and changes in pathogens, which always evolve to exploit new hosts.
• Ecosystem integrity underlines human health and development. Human-induced environmental changes modify wildlife population structure and reduce biodiversity, resulting in new environmental conditions that favour particular hosts, vectors, and/or pathogens.
• Ecosystem integrity can help regulate diseases by supporting a diversity of species so that it is more difficult for one pathogen to spill over, amplify or dominate.
• It is impossible to predict where the next outbreak will come from or when it will be. Growing evidence suggests that outbreaks or epidemic diseases may become more frequent as climate continues to change” (reference as for infographic)
🔗 Source: Six nature facts related to coronaviruses
“Talking about the need for a holistic approach, Professor Jeff Sebo, Professor of Environmental Studies, New York University, said “Factory farming will harm animals and workers and public health and the environment and it can be tempting to focus on only one or two of those impacts”
🔗 Source: How to prevent future pandemics
“ Over the longer term, climate change will also increase the likelihood of pests and vector-borne diseases spreading to new areas of the globe, as they and their carriers are able to survive in countries where environments would previously not have supported their circulation.”
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