Rising temperatures due to human activities are not just a threat to polar bears on the sea ice. It affects - and will affect more and more - our well-being and our health. A report on the harms of climate change, published on October 31, 2017 in the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet , paints an alarming panorama.
Written by numerous international experts (researchers, doctors, politicians, etc.), it evokes the direct and indirect health impacts that are looming between now and the next century. The first damage is already noticeable today due to the multiplication of episodes of extreme heat.
The number of vulnerable people exposed to intense heat waves has literally exploded since the dawn of the 2000s:+125 million, to reach 175 million in 2015. Dizziness, headaches and nausea have resulted, but also an increase in cases of acute myocardial infarction and respiratory failure in patients already suffering from chronic disease. The excess mortality caused by extreme thermal episodes also affects children and workers who work outdoors.
"During the 2003 heat wave in France, for example, a third of excess deaths were caused by hyperthermia or severe dehydration", according to researcher Jean-Pierre Besancenot, author of Climat et santé (ed. Puf). This is why the World Health Organization (WHO) fears, from 2030, an annual excess mortality of around 250,000 deaths worldwide due to climate change alone.
Video of the day:In addition to the overheating it causes, "the presence of a high level of CO2 in the air is directly harmful to health insofar as it slows down oxygenation of the blood in the lungs", explains Professor Besancenot.
"We must also expect more pollution in the city since the heat forms a cover that prevents the dispersion of particles". The peaks of ozone pollution will also be more numerous with the increase in sunshine. Ozone promotes inflammation. It irritates the throat and nose, promotes asthma attacks and tires the heart.
Milder winters and warmer summers affect plant growth. We inevitably suffer the consequences.
With global warming, pollens are more numerous and especially their period of emission in the air is longer. Birch pollen, which is very sensitive to the climate, now floats for nearly 4 months north of the Loire, compared to ten days in the 1970s. This results in an upsurge in allergic rhinitis, conjunctivitis, eczema and hives. And ragweed, a very allergenic plant, today produces more than 10 g of pollen per plant, compared to an average of 5.5 g in the 1990s, according to ONERC**. Their concentration in the air could still quadruple in Europe by 2050.
According to the WHO, one in two earthlings is at risk of developing allergic pathologies by the end of the century!
Insects that spread infectious agents gradually change habitats with rising temperatures. Tropical mosquitoes are already tending to move north, especially the dreaded tiger mosquito, long confined to the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. A few years ago, he settled in the south of France (near Nice in 2005).
From there, it spread to 34 French departments. Nothing serious a priori... except that this mosquito can carry the germs of terrible diseases:chikungunya, dengue fever, zika virus... Isolated indigenous cases have already been reported since 2010, which does not bode well. If temperatures remained stable, 35% of humanity would be exposed to dengue fever around 2085. But if they continue to climb, as experts fear, 50% would face it. On the other hand, malaria could decline with the development of drought. At least good news!
* www.thelancet.com/climate-and-hea
** National Observatory on the Effects of Global Warming
