By Bisola Adeyemo
The largest single threat to the ecology and biodiversity of the planet in the decades to come will be global climate disruption due to the buildup of human-generated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
People around the world are beginning to address the problem by reducing their carbon footprint through less consumption and better technology. But unsustainable human population growth can overwhelm those efforts, leading us to conclude that we not only need smaller footprints, but fewer feet.
The changing environment is expected to cause more heat stress, an increase in waterborne diseases, poor air quality, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Extreme weather events can compound many of these health threats.
According to a revealing study, more than 250,000 People “May Die Each Year Due to Climate Change In the coming decades, ”more than a quarter-million people may die each year as a result of climate change.
In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that climate change would lead to about 250,000 additional deaths each year between 2030 and 2050, from factors such as malnutrition, heat stress and malaria.
But the new review, published Jan. 17 in The New England Journal of Medicine, said this is a “conservative estimate.” That’s because it fails to take into account other climate-related factors that could affect death rates, such as population displacement and reductions in labour productivity from farmers due to increased heat.
In addition, “the WHO estimate didn’t take into account illnesses and deaths tied to disruptions in health services caused by extreme weather and climate events.”the review said.
The new review did not give an updated estimate of climate change-related deaths, but noted that reduced food production alone is predicted to lead to a net increase of 529,000 adult deaths by 2050.
According to World Bank estimates, Climate change could also force more than 100 million people into extreme poverty by 2030, which in turn, would make them more vulnerable to the health effects of the changing climate.
All of these underscores the need for investments and policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and promote ways to mitigate the health effects of climate change.
“The pervasive threats to health posed by climate change demand decisive actions from health professionals and governments to protect the health of current and future generations.”
Time is short, but it is not too late to stop the climate crisis.
NatureNews observed that World Population Day is a United Nations’ initiative celebrated on the 11th of July every year.
The primary aim of this initiative is to increase awareness about reproductive health problems among people, this is because human health is vulnerable to climate change.
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