Nations struggle if the health of their population fails. But good health is seriously threatened by climate change. So putting health at the centre of climate action makes sense.
Environmental degradation and altered landscapes, both due to human action and climate change, increase the incidence of already known diseases and the risk of new zoonoses emerging
Rising temperatures will not only hurt people in the future. Many are feeling the effects now. Those who work outdoors, those who have certain chronic conditions and the elderly are vulnerable.
Irrespective of whether climate change contributed to the thunderstorm in Melbourne last week, we can be sure Australia’s climate projections herald new risks to health that cannot be ignored.
James Whitmore, The Conversation and Michael Hopkin, The Conversation
The Australian Academy of Science has warned that sick, older, poor and isolated Australians are at most risk from the health impacts of climate effects such as drought, fires, floods and heatwaves.
Many tropical diseases such as malaria, Chagas disease and dengue are transmitted to humans via mosquitoes and other carriers known as vectors. These vector-borne diseases continue to have a major impact…
Speaking with Nick Watts, Director of the The Global Climate & Health Alliance, from the UN Climate Summit in New York. Listen in as he explains the links between climate and health, what we have to…
The primary goal of home energy efficiency initiatives might be to reduce total energy consumption, but these projects could have a negative impact on public health if we do not take care. Global climate…
Climate projections suggest that, thanks to human activity, we will likely see an increase in extreme weather events, disruptions to agriculture, loss of livelihoods and displacement of people. While everyone…
US President Barack Obama’s latest plan to reduce carbon emissions is a welcome one, and not just because it addresses climate change. In publicising the plan to cut emissions from old coal power stations…
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Impacts volume of the Fifth Assessment Report will be released today. Here, three contributors to the health chapter explain the ideas and evidence…
Australia’s major cities routinely rank among the world’s most liveable. But for all our clean streets, good healthcare and educational opportunities, one of the things we have to contend with is our sweltering…
As Melbourne labours through its second heatwave this month, it is becoming clear that these events take a heavy toll. Health, energy consumption, transport, infrastructure, agriculture and other natural…
Complacency can kill. You would have to be living under a rock to be unaware that heat exposure can be deadly. Yet every year Australia – supposedly the “clever country” – endangers the lives of everyone…
What can two periods of industrialisation nearly two centuries apart tell us about how economies change and the demands their change place on the planet? Today, China leads the wave of emerging economies…
A recent MIT study claims that total combustion emissions in the US account for about 200,000 premature deaths per year. This enormous figure is not unique. In the UK, roughly 29,000 premature deaths are…
Climate change has been widely recognised by leading public health organisations and prestigious peer reviewed journals as the the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. A recently released…