Diseases on Rise With Global Temperature Increase
Pastor Dale Morgan
Diseases on Rise With Global Temperature Increase
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By CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 14, 2006; 2:40 PM
NAIROBI, Kenya -- A warmer world already seems to be producing a sicker
world, health experts reported Tuesday, citing surges in Kenya, China
and Europe of such diseases as malaria, heart ailments and dengue fever.
"Climate affects some of the most important diseases afflicting the
world," said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum of the World Health Organization.
"The impacts may already be significant."
Kristie L. Ebi, an American public health consultant for the agency,
warned "climate change could overwhelm public health services."
The specialists laid out recent findings as the two-week U.N. climate
conference entered its final four days, grappling with technical issues
concerning operation of the Kyoto Protocol, and trying to set a course
for future controls on global greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists attribute at least some of the past century's 1-degree rise
in global temperatures to the accumulation in the atmosphere of carbon
dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, byproducts of power plants,
automobiles and other fossil fuel-burning sources.
The Kyoto accord requires 35 industrial nations _ not including the
United States, which rejects the pact _ to reduce such emissions by an
average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. President Bush says such
emissions cuts would harm the U.S. economy and complains that poorer
countries also should be covered.
In Nairobi, the Kyoto parties are discussing what quotas and timetables
should follow 2012 and how to draw the United States into a plan for
mandatory emissions caps.
Britain's environment secretary, David Miliband, an early arrival for
high-level talks here, said participation of the United States, the
world's biggest emitter, was "essential."
"I can't think of a greater legacy for the last two years of the Bush
presidency than to work on a bipartisan basis with Democrats as well as
Republicans" for a deal to cut emissions, Miliband said.
Besides disrupting normal climate zones, continued temperature rises
will "increase threats to human health, particularly in lower income
populations, predominantly within tropical-subtropical countries," a
U.N. network of climate scientists has projected.
Those problems are arising in parts of the world that have contributed
little to global warming, Campbell-Lendrum noted.
"It's a global issue and a global justice issue," one that demands
action by the industrial north to alleviate the disease burden on the
south, the WHO scientist said.
In Kenya, where temperature increases have tracked the global average,
malaria epidemics have occurred in highland areas where cooler weather
historically has kept down populations of disease-bearing mosquitoes,
said Solomon M. Nzioka, a Kenyan Health Ministry consultant.
Research shows that even a seemingly small rise in temperatures can
produce a 10-fold increase in the mosquito population, he said.
"Highland malaria seems to be on the increase in the rainy season and
when temperatures are high," Nzioka said.
The WHO's Dr. Bettina Menne said malaria, which two decades ago was
present in only three southeastern European countries, has spread north
to Russia and a half-dozen other nearby countries. Russian news media
reported in September that larvae of the anopheles mosquito, the malaria
carrier, had been found in Moscow.
Menne cited a threat from other mosquito-borne diseases as well.
"There's an increased risk of local outbreaks, especially in the
Mediterranean, of dengue and West Nile virus," she said.
China is trying to track excess deaths from rising average temperatures,
said Jin Yinlong of China's Institute for Environmental Health.
Authorities are particularly concerned about surging mortality from
strokes and heart disease under warming conditions, he said. Global
warming has been linked to more prolonged heat waves.
A study of three Chinese cities found annual excess deaths totaled
between 173 and 685 per million residents, Jin said. Projected over the
huge Chinese population of 1.3 billion, this could amount to as many as
890,000 deaths nationwide per year.
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On the Net:
U.N. climate change conference, http://unfccc.int/