RISING GLOBAL TEMPERATURE MIGHT KILL MILLIONS

Life is the creation of certain specific environmental conditions. When human activities started destroying the environment leading to the world getting warmer, various health hazards started taking roots. As the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases started their upward trend in the atmosphere, extreme weather events like storms, heatwaves, floods and drought became noticeable in different parts of the world.

There are people who keep a close watch on the impact of climate changes on human health. Older people are more vulnerable to heat and various diseases getting activated because of higher atmospheric temperature. The other group that would be adversely affected is children. Malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoea may kill a large number of children, especially in economically backward countries. But the people of rich countries shouldn’t feel elated as some different diseases like Covid-19 might strike them at frequent intervals.

The so-called development will impact quality of air and water along with food which is getting more and more laden with chemicals. Activities like construction of roads, dams, industrial complexes etc. force people to leave their villages and this human displacement takes its own toll. Rising temperature activates a number of diseases carrying vectors, bacteria and viruses. As both the displacement and rising temperature do not cause large number of death in a very short time span like Covid-19, they are being overlooked and underestimated by people and governments but the final death rate and level of disability is no less than any pandemic - this, actually, can be called a slow pandemic. It is in official records that heatwaves during 2004 caused additional 70,000 deaths in Europe. We overlook such calamities because the death is spread over a longer period of time. Deaths in such calamities happen because of an increase in the number of heart attacks and other vascular diseases due to heat along with particulate pollution in air. Particulate pollution impacts people having asthma and chronic lung diseases killing many of them prematurely.

Children below 4 years and senior citizens above 80 are particularly prone to suffer kidney diseases as the climate gets warmer. This may be caused by dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Warm weather can also trigger various infections like malaria and yellow fever as the increased breeding of mosquitoes leads to their massive growth. When deforestation happens, many wild animals lose their habitat and start moving towards human population carrying many viruses with them. When episodes of famine and floods take place then hunger forces human beings to kill animals for food which might release many dormant viruses on human beings resulting in severe epidemics and big loss of life.

Coastal areas and many low-lying islands may be threatened due to rising sea levels and it is getting more and more probable that cities like Jakarta, New Orleans and Bangkok would be engulfed by seawater in the notso-distant future. Indian coastal city Mumbai may lose a significant part of it to rising sea if the glaciers go on melting. Powerful sea storms and hurricanes may contaminate drinking water by forcing seawater into aquifers. The resultant waterborne diseases would kill hundreds of thousand people, especially children and elderly.

It is high time that these dangers are recognised by a wider population so that strong voices are raised to force the authorities to take action.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL