Climate Crisis Is Now the Single Biggest Health Threat Facing Humanity Baher Kamal - IPS
go to original April 10, 2022

Our Planet, Our Health (WHO)

While the world’s top scientists and experts continue their arduous work to finally submit to politicians at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (7-18 November 2022), a new alert now emerges: the climate crisis has already become the single biggest health threat to humankind.

But this new alert should be no surprise: it rather constitutes the logic, expected consequences of the more and more intensive pressure of the life-keeping and life-saving natural resources.

No wonder: there are too many chemicals, lead, mercury, microplastics and a long etcetera, poisoning the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the oceans, the soil, the forests, the indispensable biodiversity and now also the world’s large reserves of water in both the North and South Poles.

Several of these consequences are visible – though apparently unwanted to be seen: destructive floods, deadly droughts, unprecedented heatwaves, the Earth’s lungs are suffocated, biodiversity is lost. And there is an increased risk of new zoonotic diseases transmitted between animals and humans.

This year’s World Health Day, marked on 7 April, launched the new warning. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes.”

This includes the climate crisis which is “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” “The climate crisis is also a health crisis.”

The Impacts

The world body reminds of the following facts:

  • Over 90% of people breathe unhealthy air resulting from burning fossil fuels.

  • Polluted Planet increases diseases like cancer, asthma, heart disease.

  • A heating world is seeing mosquitoes spread diseases farther and faster than ever before.

  • Extreme weather events, land degradation and water scarcity are displacing people and affecting their health.

  • Pollution and plastics are found at the bottom of our deepest oceans, the highest mountains, and have made their way into our food chain.

  • Systems that produce highly processed, unhealthy foods and beverages are driving a wave of obesity, increasing cancer and heart disease while generating a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Floods can cause poisoning

  • Climate change makes wildfires more likely

  • Above 40 degrees, heat strokes might happen, causing organ failure and even death

  • Wildfires can cause death and injury from suffocation.

  • Wildfires can cause trauma impacts on mental health

  • Climate change is making floods more dangerous

  • Zoonotic diseases – those diseases that can spread between animals and people – continue to have major impacts on human health. Every year, nearly 60.000 people die from rabies, and other zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza, Ebola or Rift Valley fever constitute additional threats.

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