Climate and human health

The latest issue of the British Medical Journal to reach me had a report of a conference in London last month on the health impact of expected climate change in the next 50 years, in the lifetime of my grandchildren. This was attended by leading experts on public health, climate science, agronomy, entomology, strategic studies, food science. It makes grim reading. The consensus is firmer than ever that in the absence of immediate action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, there will be a 4-5 degree C increase in average global temperature by 2060, increased frequency and ferocity of droughts and floods, and sharp decline in productivity of all the world's grain-growing regions. This will lead to hunger, starvation, famine, massive refugee movement and widespread conflicts. More than half the world's population will be living in regions where mosquito-borne diseases occur. Our government denies the need to do anything about these predictable dangers, indeed is doing all it can to prevent any steps towards mitigation of climate change at the conference now in progress in Durban, South Africa. The smugly complacent woman columnist in our national newspaper as usual finds a dissenting voice among the climate scientists and quotes this triumphantly: don't worry, be happy, all those experts are wrong, here is a scientist who says all is well and the observed rise in global average temperatures over the past quarter century, the increased number of extreme climatic events, the melting polar and alpine icecaps are "normal events" and just passing trends. Even more frightening, smart-arse engineers and others assert that they have a solution, just load the upper atmosphere with a bit of sulfur dioxide or other stuff to reflect solar radiation back into space and bring the temperature down that way, while continuing to load the atmosphere with more greenhouse gases. The economy, so say the investors, is more important than survival of grain crops, life-supporting ecosystems, even humans, so long as we can continue with business as usual, continue to "grow" the economy, continue to make profits. A species that acclaims such sentiments doesn't deserve to survive, and won't.