The Anatomy of A Silent Crisis The Anatomy of A Silent Crisis

28 Forum 2009: Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis
Health: Climate change increases the spread of diseases globally
Climate change threatens to slow, halt or reverse progress towards reducing the spread of diseases
and aggravates already enormous health problems, especially in the poorest parts of the world
Current weather conditions heavily impact the health of poor people in developing nations90 , and
climate change has a multiplying effect. A changing climate further affects the essential ingredients
of maintaining good health: clean air and water, sufficient food and adequate shelter. A warmer and
more variable climate leads to higher levels of some air pollutants and increases transmission of
diseases through unclean water and contaminated food. It compromises agricultural production in
some of the least developed countries, and it increases the hazards of weather-related disasters.
Therefore global warming, together with the changes in food and water supplies it causes, can
indirectly spurs increases in such diseases as malnutrition, diarrhoea, cardiovascular and respiratory
diseases, and water borne and insect-transmitted diseases. 91 This is especially worrisome because
a massive number of people are already impacted by these diseases — for example upwards of 250
million malaria cases are recorded each year and over 900 million people are hungry today. 92
Climate change has contributed to the reappearance of Lyme disease in the US and Europe, a
disease once thought extinct in those regions. 91 In areas where malaria is common, particularly warmer
and wetter areas, people are able to build up a certain degree of natural resistance. However, as climate
warms, the mosquitoes carrying malaria move into new areas, such as traditionally colder, mountainous
regions where people have less natural resistance leading to even more severe malaria epidemics. 93