The greatest Health opportunity of the 21st Century

“Climate Change has the potential to undermine the last 50 years of advancements in public health.” - Nick Watts, head of the Lancet Commission on Climate Change

That really shook me up a little. I mean, I know Climate Change is pretty bad. I know that it makes typhoons worse, brings heatwaves like we have never seen, and here in Australia, sends bushfires raging.

But I never really thought it could rank anywhere something like Malaria, or HIV/AIDS. These are the real killers right?

Apparently not.

Well, that was the message from Nick Watts, who works with the World Health Organisation, the Global Health and Climate Alliance and was the leader of the Lancet’s recent Commission on Climate Change, that’s so popular, Nick tells me “for a few hours we were trending worldwide above Taylor Swift”. Now that should come with an official twitter medal.

But what’s more important than their popularity is their message. Climate Change is what Nick calls “the great localiser of the impacts of Climate Change,” because the impacts that will be faced “aren’t just in low income countries, they are in middle and high income countries as well”. And these impacts are “especially alarming”.

Not only does Climate Change have the potential to affect people at the forefront of deadly storms like Haiyan and Cyclone Pam, but it has the ability to affect every aspect of our lives.

This is why Catherine Thomassan, Executive Director of Physicians for Social Responsibility is so concerned. As she explained to us, Climate Change has the potential to impact our lives, not just at times of big storms, but even our ability to ensure we have clean water and food.

“We have to have food. We have to have housing. We have to have clean air, clean water and infrastructure…and Climate Change has the potential to impact all of that”.

She further explained, that for her, Climate Change is the number one health risk to people all around the world, even more than these known killers like Malaria and HIV/AIDS, especially because of the “interconnections between Climate Change and health that people don’t yet connect the dots to and we really need to.”

“Look at the extreme drought in the Midwest and California which has raid food prices and resulted in many crops not being replanted. Look at the extreme heatwaves in India (which killed more than 1000 people). In California, the wells are running dry, and the wells that still have water are really high in Arsenic.”

An example of the drought in California

She also added this harrowing thought:

“If you take for example Syria, that was a middle class country. They were able to feed its own people. Then it had a 4 year drought and the government couldn’t respond to support its farmers. As a result a lot of people moved into the cities looking for food and work. Following that, they then had a civil war.”

While she was explaining this, I couldn’t help but think of a close friend of mine from Puerto Rico, who told me that right now, people don’t have access to clean water, and have to store it. And even the act of storing water is causing more health concerns. Just before the call she told me that right now:

“We are still in drought. Now we have water every 60 hours (and only for 24 hours). As a result, the dengue season came earlier. All the water that people are saving at their homes, is bringing in the mosquitos. So now people are getting really sick.”

And this is in Puerto Rico. They are a protectorate of the USA. Let me get this straight, in the USA right now, there are people who can’t drink or wash for 3 days at a time, and then they only get the chance to do so twice a week. I still can’t really believe it.

But it seems that this drought is plaguing the entire Caribbean. We were also joined by Nalini Jagnarine, Chief Sustainability Director of BioCaribe, and based in Kingston, Jamaica. She too was feeling the real impacts of Climate Change in Jamaica as we speak:

“In Jamaica, we have had an extended period of drought and our water sector has been really badly affected. We are having cases of gastroenteritis in small children. In the workplace and in schools diseases are being spread.”

Their drought is so bad that “The major dam in Jamaica is below 30% and we only have 15 days left of water.”

Can you imagine having 15 days of water, living on an island nation like Jamaica? Then add this little nightmare:

“From September last year, we lost more than 13 million man hours from a chikungunya epidemic. It is these vector-borne (mosquito) diseases which are being amplified by erratic rainfall - droughts and floods.”

Believe it or not though, that wasn’t even the most horrifying thing I learned.

A call out for help from Haiyan

I knew that typhoon Haiyan was horrible. I have seen the images, like the one above. But I never really thought about the longer term impacts it might have. That was when Angeli Guadalupe really struck me. She is a doctor from the Philippines who has been working with some of those who have been the most affected by the Typhoon.

“There, the focus of the government is on physical rebuilding and not on mental health rehabilitation…From these victims…many of them don’t want to live any more, because they have lost so many in their families”.

Unfortunately, Angeli believes that “there are no collaborative or intelligent solutions” being implemented in the Philippines.

This is also the case when it comes to dealing with extreme heat. Even in a place like the Philippines, where it is normally extremely hot, it seems that they too are facing an entirely different health crisis altogether.

“Nowadays with increasing global temperature we have, heatwaves are more common. Even in the Philippines, there are between 5-10 filipinos who are being recorded with heat-related illnesses, and they are just the ones being recorded. Many have heatstroke, nausea and other heat-related illnesses, and it’s not getting much attention.

“Some people are getting used to the temperature increases, but the elderly, the young and the chronically ill are more prone to the effects of these heatwaves. For the past 3 decades, the Climate Commission reported that number of heatwaves has increased 100%. 100x increase since the 1980s.”

However again, when it comes to these extreme heatwaves Angeli believes that “we have to have smart measures to combat these interlinked issues”. However, “what is being promoted are band-aid solutions.”

But just as my spirits were about to drop entirely, Nick Watts gave us all something to hope for, arguing that “responding to Climate Change could potentially be one of the biggest public health opportunities of the 21st century.”

At the time, I really didn’t expect him to come up with that. But when he laid it out, it started to make some more sense:

“A lot of what we want to do to respond to climate change is really just common sense public health intervention. We want to clean up the air, get rid of coal-fired power plants and reduce cardiovascular disease. We want to encourage active transport in walking and cycling.”

“We also want to strengthen our public health systems and make sure your health system acts as an anchor of community resilience.”

Then, as he started talking about some of his most exciting projects with the Global Climate and Health Alliance, “bringing together disparate parts of the health sector - health systems, the global health community, professional bodies like the world association of nurses and individual practitioners as well” I started to connect the dots.

If we can bring together a whole range of different professional groups, and get them really thinking about how we can create a much better way of living together, maybe we can combat some of the biggest health issues, and Climate Change, at the same time.

Then, as Nalini started talking about her dreams of mobilising people across Jamaica around Climate Change and Health, I started to get excited again.

“We’re trying to do something now…we’re hoping to be the largest climate march in the Caribbean, and the first in Jamaica. We’re hoping to really engage individuals around the effects of climate change. And it will be done under the theme of health and wellness and connect with them on a personal level.”

So I have to say, I am hopeful.

Check out the full webinar below for even more examples of the impacts of Climate Change on health, and the solutions we can all create together.

If you want to, feel free to use this to spread the word even further, and get people talking about Climate Change and health in your country.