This is what the top flight medical journal, The Lancet, says. In the latest edition, an article entitled “Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change” makes this claim. See this article, and other similar ones here. The article is a collaboration between Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission.

It is a 41 page scholarly article, with a four page Executive summary. So I’m not going to reproduce it here – not even the Executive summary. The bottom line, though, is that we need to be taking this issue a lot more seriously than we are. With the mounting scientific evidence, I cannot understand global warming deniers.

I can sort of understand some of the denialism. It is true that human beings are not the only cause of global warming. It may be true that we are not even the primary cause of it. We’re in a natural warming cycle that has been in operation for millions of years (we have data for about 450,000 years of a oscillating hot and cold cycle). That may be true, but human activity nevertheless is a contributor to global warming. And more importantly, it is the only thing we can control. So, given that we MUST do something about it, we can only do what we can actually do (I know that sounds so simple it isn’t worth saying, but this is part of the problem – not enough people are saying it!).

We must do what we can do.

I also sort of understand the attitude that says “why bother”, especially when looking at India and China and other developing nations.

Continue reading ‘Climate change: The biggest global-health threat of the 21st century’