Coroners won't write "death by global warming," but that could be an ultimate cause as millions succumb to disease in an increasingly unhealthy environment, a Cornell ecologist warns. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, on "Human Health and Climate Change," David Pimentel said global warming will create a favorable climate for disease-causing organisms and food-plant pests but a much more challenging planet for humans struggling to survive.
"Right now the evidence of significant global climate change is minimal, but there are already noticeable increases in human diseases worldwide," said Pimentel, a professor of ecology and of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. "Most of the increase in disease is due to numerous environmental factors including infectious microbes, pollution by chemicals and biological wastes and shortages of food and nutrients and global warming will only make matters worse."
Pimentel was the co-organizer, with Laura Westra of Sarah Lawrence College, of the human health session. Also speaking were Rita R. Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation; Jonathan Patz, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health; and Paul R. Epstein, Harvard Medical School. Pimentel pointed to several ominous trends:
· Today, infectious disease causes approximately 37 percent of all deaths worldwide, but the estimated number of deaths due to a variety of environmental factors is higher and still growing
· More than 3 billion people currently are malnourished the largest number and proportion of humans in desperate need of food and nutrients in human history and that number increases every year.
· A population increase to 12 billion in the next 50 years (based on current growth rates) will exacerbate the spread of disease globally. Densely crowded urban environments, especially without adequate sanitation and nutrition, should be of great public-health concern, being sources of disease epidemics.
· Waterborne diseases already accounting for nine out of 10 deaths from infectious disease in developing countries will become more prevalent in a warmer, more polluted and crowded planet. For example, only eight of India's 3,120 towns and cities have full wastewater treatment facilities.
· Today, air pollutants adversely affect the health of more than 4 billion people worldwide, and air quality in many places is getting worse. The number of automobiles worldwide is growing approximately three times faster than the world population. Meanwhile, an expanding world population is burning more fossil fuels for domestic and industrial purposes.
· The more than 3 billion of the world's people who are malnourished increasingly are susceptible to infectious and environmental diseases, the Cornell ecologist said, noting that cropland has been diminished by 20 percent in the last decade, per capita fertilizer production has fallen by 23 percent and per capita irrigation water supplies have dropped by 12 percent.
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