Doctors are targeting the fossil fuel industry and blaming the world’s worst health problems on companies that continue to profit from oil and gas, even as climate change worsens heatwaves, intensifies floods and disrupts people’s mental health.
Summarizing the findings of a report published Tuesday in The Lancet, Dr. “The burning of fossil fuels creates a health crisis that I can’t solve when I see patients in my emergency room,” said Renee Salas. “Fossil fuel companies are making record profits, while my patients are suffering from health hazards.”
An emergency medicine physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Salas is one of nearly 100 contributors to the prestigious medical journal’s annual report on climate change and health.
The report accuses fossil fuel suppliers and the governments that subsidize them for disrupting “efforts to ensure a low-carbon, healthy and livable future” and demands that world leaders take a health-centred approach to solving the climate crisis.
The theme of the report reflects the growing frustration and despair expressed by medical professionals left to deal with the effects of climate change as world leaders struggle to address the root cause.
D., director of the Kedren Community Health Center in Los Angeles and head vaccination specialist, who was not involved in writing the report. “The report highlights the damage the fossil fuel industry has really done in creating this crisis,” said Jerry Abraham. “Enemy is a harsh word, but it must be used.”
As with previous reports, the 2022 Lancet Countdown paints a grim picture of how climate change threatens human health and the care systems that are supposed to help manage it, calling its latest findings “most dire.” This year’s report leaves little ambiguity about who doctors consider responsible for the harm and stress they feel in clinics.
The annual report catalogs the health effects of change worldwide, and a separate policy brief summarizes the effects in the US.
According to these reports:
- According to data from 2000-04 to 2017-21, when the issue was exacerbated by Covid-19, worldwide heat-related deaths have increased by about 68% since the turn of the millennium. The extreme heat was linked to 98 million cases of hunger worldwide. Heat-related deaths for people over 65 are estimated to have increased by about 74% over the same period in the United States.
- Small particles released into the air as pollution during fossil fuel use were responsible for 1.2 million deaths in 2020. About 11,840 US deaths can be attributed to particulate air pollution, according to Salas.
- Changes in temperature, precipitation, and population since the 1950s have increased the contagion of diseases spread by mosquitoes by roughly 12%, with dengue fever, chikungunya, and Zika. The contagiousness of dengue fever was approximately 64% higher in the United States.
- Climate change harms mental health. “There is strong evidence that climate change is associated with more depression, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety,” said Natasha K. DeJarnett, lead author of the US policy brief and professor of medicine at the University of Louisville.
There are some promising signs. The report cites growth in renewable energy investment, increased media attention on climate change, and increased participation from government leaders in health-centered climate policies. But the report warns that inequalities can undermine progress.
Abraham, who serves patients in South Los Angeles, said he regularly sees the impacts associated with climate change in his clinic – including children with asthma, elderly patients dealing with heat-related health problems, and others dealing with pollution-related diseases such as cancer. .
He worries that inequalities will increase and some people will be left behind as the US invests in electrification and decarbonisation.
“My patients in South LA – Black and brown LA – will be some of the most vulnerable. Many don’t have air conditioning and we’re dealing with rising temperatures and heat waves,” Abraham said, adding that healthy food prices and shipping costs are also rising. But our patients need to take their battered Chevy to the gas station and contribute to the climate crisis to go and get our groceries.”
More broadly, the report warns that rich countries often lag behind in helping the poorest countries, which are most at risk for health problems from climate change and have the least responsibility for causing the problem.
The Lancet Countdown is published each year ahead of the annual UN conference on climate change, called COP27 this year, scheduled for early November in Egypt.
After flooding flooded a third of Pakistan and killed thousands, the country is among those seeking climate compensation – an issue that will certainly come up during global climate talks.
“There’s going to be a big issue at the COP – loss and damage,” said Carol Devine, who works on climate issues for Médecins Sans Frontières.
“Humanitarian organizations will be overwhelmed,” Devine said, if rich countries do not meet their previous commitments and add funds to support health systems in poor countries to help them adapt to climate change.
Executive director of the American Public Health Association, Dr. Georges Benjamin said the healthcare industry also has a responsibility to eliminate its contribution to climate change. According to the Lancet reports, healthcare organizations are responsible for about 5.2% of global emissions and about 8% in the United States.
“We can start working much more aggressively by reviving our hospitals and getting them off fossil fuel use,” Benjamin said.
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