Climate changes and perils to our health-Dr Harold Gunatillake

Transcript:

Is there any hope for mankind?

Australian National University professor Mark Kenny

Today he writes about the frustration many Australians feel at the government’s refusal to face what’s clear to everyone else: “a galloping climate emergency which portends death, suffering and species loss on a planetary scale”.

Today, I watched on Tele how the global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases having detrimental effect on climate changes due to global warming and the dangers to our health, and the necessity for unprecedented drastic steps be taken by the governments of the day, to curtail it.

The climate change is that the overall temperature is rising, and this has permanent ramifications.

It included both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the massive scale shifts in weather patterns consequently.

It refers to man-made climate change that is believed to be causing an increase in global temperature driven by emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, known as greenhouse gases.

This is going to be a worse peril than the COVID-19 and there is no vaccine for hope of a cure but choking to death by inhaling the wild smoke is inevitable.

We need to rethink our infrastructure and learn to regulate to minimize the damage that has already being done.

Our carbon emissions need to be minimized and have cleaner energy before it gets worse.

Electric vehicles will help to tackle climate change and are important part of meeting global goals on climate change.

They will help to limit warming to well below 2C or 1.5C, which would be in line with the Paris Agreement’s target.

Most of the greenhouse emissions comes from burning of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gases come from carbon underground.

Emission means release of greenhouse gases and or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period.

Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities.

Carbon dioxide emissions or CO2 emissions stems from burning of fossil fuels, and the manufacture of cement.

We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground

The changes that will occur in the globe will be increase in sea surface temperature, increase in the severity of extreme weather events, smoke from wildfires leading to declining air quality and destabilizing natural systems due to increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

What are greenhouse gases?

The Major greenhouse gases are

Water vapor

Carbon dioxide

Methane

Lesser greenhouse gases are:

Surface-level ozone

Nitrous oxides and artificial chemicals like fluorinated gases

As radiation from the sun hits the Earth, some of this energy is absorbed by the atmosphere and the surface of the earth, thereby warming the planet. The heat that comes out of the earth is in the form of infrared radiation.

The greenhouse gases earlier mentioned have the property of absorbing infrared radiation, also referred to as net heat energy, emitted from the Earth’s surface, reradiating it back to Earth’s surface contributing to the greenhouse effect.

Putting it another way-Greenhouse gases act like a blanket around Earth, trapping energy in the atmosphere.

In this way the earth we live on does not get over-heated from the solar heat, because the earth is kept cooler by giving out the heat as infrared heat as radiation.

But the greenhouse effect just mentioned warms up the Earth.

The Earth is warming, and climate science shows that the warming has something to do with the greenhouse effect.”

So just like the sun warms you when you are exposed to the direct sunlight, the earth also gets warmed up.

The earth does not get excessively warmed from absorbing the energy from the sun, because it gives out the same energy as invisible infrared radiation.

But the excessive gas emissions that man creates, makes the Earth hotter and leads to climatic upheavals or changes.

I hope this is understood and should be not too difficult to understand.

All planets have a stable temperature, either hot or cold. Our Earth is different place with changes of temperature and there is life.

Today, due to man’s neglect of our environment extreme weather like hurricanes, droughts and wildfire are more visible.

Hurricanes are driven by the transfer of heat from the sea to the air through evaporation. The storm’s maximum possible wind speed, or its potential intensity, depends in part on how warm the ocean is – and of course, we’re warming the ocean.

Once in thousand years storm is happening every year

Warmer air can take up more water from the sea and it dumps back down on us.

Global warming will increase floods in all countries.

What is causing the sea level to rise?

Global warming is causing mean sea level to rise in two ways. First, glaciers and ice sheets worldwide are melting and adding water to the ocean. Second, the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms.

So, as the ocean and the atmosphere continue to warm, water levels will continue to rise.

Average sea levels have swelled over 8 inches since 1880.

Rise of sea levels are responsible for the dangerous flooding.

How does climate change affect our health?

Climate is the typical or average weather for an area. Climate change is any change in average weather that lasts for a long period of

time, like warming temperatures.

Climate change affects the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. It also leads to extreme weather events, like

flooding, droughts, and wildfires.

All these impacts affect human health- extract from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

There are many chronic diseases that are activated or caused due to changes in the climate.

Exposure to extreme heat, extreme weather events, exposes to poor air quality.

Patients with asthma and COPD are more sensitive to changes in outdoor air quality made worse by climate change. Smokes from wild fires, longer pollen seasons, and more ground-level ozone a component of smog will effect these sufferers.

Climate change can threaten human health, including mental health,  access to clean air, having safe drinking water, getting nutritious foods through the use of organic fertilizers.

Certain drugs are linked to effects due to climate change.

Drugs used to treat heart disease, such as diuretics and betablockers, can make people with heart disease more sensitive to heat stress.

Diabetes increases sensitivity to heat stress.

Some medications given to mental ill patients can increase sensitivity to heat stress.