Dim Future for the World

deception · Oct 18, 2011

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/scarce-resources-climate-biggest-threats-world-health-174330372.html

Climate change will progressively weaken the Earth's life support mechanism," McMichael said. "Health is not just collateral damage on the side, the risk is central and represents a denouement of all the other effects of climate change."

The world's population is due to exceed 7 billion this month and is forecast to rise to over 10 billion by 2050, putting even more strain on global resources.

The effects of climate change will only exacerbate the problems, putting the health of ecosystems, animal species and humans in danger, the experts said.
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Health effects will not just be felt in Africa or Asia -- Europe will also feel the consequences.

"The problem of over-consumption in high income countries has produced an ecological and financial debt," Ian Roberts, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told Reuters.

"The biggest risk to human health is from the rise in fossil fuel use, causing cardiovascular disease, stroke and cancer," he added.

Europe will also be at risk from heat waves, floods and more infectious diseases as pests shift to northern latitudes, said Sari Kovats, lead author of the Europe chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) fifth assessment report.

"The fact is, there is more evidence that diseases are moving north such as bluetongue," she told Reuters.

The IPCC's next report, which is due out in 2013-2014, will include chapters on human security and livelihoods and poverty for the first time to reflect the new raft of scientific evidence, she added.

Human health is not only at risk. Animal and plant species are also endangered.

"Many species are already facing a raft of pressures and climate change is creating a new range of additional problems," said Paul Pearce-Kelly, senior curator at London's Zoological Society.

Around 15 to 37 percent of over 6,000 species of amphibia are predicted to become extinct by 2100, he said.

In the Earth's history, there have been five mass extinctions, but there is now a 10,000-fold faster extinction rate than at any time on record.

"We are losing three species an hour, and this is before climate change is doing anything," said Hugh Montgomery, director at University College London's institute for human health and performance.
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tlongII · Oct 18, 2011

Ahhh, another global warming alarmist. How nice. You got close to the true problem the world is facing, and in fact it was mentioned in the article. The biggest problem we're facing is over-population.

EL PRESIDENTE · Oct 18, 2011

I think the Chinese are the biggest threat to the earth. They are locusts of the earth's resources.

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EL PRESIDENTE Username Retired in Honor of Lanny.

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