Climate change is already seriously harming both public health and labor productivity, warns a major new study published Monday in the prestigious Lancet medical journal.
“The delayed response to climate change … has jeopardised human life and livelihoods,” concludes the comprehensive Lancet Countdown, a joint project of two dozen universities and intergovernmental organizations around the world. Warming since 2000 alone has led to “an estimated reduction of 5·3% in outdoor manual labour productivity worldwide.”
The authors add that “another slow response will result in an irreversible and unacceptable cost to human health.”
The report documents how global warming is aiding the spread of disease-carrying insects, worsening allergies, and dramatically boosting exposure to ever-worsening heat-waves. Many of the findings are shocking: “125 million more vulnerable people over the age of 65 years were exposed to heatwaves in 2016 than in 2000.”
This is a dangerous increase in the number of elderly exposed to extreme heat, which, the authors note “causes heat stress and heat stroke, exacerbations of pre-existing heart failure, and kidney disease.”
Unfortunately, the trend toward ever-stronger heat waves and greater exposure to vulnerable populations is certain to continue. Indeed, an August study by the European Union’s science and research lab, found that “if global temperatures rise by 4°C [7°F], a new super heat wave of 55°C [131°F] can hit regularly many parts of the world, including Europe” and the United States.
Tragically, 7°F warming is what top U.S. scientists say we should expect if the Trump administration’s sweeping reversal of climate policies continue to prevail, and both domestic and global climate action are undermined.
Although the focus of this report is public health, the Lancet also examines the economic impacts of global warming. If you live and work in rural areas — like many Trump voters, for instance — the impact will be particularly harsh. Indeed, for many in this country and around the globe it already has.
The study finds that “global labour capacity of rural labourers, such as farmers, has fallen by 5.3 percent from 2000 to 2016 due to rising temperatures and the inability to work when it’s too hot.” Labor capacity is “the number of hours spent actively working as a percentage of the total hours available for work.” The physical impact of heat on humans performing manual labor outdoors simply reduces their capacity to work, and hence their productivity (output per worker).
Rising temperatures “pose profound threats to occupational health and labour productivity, particularly for people undertaking manual, outdoor labour in hot areas.” The Lancet notes that labor capacity saw “a dramatic decrease of more than 2 percent between 2015 and 2016.”
While many of the hardest hit places are in the developing world, parts of the Southern United States are already seeing a significant impact of rising temperatures on outdoor labor capacity, as this chart shows:
Again, we know that much worse is yet to come. A 2013 NOAA study concluded that “heat-stress related labor capacity losses will double globally by 2050 with a warming climate.”
In fact, by the 2080s, much of the Southern U.S. will see temperatures above 90°F for five months of the year or more, according to the congressionally-mandated 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment. And that’s a startling change from just the recent past.
Large parts of the South will be all but uninhabitable outdoors for large parts of the year.
NOAA’s 2013 study warned that in the case of 7°F or higher warming, we face as much as a 50 percent drop in labor capacity in peak months by century’s end — versus a more manageable 20 percent drop if we sharply reverse emissions trends immediately.
The productivity loss from warming could exceed the “combined cost of all other projected economic losses” from climate change, explained one expert — and yet it has “never been included in economic models of future warming.”
The new Lancet report — like many other analyses — makes clear that it’s not too late to avoid the worst health and labor impacts from global warming. But a quarter-century of dawdling has left us no more time to delay.
Researchers outlined a harrowing reality about the global environment as it exists today in a report titled, “The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: from 25 years of inaction to a global transformation for public health,” published this week in The Lancet. The report warns “human symptoms of climate change are unequivocal and potentially irreversible — affecting the health of populations around the world today.” It went on to outline statistics that scientists have warned the public about for years.
Weather-related disasters have increased 46% since 2000, which have had catastrophic effects on our cities and coastlines. Economic losses resulting from climate-related incidents totaled $129 billion in 2016. About 2,110 cities in the World Health Organization (WHO) air pollution database exceed recommended levels of atmospheric particulate matter. The transmission of dengue fever has increased 9.4% since 1950. High temperatures have resulted in an estimated 5.3% reduction in global outdoor manual labor productivity. The list goes on.
While the paper indicates that 449 cities around the world have reported pursuing a climate change risk assessment, it is hard to know how much these assessments have actually challenged cities to implement forward-thinking policies. Global initiatives like the Paris Agreement have helped to unify governments — even local governments within countries where leaders have disavowed the accord, like the U.S. — yet that’s not enough. The report says that many “signs of progress provide the clearest signal to date that the world is transitioning to a low-carbon world,” though that progress must continue with high energy to ensure a safer future for mankind.
Below are three interactive infographics, developed by The Lancet, that illustrate how continued damage to the environment has had a direct effect on human health around the globe.
Premature death attributed to air pollution
While the above chart only outlines the impacts of atmospheric pollution in southeast Asia, dangers are not limited to that pocket of the globe. According to the findings from both the WHO Urban Ambient Air Pollution Database and the Sustainable Healthy Urban Environments Database, in a sample of 246 global cities, the transport sector was largely to blame for air pollutants — and responsible for around half of all energy-related nitrogen oxide emissions. Trends like electric vehicles and buses are starting to shape the future of sustainable mobility, however, as these risks become more well-known.
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A rise in global temperatures has led to an increased risk of floods and storms, therefore increasing the risk of infectious disease from mosquitos that are attracted to standing water. The above chart shows the sharp uptick in a mosquito’s capacity to transmit dengue — an increase of 9.5% since 1950. Hugh Montgomery, co-chairman of the report, told CNN, “cases of dengue fever have doubled every decade since 1990,” indicating that the risk is not only in a mosquito’s ability to transmit disease. Illness is actually rising, too.
Dengue is particularly apparent in the Asia-Pacific, Latin American, and Caribbean regions, yet that doesn’t eliminate North American communities from being at-risk. Just as the Zika virus was transmitted to U.S. citizens — particularly in Florida — mosquitos carrying dengue are capable of penetrating U.S. borders.
Reduced labor capacity due to rising temperatures
Without the capacity for rural farmers to maintain agriculture in a healthy manner, food supplies across the entire globe are at-risk. Ensuring food security is already a high-level priority, especially as certain foods become more stubborn with rising temperatures. Developing a resilient plan for a sustainable food system should be a priority of cities everywhere.
Recommended Reading:
The Lancet Climate change and health
