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Introducing Health and Climate Change
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Health and Climate Change
In this course, Dr Pedro Beltran-Alvarez (University of Hull) explores the impacts of climate change on human health, and opportunities related to joint action on the climate and public health. In the first lecture, we outline what climate change is, the ways in which it may affect health, and variations in people’s vulnerability by location and socio-economic status. The second lecture then looks specifically at heatwaves and extreme heat, including the urban heat island effect and measures cities can take to protect their populations. In the third lecture, we explore the health impacts of flooding and how the warmer, wetter conditions produced by climate change are altering global patterns of disease. The fourth lecture then considers the exacerbating effect climate change is expected to have on existing inequalities in health, with poorer people being more likely to be negatively impacted. We conclude with a fifth lecture thinking about sustainable diets and physical activity as two areas in which individuals can help tackle climate change and improve their own health at the same time.
Introducing Health and Climate Change
In this lecture, we think about what climate change is and how it can impact human health. We focus on: (i) the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as the key factor influencing the Earth’s climate, and the huge increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since the industrial revolution; (ii) the significant rise in average global temperature by around 1.4°C in the last 150 years; (iii) the worsening of extreme weather events, most importantly heatwaves and flooding, as the main direct way in which climate change impacts upon health; (iv) variations in people’s vulnerability to negative health effects from climate change, and location and socio-economic status as the two main factors shaping this; (v) opportunities linked to action on health and climate, particularly in terms of co-benefits - measures to tackle climate change are often simultaneously beneficial for human health, and vice versa.
Climate change has been labeled the biggest threat facing
00:00:06humanity by the World Health
00:00:10Organization.
00:00:12The Welcome Trust, a major charity,
00:00:14has labeled climate change as the greatest health threat this century.
00:00:17However, The Lancet Countdown, a major publication,
00:00:23major peer reviewed publication,
00:00:28has identified climate change as the greatest opportunity to
00:00:29public health this century.
00:00:34Hello. My name is doctor Pedro Beltran Alvarez.
00:00:37I am a senior lecturer in health and climate change at
00:00:41the Hull York Medical School based at the University of Hull
00:00:44in the UK, and I'm also the program director of a master's
00:00:48in health and climate change.
00:00:52And here, in this series of videos,
00:00:55we're going to explore the challenges
00:00:57associated with climate change in relation to health and also
00:01:00the opportunities.
00:01:05So just to make the remit of this lecture series,
00:01:09very very clear, I often talk about environmental change
00:01:13rather than only climate change.
00:01:18And environmental change includes issues like pollution,
00:01:20for example, includes issues like the loss of biodiversity.
00:01:25These videos are only going to be about climate change.
00:01:31So we are not going to be talking about mainly,
00:01:35we are going to be talking mainly about climate change and
00:01:39excluding other issues around around pollution, for example,
00:01:41or as I say, biodiversity loss.
00:01:45So what do we mean then by climate change?
00:01:47At the end of the day,
00:01:52climate change comes back comes back to just one number,
00:01:53which is the concentration of carbon dioxide, c o two,
00:01:58in the atmosphere.
00:02:02Now for the past tens of thousands of years,
00:02:04that number has ranged between two hundred two hundred and
00:02:08fifty and three hundred parts per million.
00:02:12Over the past hundred and fifty two hundred years and
00:02:18especially over the past three decades or so,
00:02:21that number has risen significantly.
00:02:25And we are twenty twenty four,
00:02:28we are about four hundred and twenty parts per million.
00:02:30Four hundred and twenty compared to two hundred and fifty,
00:02:33three hundred parts per million before the industrial revolutions.
00:02:37And that number is what determines climate change.
00:02:42Now we know that there is a correlation, of course,
00:02:47between the concentration of c o two in the atmosphere
00:02:51and global temperatures.
00:02:55So over the past one hundred fifty years,
00:02:57global temperatures have risen on average between one and one
00:03:01point five degrees Celsius.
00:03:05Remember, that's on average, it has risen more on land
00:03:08than on the sea, And it can rise differently in different
00:03:13regions of the Earth.
00:03:18But for for what we are concerned about,
00:03:22which is the impacts of climate change on health,
00:03:25That's mainly, mainly due to what we call extreme weather events.
00:03:29So for the next two or three videos,
00:03:35we will be exploring what are the impacts of those
00:03:38extreme weather events, heat waves,
00:03:42flooding on health.
00:03:44Now, why health?
00:03:47For two reasons, because of those impacts and
00:03:51I'm going to get, there very very quickly
00:03:54and because of the opportunities,
00:03:58as I said at the beginning.
00:04:00So think about how you think that climate change can
00:04:02impact your health today
00:04:07and in the next few decades as a young person.
00:04:11I think it is fair to say that we are all vulnerable
00:04:15to climate change.
00:04:19Think about that four in every ten people live in
00:04:21regions of the world which are vulnerable to climate change,
00:04:26which are going to be impacted by climate change,
00:04:29and we know that.
00:04:31And also, about seventy percent
00:04:33of deaths
00:04:38in any given year.
00:04:40About sixty five million people die in the world in any year.
00:04:42Seventy percent of those deaths are due to climate sensitive diseases.
00:04:47So diseases
00:04:52that can change in a scenario of climate change.
00:04:55So because of those two reasons, one,
00:05:00there are many people who live in areas which are vulnerable
00:05:04to climate change, and two,
00:05:07many deaths today, happening today and this year in the
00:05:11world will be due to diseases that can change in climate change.
00:05:15For those two reasons,
00:05:19the WHO, as I said at the beginning,
00:05:22has labeled climate change as the biggest,
00:05:24one of the biggest, health threats facing
00:05:26humanity.
00:05:32So as I said, we are all vulnerable to climate change.
00:05:32However,
00:05:36different people will be more vulnerable to specific
00:05:38aspects, to specific manifestations of climate change.
00:05:42Think about coastal erosion, for example.
00:05:46Who is vulnerable to coastal erosion?
00:05:48Or who is vulnerable to heat waves?
00:05:50Or who is vulnerable to flooding?
00:05:52The easiest way to think about this
00:05:55is someone is vulnerable to coastal erosion or to storms
00:05:58due to
00:06:03increased sea level rise.
00:06:07Someone is vulnerable to that if they live around the coast.
00:06:10If someone lives, well into land,
00:06:15then they will still be vulnerable.
00:06:18For example, due to,
00:06:23food insecurity issues because fishermen around the coast
00:06:25cannot go and and do their and do their, their their job.
00:06:29So they they can still be vulnerable,
00:06:34but the most vulnerable people will be those living by the coastline.
00:06:36And we can we can begin to identify who's
00:06:40vulnerable to each of those extreme weather events,
00:06:44heat waves, flooding, coastal erosion, storm surges,
00:06:48often depending on where we live.
00:06:54Having said that, everyone's vulnerable,
00:06:58but we can identify vulnerabilities and specific
00:07:02peoples that may be specifically particularly
00:07:05vulnerable to those extreme weather events.
00:07:08Having said that, there is a pattern.
00:07:10And that pattern is
00:07:13deprived people
00:07:17are likely to be less able to prepare
00:07:19for extreme weather events, respond to those events,
00:07:24sometimes survive those extreme weather events,
00:07:30and potentially recover from those events,
00:07:34and thrive in those
00:07:38relatively uncertain environments
00:07:42that climate change can bring over the next few decades.
00:07:44So that's one of the reasons why
00:07:49we think that, geography students,
00:07:52any students really, but geography students in particular,
00:07:56should take into account health when thinking about climate
00:07:59change because of the impacts.
00:08:02The second reason to think about health is because of the opportunities,
00:08:04and that opportunity is there in two ways.
00:08:10There is an opportunity when thinking about the co benefits
00:08:14of climate action on public health.
00:08:19There are also co benefits of public health action on climate.
00:08:24So that we'll we'll see that there are many synergies
00:08:30between things, actions that we can do
00:08:32to improve public health, and actions that we can do to
00:08:37mitigate, that's the precise term,
00:08:42to reduce the impacts of climate change.
00:08:44And sometimes, as I said,
00:08:48there are synergies between those two actions.
00:08:49So thinking about health can really help reduce the impacts
00:08:51of climate change in other themes, in other spheres.
00:08:56And there is also opportunities related to leadership and communications.
00:09:01In terms of leadership,
00:09:06it is absolutely absolutely critical and essential to show
00:09:08that leadership when we are thinking about climate change.
00:09:14And the health thinking about health can provide that leadership.
00:09:19And that's really important with communications, for example.
00:09:24Research shows
00:09:28that even with people who don't believe that climate change is
00:09:30human made, even when we're talking to that to those
00:09:35people, if we involve health,
00:09:37those people are are more likely to be
00:09:41receptive to our conversations around climate change.
00:09:43So over the next few videos, we're going to see,
00:09:48a few examples of those impacts and sometimes they can come
00:09:51together with those opportunities.
00:09:57I look forward to keep that conversation with you.
00:09:59
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Beltran-Alvarez, P. (2024, November 01). Health and Climate Change - Introducing Health and Climate Change [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/health-and-climate-change
MLA style
Beltran-Alvarez, P. "Health and Climate Change – Introducing Health and Climate Change ." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 01 Nov 2024, https://massolit.io/courses/health-and-climate-change