Climate Change

Abstract

Thirteen of the 14 hottest years since temperatures began to be recorded have been in the twenty-first century. Climate change is a reality, and it is due to human activities. There will be huge implications for health if climate change in not rapidly mitigated. The first is related to the insufficient availability of water resources of good quality for everyone. In the long term, a serious shortage of water is expected, due to at least three concomitant phenomena: the increased demand, changes in rainfall and the melting of glaciers. To give just one example, amongst many, of the long-term implications that water scarcity and drought may have, a recent scientific paper has shown that before the Syrian uprising in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the records. For Syria the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest. Climate change will impact on a number of infectious disease, due for example to the change of habitats of the vectors (this is the case of malaria). But climate change will also contribute to non-communicable diseases (such as hypertension related to water salinity) and accidents or acute deaths (like in heatwaves ). The chapter also discusses vulnerability of subgroups in the population and the roots of “denialism ”.