Climate Matters. H is for Health

This is for H in the A-Z Blogging Challenge 2012. Link in the sidebar.

We instinctively know we function better when we’re healthy, when we have hope for the future. When we feel a sense of control over our lives we show courage in the face of adversity – we feel empowered. The converse is also true, when we feel disempowered, when life feels hopeless, depression increases throughout communities.

Most people think of climate change as a purely environmental issue. But it affects more than the environment. In itself, even without being personally impacted by an extreme climate change event, knowledge about the devastating effects of extreme weather and environmental degradation can lead to depression.

Climate change also affects the fundamental requirements for health – clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter.

Heat
As people in bushfire prone areas are aware, extreme heat can lead to devastating bushfires, resulting in deaths, higher pollution levels and asthma attacks as well as long term impacts as a result of trauma for those impacted directly and indirectly. Heatwaves affect health in a variety of ways - by triggering heart attacks, strokes, accidents and heat exhaustion – all potentially requiring hospitalisation. Vulnerable people such as the very young and elderly may die. High temperatures can also lead to increased pollutants in the air that afffect those with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases including asthma.

Increasing drought leads to food and water shortages. Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns are likely to lead to further malnutrition in many countries.

Floods
Floods can cause drownings and physical injuries, damage homes, businesses and infrastructure and disrupt all services including the supply of medical and health services. The economy is affected by lost work and school days, population displacement and disruption of transportation leading to food and fresh water shortages.

Floods contaminate freshwater supplies. Gastroenteritis and waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid outbreaks could also become more common because warmer temperatures would make it easier for bacteria to multiply in food and contaminated water after infrastructure has broken down due to flooding.

Residents in Townsville QLD were warned to preserve drinking water
after the devastation of Cyclone Yasi.

Diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and Ross River virus may become more prevalent as mosquitoes extend their range and flourish in a generally warmer climate and breed in stagnant water after floods. Tick borne diseases such as lyme disease are also expected to increase.

Rising sea levels and increasingly extreme weather events will destroy homes, farms, businesses, medical facilities and other essential services. More than half of the world's population lives within 60 km of the sea. People will be forced to move, which in turn heightens the risk of a range of health effects, from emotional distress to coming into contact with new diseases.

Food prices skyrocket and seaside communities are devastated
after extreme weather events worldwide.

When forests are decimated for timber, agriculture or mining, the native animals are crowded together in fragmented, smaller areas. One ill animal can infect others more easily and because they crowded together, and are closer to settlements, the disease carries far more easily and can transfer to humans easier than would be possible if their habitat was intact.

The health of the world’s people depends on truly sustainable development. This will ideally incorporate all areas of human activity and include our interactions with land, ocean and atmospheric environments to ensure that they, and we, are reslilient in the face of increasing pressure to use them with little regard for the outcomes.

Social, economic, public health and environmental needs must all be addressed in order to fully achieve sustainable progress - at local, national, regional and international levels. Policy makers, scientists, stakeholders, (including big business) and the wider public must learn to work together if we are to transition successfully through this period of climate change.

Last year I wrote about Harassment and Health for H in my theme on workplace bullying. Here.
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Climate Matters. E is for Eat

This post if for E in the A-Z Blogging Challenge 2012. Link in the sidebar.
(Edited Jan 2020 during the Australian Bushfire Disaster)


Food can represent many things other than simply being a substance to keep us alive. It can be an expression of love, tantalising the senses and bring a sense of wellbeing and belonging. Food can excite the taste-buds, be used to feed emptiness, pacify anger, soften hurts or ease the pain of grief.

Eating can be a supremely enjoyable experience, but is too often rushed, gulped or slurped with little focus or pleasure. Many children have no idea where food comes from, they have no idea how milk could come from a cow or that the meat they eat was once a living animal. Few of us have any idea where our wastes go, whether they are our human waste or what is discarded into a rubbish bin. That creates a massive disconnect from nature, and encourages us to live in a self centred fantasy land where our convenience is often gained at the expense of others.

Many Westerners consume convenience foods of dubious quality and nutritional value - food waste goes to landfill where it releases carbon-dioxide, further contributing to the greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere.

It's possible to imagine that animals are magically slaughtered because meat, which bears no resemblance to a real animal, is neatly packaged in plastic and often impregnated with chemicals to increase shelf life. Sick animals don't make good meat, so they're fed antibiotics to prevent illness. In Australia this equates to antibiotics being given to healthy animals. As in humans, this can create super-bugs, and reduces the impact of antibiotics when animals get sick.

Beef and dairy cattle and other ruminants are heavy contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. It’s estimated that it takes more of everything - water, food, fertiliser and fossil fuels to raise the same quantity of beef as wheat. Meat is a dense protein which is easy to over-consume, in contrast, eggs, grains and pulses are an excellent source of protein, and use land and water more efficiently.

Agriculture is understood to be responsible for about 14% of the world’s greenhouse gasses in the form of methane. Cows are ruminants, meaning that they have 4 stomachs to digest their food rather than in their intestines like we do. When a cow chews its cud, it's basically re-chewing its regurgitated food. The stomachs are filled with bacteria to help break the food down the process produces the gas methane which then needs to be expelled. Cows fart and burp methane which is a very potent greenhouse gas, which contributes significantly to climate change.

Given the current difficulty of feeding the world’s population, as well as issues of water scarcity, the depletion of fossil fuels and the increasing stress on farmlands, it’s likely that abundant cheap food will be less available in the future. Our increasingly unpredictable climate is producing greater extremes in weather including storms, floods and heat which will further stress the remaining arable lands.

Economic losses & increased prices due to the bushfires in Australia:

The price of vegetables is expected to jump by up to 50 per cent as catastrophic bushfires destroy crops and shut down highways while growers remain under pressure from ongoing hot and dry conditions. 

The only sealed road connecting Western Australia and South Australia — the Eyre Highway — was closed for 12 days over the New Year period, trapping trucks and travellers on either side of the Nullarbor Plain. (link)

The flow on effect from the bushfires has already had a massive impact, and it will continue for years.

Impact from the Australian bushfires on oyster farming:

"While ash debris is considerable around oyster leases in many South Coast estuaries, it is considered that runoff from fire grounds and mobilised sediments pose more of a risk for oyster health and quality," 

Impact of the Australian bushfires on bees, pollination, honey production.

it could take between five and 20 years for some flowering gums to fully recover, and to produce enough nectar and pollen to feed the bees.
One insurer alone reported beekeepers affected [by one fire] could have lost more than 6,000 hives.South Australia has reported losing 3,000 hives on Kangaroo Island and in the Adelaide Hills fires before Christmas. (note the island reburnt in January)While the beehives can be rebuilt easily, the remaining bees will be weak and hungry.

In some countries vast tracts of land are planted with mono-crops which are turned into biofuels instead of being used for food. In other parts of the world, forests are felled to grow corn and grain for sale to feed chickens, pigs and cattle instead of the local populations.

Fish populations are increasingly stressed due to overfishing and environmentally-destructive fishing methods. This also impacts on the ability of future generations to have reliable, safe seafoods.

The world's food systems need to be sustainable and equitable for all, not skewed unfairly and unethically towards greedy over consumption. How we eat, how often, and what kind of food is not a choice for much of the world’s population.

Last year I wrote about Ethical behaviour for E in my theme of workplace bullying. Here. 
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Climate Matters. D is for Desertification

Post for the letter D in the A-Z Blogging Challenge 2012. Link in the sidebar.
(Edited during the Australian bushfire disaster Jan 2020)

Desertification is when once fertile lands degrade and become extremely dry and unproductive. It is known to be caused by human activities like overgrazing as well as by climate change. It is a huge problem worldwide with many negative consequences.

Vegetation can stabilise sand dunes.

Deserts expand and contract independent of human activities, they can stabilise as vegetation takes root and expand as grasses, shrubs and trees are removed. Desertification has affected civilisations for eons and led to displacement of peoples as lands become uninhabitable, and unable to support human needs.

Dryland ecosystems are extremely fragile. As populations increase and more people need to be fed, communities in dryland areas place increasing demands on the land by overgrazing and over-cultivation – more people need to be fed from less arable land. The soil can become increasingly salty, leading to poorer crop yields – malnutrition is often the outcome. Stressed soil is less able to absorb water, which in turn leads to an increase in erosion, which makes the land even less useful for often already marginalised communities.

In many countries where meat consumption has traditionally been low, there has been a push to increase their meat consumption either by importing cattle or increasing the size of their own herds.
Cattle trample fragile grasslands and the lack of vegetation leads to erosion and further loss of topsoil when there is rain. Cattle also muddy and foul precious drinking water as fencing in many developing nations is often inadequate.

When grasses are inadequate to feed the cattle, grain intended for human consumption is fed to the cattle which represent the families wealth. Land which wasn’t particularly productive at the best of times is degraded even further, leading to subsistence lifestyles or displacement – people move to cities hoping to find work which is increasingly scarce.

Cattle and other ruminants also emit a huge amount of methane (ie they fart) which contributes substantially to the greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. It’s estimated that cattle emit similar levels of greenhouse gasses as does industry.

Even in wealthy countries like Australia, there are problems with salinity and erosion due to overgrazing and inappropriate farming methods in the past.

We know what the problems are, we know how to address them. Will we?

Splitting paddocks into small sizes and using large mobs of cattle grazing on rotation, Mr Le Feuvre is grazing pasture more intensively while giving it longer to rest, increasing carrying capacity.

The problems in developing countries are even greater due to lack of political interest in marginalised groups and the scale of the problem.

Last year I wrote about Danger, Depression and Doctors for D in my theme of workplace bullying. Here.
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