A new study in Environmental Health Perspectives offers what I think is the first-ever data on increased visits to emergency rooms during heat waves, which are expected to become more frequent and more severe as climate change unfolds.
We need to know how much effect climate change will have on health and mortality: The bigger the effect, the more money it will cost to handle, and, ultimately, the more humanitarian and political chaos the climate is likely to cause.
Unfortunately, studies of the likely health impacts are in their infancy. Even estimates of death rates are difficult to come by. California officials first estimated that the July 2006 heat wave killed 140 people, but an AP analysis of county data later found 250 deaths.
The new study found that the same two-week heat wave saw 16,166 excess ER visits and 1,182 excess hospitalizations in California. The study doesn't prove that the visits were caused by the heat wave, but finds that the number of visits was well above that of a control period of the same length.
The mother of all studies in this area is one conducted by Stanford scientist Mark Jacobson , which was able to pinpoint cause and effect. It found that for each degree Celsius that we allow the climate to change (our actions now will determine the severity of climate change), 20,000 deaths per year will result worldwide from air pollution alone. The storms that can wipe out tens of thousands at a clip were not included.
Deaths, however, don't cost as much as illness to the governments that will ultimately determine how much we allow temperatures to rise before we act. Massive public health problems will get their attention right quick. One can only hope that there are people in Sacramento and Washington reading Environmental Health Perspectives.
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