 Top News - August 06, 2008 |
|
Report forecasts doom and gloom
Health Canada predicts more deaths from heat, smog and disease due to climate change |
By Kevin Ma
Staff Writer
|
Climate change means Canadians can expect more deaths due to heat, smog and disease in the future, according to a major new Health Canada report.
Health Canada's 500-page Human Health in a Changing Climate study has received little press since its release late last week. The report, which was supposed to come out this spring, is one of the most comprehensive looks yet at how climate change will affect the health of Canadians.
The report found that climate warming would result in more floods, droughts, forest fires and other natural disasters that would threaten public health. Older, northerly and poor residents would be the hardest hit.
"Heat waves are very likely to increase in frequency and severity," it reads, which could lead to hundreds more heat-related deaths in Quebec and greater air pollution in cities such as Edmonton.
Even if Canada pulls off rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the report reads, it will still have to deal with decades of climate change.
"The findings of this Assessment suggest the need for immediate action to buttress efforts to protect health from current climate hazards."
More pollution and heat
This report should be a wake-up call for Canadians, said Quentin Chiotti, one of its contributors and senior scientist with the environmental group Pollution Probe.
"Canadians are already exposed to health risks associated with the current climate and these are likely to get worse in the future with climate change."
The available research suggests a hotter, more polluted future. Climate models suggest that Calgary will get hotter summers, experiencing about 19 days of plus-30-degree weather by 2050 compared to about five days now. A similar warming trend in Quebec is predicted to cause about 150 more deaths a year related to heat by 2020.
More heat is projected to mean more air pollution, particularly from smog-causing ground-level ozone. The report projects that ozone levels in Alberta would exceed health guidelines 10 to 25 per cent more often for about 1.5 hours longer at a time as a result of the heat, with cities such as Edmonton and Calgary seeing the biggest changes. Greater air pollution like this was projected to cause 312 more deaths a year nationally at a cost of about $1.4 billion.
Warmer weather would let rats and mosquitoes move further north into Canada, the report found, spreading West Nile and other diseases to new areas. More heavy rains would contaminate more water supplies through runoff, raising the chance of E. coli outbreaks.
Adaptation ahead
Canada's wealth and good health will help buffer against these changes, said Colin Soskolne, epidemiologist at the University of Alberta and one of the report's authors, but not all of it. "Change on a grand scale is inevitable," he said in an e-mail interview, "and the best way for Canadians to brace themselves for these changes is with information at the local level."
The report recommended more research on how climate change would affect health in specific parts of the country, as well as investment in emergency response and early-warning systems, particularly for heat waves. It cited initiatives such as the federal Air Quality Index as steps in right direction.
Alberta should also try to mitigate the impacts of climate change by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, Soskolne said.
"In my discipline of public health, we work on the principle that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Public transit, the report notes, would both cut greenhouse emissions and the health impacts of air pollution from transit.
The report can be ordered by sending a request to ccadaptation@hc-sc.gc.ca.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Navigate |
|
|
|
| More News |
|
|
|
| Contact Us |
|
|
|
|
