An
Assessment Prepared by a Task Group on Behalf of the World
Health Organization, the World Meteorological
Organization and the United Nations
Environment Programme
Edited by A. J. McMichael, A. Haines, R. Slooff and S. Kovats
- About the Report
- Executive Summary
- The Concern
- The Health Consequences
- The Response
- Research & Policy Needs
Climate
Change and Human Health
About the Report
"In destabilizing the world's climate and its dependent ecosystems, we are posing new and widespread risks to human health."
Three years in the making, the book reflects the consensus reached by an international group of eleven experts in areas ranging from computerized simulations of climate to the behavior of disease vectors in different ecological systems. A further 45 experts contributed to the report or reviewed relevant sections. Close to 700 references to the literature are included in this thoroughly researched and carefully argued report.
The report, which has ten chapters, first summarizes the state of knowledge and the prevailing expert views about anthropogenically-induced climate change and then takes these as the basis for assessing potential health consequences. The health consequences of three major components of climate change are examined in detail: changes in temperature and precipitation, changes in the frequency of heatwaves and other extreme weather events, and a rise in sea level. The potential health consequences of increased ultraviolet radiation resulting from stratospheric ozone depletion --- although not a component of climate change --- are also discussed. To assist researchers in this controversial field, additional chapters discuss the challenge that investigations of climate change pose to orthodox science, and trace progress, over the past five years, in the science of climate modeling and predictions of the consequences for human health. The report concludes with a discussion of the many immediate and long-term strategies that policy-makers can select, supported by a clear call for action: if adverse health consequences are likely to result from climate change, we cannot wait until definitive empirical evidence becomes available; such a "wait-and-see" approach would be imprudent at best and nonsensical at worse.
About the Book
