Debora Galli

The impacts of climate change on our health have been predicted and forecasts to be caused by droughts, floods, heatwaves, and infectious diseases. We experienced the impacts firsthand during the coronavirus pandemic in the last few years. So we all know that we have to stop climate change. But can we change the world and stay healthy at the same time? 

 Due to rising temperatures vector-borne diseases that are spread by flies or ticks, for example, can now survive in former colder areas where they would have previously died. This can cause epidemics or even pandemics. We lived through a pandemic ourselves and experienced its impacts on our health, our social life, and on our mental health. Rising temperatures also increase the number of deaths due to temperature and humidity. However, climate change is not just rising temperatures. Climate change includes also rising sea levels, flooding, and extreme weather conditions (Nichols et al., 2009). Each of these aspects affects our health and endangers it. If our health is impacted in any way it reduces our quality of life which will then lower our productivity (Gislason et al., 2021). In the next few sections, I will discuss a few aspects of health and our health system and what we need to do in order to stay healthy and change the world at the same time.

Policy

Historically seen morbidity and mortality declined due to changes in health determinants such as improvements in nutrition and a healthier physical environment. Many modern, chronic diseases are very complex. There are genetic factors, nutrition, lifestyle, and other factors that must be considered. Often time is also an important factor in environmental health hazards. It may take a long time until we realize a chemical’s impact on the environment. For example, its release into the environment might be cancer-causing. The same applies to all man-made changes in the environment. To reduce the risk of our health, it is important to understand the environmental pathways. To prevent costly health and environmental damage we need information on how climate change impacts our health. With this information, health decisions can be made, and different choices and their effects can be compared. Eliminating the driving forces, climate change, in essence, would be the most effective intervention.  Since there is no current solution to stop climate change we should rely on different interventions on a broad spectrum. Examples of interventions could be reducing consumption and waste, minimizing the use of nonrenewable fuels, and thinking of a solution for our toxic waste problem. To be successful in staying healthy and making policy, the implementation of the interventions above needs to be planned with a long-time horizon. Health, as well as environmental concerns, must play a big part in sustainable development (Corvalán et al., 1999). Developing strategies must not simply be hypothetical. Care must be taken to do more than just develop good approaches. These approaches must come with a plan on how to implement them. Additionally, it is also important to consider how to monitor success. At this point, there is little research on the success of implementations and actions(Nichols et al., 2009). We have to close the “policy-implementation gap” in order to ensure the health of humanity in the future.

Mental Health

Research around climate change and health often focuses on events like flooding, temperature rising, rising sea levels, and weather extremes. Another part of health and climate change is mental health. Especially the impact of climate change on the mental health of children and youth. Research has found that younger generations feel immense worry and eco-anxiety. They feel guilty, can’t concentrate, and feel solastalgia, a sense of loss that arises when someone directly witnesses the change or destruction of their own home or habitat. Often, children today are growing up in an environment where climate change is a constant topic. They are faced with the fact, that the world as we know it will change for the worst. This fact can cause distress. A big part of childhood is playing outside and through that, children and youth have a close contact with nature and are more susceptible to change (Gislason et al., 2021).

 The degradation of nature can cause the loss of access to resources and land and can therefore cause stress due to displacement. This situation can lead children and youth to feel helpless and frustrated. If children and youth have to live through a traumatic experience like disaster situations or extreme weather events, it can indirectly affect their mental health. These experiences and the knowledge that the planet will change for the worst can cause a sense of loss of security for the future. On top of that comes the mass of negative information from social media that children might not be able to handle. Of course, not every individual experiences the same distress. (Gislason et al., 2021).

Figure 1: Young people are leading a movement for climate action (Callum Shaw/5.11.21) (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/how-to-address-the-climate-crisis-5-young-people-share-their-solutions/)

To give the youth their sense of security and empowerment back they often partake in local activism and engage in finding new ideas and looking from a different angle at climate change. Through that, they gain their sense of control back and feel less helpless with the future. It is important to create a stable environment where the children and youth can be heard and can have an impact, so they feel less guilty and frustrated(Gislason et al., 2021).

Conclusion

Our planet will change for the worst, and we will have to face how our lives will change. Climate change imposes a lot of different challenges. One of the challenges will be our health system. We experienced during the pandemic that our health system can reach its limits. In order to ensure the safety and health of mankind, we must take measures. In order to tackle this, we will have to consider multiple different aspects. One aspect is time. Change itself takes time but our interventions, like setting up a new law to reduce CO₂and implementing it, need time as well. If we want to make good and sustainable decisions, we have to be prepared for a long-time horizon. Another aspect is considering our children and youth. In making these decisions on our future and the way we want to address and tackle climate change we must consider them. If we want to create a healthy environment for the upcoming generations, we have to ensure instant access to help that is needed by them at this moment. In addition to this, we have to include them in the decision-making progress. Further, we have to listen to them and give them a voice, so they can change the world. But yes, we can change our world and stay healthy and we will!

Bibliography

Corvalán, C. F., Kjellström, T., & Smith, K. R. (1999). Health, Environment and Sustainable Development: Identifying Links and Indicators to Promote Action (Vol. 10, Issue 5).

Gislason, M. K., Kennedy, A. M., & Witham, S. M. (2021). The interplay between social and ecological determinants of mental health for children and youth in the climate crisis. In International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (Vol. 18, Issue 9). MDPI AG. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094573

Nichols, A., Maynard, V., & Richardson, J. (2009). Health, climate change and sustainability: A systematic Review and Thematic Analysis of the Literature. In Environmental Health Insights (Vol. 3). http://www.la-press.com.http://www.la-press.com.