Oct. 2010
Dr. Ingrid Nygaard
Introduction
The physicians and other scientists making this presentation today are members of the following organizations: The Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, the faculty of the University of Utah Medical School, Utah State University and the Utah Medical Association. We are here today out of concern that public health in Utah and our individual patients are being impacted by climate change and will be even more so in the future. This adds an entirely new dimension to the urgency of addressing this evolving global crisis.
Slide
Recently the lead article in the Lancet, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, written by 29 distinguished medical scientists called the climate consequences of the greenhouse gas phenomenon, “The biggest global health threat of the 21st century,” and Slide will, “put the lives and wellbeing of billions of people at increased risk.”
The report goes on to state that, “Even the most conservative estimates are profoundly disturbing and demand action. Less conservative climate scenarios are so catastrophic that adaptation might be unachievable.” Slide The authors said that health professionals have come late to this debate, but what is needed now is a public health movement that frames the threat of the climate crisis for humankind as a health issue. We intend to start that in the state of Utah today
Let me first outline our message today and then each person on the panel will give more details elaborating on these points of emphasis.
Slide
1. The scientific organizations throughout the world in are in agreement, that we have entered into the early stages of a climate crisis, the driving force of which is primarily man made. The scientific evidence for this is just as unassailable as the evidence that smoking causes cancer.
2. The climate disturbances will include not just much hotter temperatures, but greater extremes of weather, especially drought and severe disruptions of the ecosystems that support the human population. Utah will see average temperatures as much as 10 degrees hotter by 2100.
3. Global public health consequences will be unprecedented, and threaten the lives and health of billions of people with as much as 30% of the world’s population becoming climate refugees. Although poorer countries will be affected the most, no country will be spared and Utah will not be spared.
4. World wide food production and food security are already under severe stress and almost certain to become much worse as the climate crisis deepens. Utah will be secondarily affected by increased commodity prices and by climate caused geopolitical destabilization that our own federal intelligence agencies acknowledge represents the greatest future security threat to this country.
5. These climate disturbances will have direct, predictable impacts on public health in Utah including: more air pollution, more heated related illness, more frequent and intense dust storms, more vector borne and other infectious diseases, and more exposure to mercury contamination.
Lastly, we will talk about how Utahns should respond and offer specific recommendations for state government action.
Robert Davies, PhD
The Climate Science.
As Ingrid just noted, the fundamental premise underlying today’s event is the science of climate change.
Slide
If you’re among those confused by this science, it’s understandable. For one thing it’s complex. But more importantly, the sheer volume of confusing and conflicting information pouring over us, every day is staggering.
Slide
Consequently the Utah physicians here today have asked me to help clarify the state of this science, for the record. So let me begin with this: the following are the unequivocal conclusions of both the American and international climate science communities:
Slide
1. Earth is warming — nearly 2 degrees F, global average, in the past 150 years, about half of that coming in the past fifty years. While this might not sound like much, it’s a rate of warming about ten times greater than the rate lifting us from the last ice age, and a rate that’s expected to increase in the coming decades.
On this point of warming, there’s been considerable chatter in some corners of the media that Earth is actually cooling — that we haven’t warmed since 1998. This is confusing to many, and utterly wrong. It’s a piece of misinformation that comes from a complete misunderstanding of the notion of climate.
Slide Let’s take a look. This graph shows global average temperatures for the past 150 years. The last year—on the far right—is 2008. Two things are clear: the overall trend is definitely upward; and there’s a fair amount of year-to-year variability. In other words, while the trend is up, not every year is hotter than the last. It zigzags up. But climate isn’t about short-term ups and downs, it’s about longer term averages. And climate change is about longer-term trends. Slide So let’s look at this graph from the viewpoint of climate. While it’s true that 2008 was definitely cooler than 1998 — the warmest year on record—the 2000-2008 average…here…Slide, is substantially warmer than 1990-1999 average…here Slide. Roughly speaking, then, this is what the data looks like to climate scientists Slide. Definitely. Not. Cooling.Slide
2. Slide Second, to a high level of scientific confidence, humans are now the single largest influence driving this change in global climate —at least ten times stronger than the next largest natural influence; perhaps as much as 30 times stronger.
3. Slide Third, the risks posed by this abrupt warming to humans, human society and the human ecosystem this century are very large and rapidly growing.
4. Slide Finally, the scientific consensus on these points is robust — as strong or stronger than the consensus linking cholesterol to heart disease; and earthquakes to plate tectonics.
Slide It would be my preference to take time to cover each of these conclusions in some detail. Unfortunately, our time today is limited.
2. Warming and Cause
Slide Therefore, with respect to warming and cause, let me briefly say this: the conclusions on warming and human cause are based on an overwhelming preponderance of evidence Slide. Literally thousands of independent lines of evidence all consistent with a rapidly warming planet, attributable primarily to human activities — principally, the burning of fossil fuels, which adds heat-absorbing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and large-scale changes in land use, such as deforestation, which alter nature’s ability to remove these gases from the atmosphere. Slide
On these next two points—Slide projections of where our very best science tells us we’re headed; and the level of scientific consensus— I’ll spend a bit more time.
3. Projections
Slide To better understand the risks we’re facing, we need to examine where we’re headed, and place this in historical context.
[Slide—temp. scale] This temperature scale ranges from about 45 deg, the depth of the last ice age, to 75 deg, a global ave. temperature last seen on the planet over 50 million years ago. Slide
This green oval covers the range of the human climate—this is the climate in which the modern human ecosystem evolved and has inhabited for it’s entire 200,000 year-existence. Humans have never lived outside of this climate.
150 years ago, at the beginning of the industrial revolution in earnest Slide—57 deg], we sat just above 57 deg [Slide—+2 deg]; since then we’ve added about 2 degrees.
So that’s where we’ve been and where we are. Where does the science say we’re going?
In 2007, the IPCC, using ensemble modeling results from nearly two dozen groups around the world, projected between [Slide—’07 projections] 3 1/2 and 8 deg of warming by 2100—depicted here in red.
Unfortunately, the intervening two years have seen strong evidence suggesting changes are progressing bigger and faster. More recent modeling work has revised these numbers substantially upward [Slide—’09 projections] , to between 5 and 11 deg of warming by 2100.
From a climate science perspective, and a risk management perspective, these numbers are staggering. [Slide] As this graphic makes absolutely clear, even the most optimistic projections tell us that, unless we’re able to mitigate our impact on climate in the very near future, humanity will envelope itself in a climate substantially different from any we’ve ever known.
Further, it’s critical to note that not all places are being — or are expected to be affected equally. [Slide] This graph depicts the same temperature data I showed you earlier, plotted slightly differently. It’s the change in global ave. temperature over the past 100 years.
[Slide] This graph shows the change that’s occurred in the U.S. West…
[Slide] And this graph shows the change in the Colorado River Basin, including Utah — more than double the global average.
4. Consensus
How does one assess the consensus on this science?
First let me be clear, [Slide] I’m talking about scientific consensus—the kind that arises among the relevant scientific community, based on published, reproducible evidence.
Think of it this way: if a few thousand cardiologists agree your arteries are clogged, you’re not likely to care if a single cardiologist disagrees, and you’re certainly not going to care if your dermatologist disagrees, if a talk radio entertainer disagrees, or if the odd politician disagrees.
ASSESSING CONSENSUS
In order to assess scientific consensus then, one looks to the relevant scientific communities, as reflected through science’s large collection of formal scientific organizations.
[Slide] To begin, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the largest, most comprehensive scientific review panel ever assembled, on any topic. It comprises thousands of scientists and has been examining the question of climate change for over twenty years. In that time they’ve issued four reports, each more detailed and comprehensive than the last.
[Slide] Their most recent report—the Fourth Assessment Report—was issued in 2007. The portion examining warming and cause [Slide] is over a thousand pages long, based on more than 6,300 published studies.
Their conclusions were these: (i) we’re warming; (ii) humans are the principle cause; and (iii) the risks to humans, human society and the human ecosystem are large and growing — all to a high level of scientific confidence.
In response to this report, an impressive collection of the world’s relevant scientific bodies have issued formal statements concurring with IPCC’s principle findings. [Slide]
This includes three dozen national and royal academies… [Slide]
The American Earth sciences community… [Slide]
The international Earth sciences community… [Slide]
The broader American community of core physical sciences… [Slide]
The broader international scientific communities… [Slide]
The biological science community… [Slide]
And the Human Health Sciences community… [Slide]
So let me reiterate:
An impressive collection of the world’s relevant scientific bodies have issued formal statements concurring with IPCC’s principle conclusions: we’re warming, humans are the dominant cause, and the risks we face are unprecedented.
In all 76 concurring scientific organizations.
If you look for dissenting scientific bodies, [Slide] you simply won’t find any. [Slide]
If this isn’t scientific consensus, I don’t know what consensus would look like.
5. Conclusion
I’d like to conclude with the following thought: While much of the science underlying these conclusions is comprehensible to nonspecialists, the principle reason for most of us to take them seriously is not because we understand the the details of climate physics. Rather, it’s because a very large, sincere, dedicated and competent scientific community is telling us, with one voice and with high confidence, that this is the reality of our situation.
Fred Wagner, PhD
Impacts on World Ecosystems [Slide 1]
[Slide 2]
Each plant and animal species in nature has adapted physiologically through centuries of evolution to exist in a given range of temperatures. As temperatures change, some species adjust, others drop out, some will go extinct. Each species will respond individually.
Research all over the world is showing three kinds of single-species responses: poleward and upslope shifts in distribution, advances in the seasonal timing of life-history events (blooming of plants, nesting of birds, emergence of insects), and changes in population densities.
[Slide 3 and 4]
Each species is enmeshed in a complex of interactions with other species that collectively form a natural community or ecosystem.
[Slide 5]
As a species responds to temperature change in one or more of the three ways listed above, its interactions with others change, and in the process alter the structure of ecosystems. A goal of ecology is to observe and measure changes in whole ecosystems. While this complex goal has not yet been reached, the science is observing changes in interrelated groups of species.
[Slide 6 and 7]
So how does all of this affects humans?
[Slide 8]
Humans are the beneficiaries of numerous ecosystem services. Many of these are being altered or diminished by climate change.
[Slide 9 and 10]
One is increasing forest-fire frequencies due to shrinking snowpacks and snow seasons. In 2004 and 2005, 25% of the forest land in the northeast quadrant of Alaska burned off.
Forest fires magnify the global-warming problem. Forests are carbon sinks. The leaves each year remove C02 from the atmosphere and form it into woody tissue that stores the carbon for decades and centuries. Fire releases the carbon and eliminates the leafy tissue that extracts it from the air each year.
Conclusion: ecosystems, whether terrestrial, freshwater, or marine are being altered worldwide. Some authors are predicting extinction of one third of the world’s species. In the process, the services we depend on from nature are being changed or eliminated.
Impacts on World Agriculture and Water Resources
[Slide 11]
Human food consumption in the world exceeded world agricultural production in the last two years. The world population dipped into food reserves. World population is predicted to increase from the current 6.7 billion to 9.5 billion by 2150. Thus food demand will increase by roughly 50%.
Climate change is reducing agricultural production in dry areas of the world by reducing water for crops in several ways. One is shifting climate zones.
[Slide 12]
The semi-arid subtropical zones, which have been sustaining low-productivity agriculture, are spreading poleward and becoming more arid. This is occurring in the Sahelian countries of sub-Saharan Africa, probably caused Australian drought and fires of 2008, and quite possibly the southern California drought. People who previously farmed the land in the Sahelian countries are now streaming to the cities, and starvation and death of livestock are currently being reported for northern Kenya .
Secondly, this drying of the subtropics is also reducing availability of irrigation water due to declining precipitation.
[Slide 13]
Third, water resources are declining in areas where millions of people depend on streams fed by melt water from glaciers, as in India and the Himalayan glaciers, and South America and the Andean glaciers. Glaciers all over the world are melting.
[Slide 14]
Thus agricultural production is declining in extensive parts of the world at a time when world food demand is increasing.
Dr. Rebecca Ponder
I would like to add to the comments made by Dr. Wagner. We are accustomed to the availability of our natural resources. We think of them as free and we take them for granted. But, a decade ago, the World Resources Institute estimated an annual global price tag of $33 trillion dollars for ecosystem services. These services would be impossible to obtain without functioning ecosystems and they are all threatened by the climate crisis. Along with direct ecosystem services, loss of species and decreased plant and wildlife populations equate to financial loss because of decreased outdoor recreation, hunting, fishing and tourism income. Flooding, wildfire, and drought are not just natural disasters, they represent enormous financial losses as well.
Slide
Man does not live in a void. Our own future is threatened in direct proportion to the threat to the other species with whom we share an ecosystem. One of the most startling examples is the severe toll the climate crisis is taking on forests.
Slide
Eight of the last ten summers have been extreme wildfire seasons in Siberia. In Canada the annual acreage of forest burned is doubIe that of the 1970s. In the Western US the forest fire season is 79 days longer than 25 years ago. As a result of warmer temperatures, pine beetle infestations have devastated so far….
Slide
24.8 million acres of forest in the interior Western US, and are on pace to destroy 80% of the huge forests of British Columbia within 5 years. Northern latitude forests on other continents are being similarly affected. When large areas are deforested, not only do they affect the global climate, they have also been shown to increase local temperatures and decreases local precipitation, thereby directly exacerbating local climate disruptions. Future climate change is likely to contribute to even drier conditions and even greater frequency and intensity of wildfires, more insect outbreaks, reduced forest health, and weaker trees.
Slide
Deforestation worldwide is responsible for 20% of the “greenhouse effect.”
Slide
A few more comments about the impact of the climate crisis on agriculture. Just three crops, corn, rice and wheat provide about 60% of the total human food supply. The viability of these crops depends on the maintenance of high genetic diversity, found in their counterpart natural species, which permits the development of specialized strains resistant to emerging and evolving diseases and pests. In the long term, wide spread climate caused species extinction threatens food security because it restricts the development of new crops from what are now wild plants. Just as disease caused the loss of chestnut, elm and other tree species from North American forests, disease and pesticide-resistant pests will cause the loss of current species of corn, rice and wheat and our ability to replace them will be curtailed.
Slide
In 2009 the countries that provide two thirds of the world’s agricultural output, all those countries colored in various shades of red on this map, are already experiencing the consequences of this climate crisis.
Slide
Drought, in many cases unprecedented drought, is already creating millions of climate refugees because of ruined crops, dead livestock, hopelessness, and emaciated and dying children.
Slide
From reports published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences agricultural experts now warn that global agriculture, already predicted to be stressed by climate change in coming decades, could go into steep decline in some regions. Between now and mid-century they expect agricultural declines in the subtropics, where even modest 1.5 to 3 degrees F rises are expected to evaporate rainfall and push staple crops over their survival thresholds. Developing countries may lose 334 million acres of prime farm land in the next 50 years. After mid-century, continuing temperature rises, 9 degrees F or more by then, are expected to start adversely affecting northern crops as well, “tipping the whole world into a danger zone.”
Slide
Productive agriculture depends on a reasonably predictable weather pattern. Extreme-weather events predicted as part of this climate crisis, including heat waves or sudden big storms, could easily wipe out crops on vast scales if they occur for even a few days during critical germination or flowering times. Higher temperatures may also prompt outbreaks of weeds and pests, and affect plant and animal physiology. For example, hotter temperatures will limit the ability of modern dairy-cow breeds to convert feed into milk, and lead to declines in livestock fertility and longevity. As temperatures rise in northerly latitudes, the ability of crop pests to survive winters is expected to improve, enabling them to attack spring crops in regions where they were previously kept at bay during this vulnerable time.
Worldwide food commodity crises will increasingly affect the availability and price of those commodities in Utah, even if the weather events only occur in other countries.
Impact on Public Health in Utah
Dr. Richard Kanner
The health of Utah residents will be adversely affected by the climate crisis by causing more air pollution, more heat related disease, more disease secondary to dust, more mercury toxicity, more vector borne and other infectious diseases.
Slide 1. More air pollution from ozone
Ozone is a strong oxidizing agent. By that I mean it readily reacts with living and inorganic compounds which affects them profoundly. For instance aging is thought to occur because of oxidation reactions in the body that occur over one’s lifetime. Thus,if this theory is correct ozone has the ability to accelerate the aging process. Also, ozone affects crops by causing oxidation reactions to the plants and thus can have an adverse effect on agriculture. It also causes oxidation reactions with plastics and rubber which is what causes cracks in your tires or crumbling of the plastic coatings on wires, for example.
The chemical reaction that creates ozone is heat dependent. Hotter temperatures will create higher ozone concentrations as volatile organic compounds from auto exhausts, refineries, etc. mix with NO2 in the environment in the presence of sunlight in a complex and not fully understood chemical reaction. Our understanding of the impact of ozone on public health was recently enhanced by a landmark study published by BYU’s Arden Pope and others clearly establishing that ozone contributes to significant increased rates of respiratory death. Other studies demonstrate that ozone negatively impacts lung function even in the strongest of the population, young healthy adults, and at levels below current national air quality standards.
Ozone decreases lung function as the body tries to minimize its effects but with time the reduction in function is reversed allowing more ozone to enter the body. Ozone creates a positive feedback mechanism because ozone is also a greenhouse gas. In addition, higher ozone concentrations will also decrease the growth of trees, thereby limiting their ability to absorb CO2 and creating a second feedback mechanism contributing to further temperature rise. Recently, for the first time ever, ozone has been detected in the winter in the energy development areas of Wyoming and Colorado . This spring, the concentrations of ozone in the Salt Lake Valley have been close to violating the revised national ozone standard. We will no longer be able to say that ozone is just a summer time issue. Furthermore, ozone smog is expanding far beyond the areas traditionally affected by photochemical reaction.
Slide
Atmospheric currents are capable of transporting ozone and particulate matter thousands of miles away from their original sources. Ozone is showing up now in high concentrations in the air over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean . Our own DAQ has measured ozone levels virtually as high in the parks of Southern Utah as in Bountiful. In 2004 forest fires in Alaska were calculated by NASA to increase ground ozone levels by 25% in the northern continental US and 10% as far away as Europe . New studies also suggest that the particulate matter component of forest fire pollution may be as much as ten times more toxic than industrial or vehicle pollution. Utah ’s air quality is already being affected by climate events and policies in other parts of the world, this trend will intensify.
Slide
2. Numerous studies show a relationship between increasing temperatures and such things as hospitalizations for respiratory diseases as well as sudden cardiac death. A study published weeks ago in The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine examined populations in 12 different European cities. For each city they found a temperature/humidity threshold beyond which each degree increase resulted in a 4% increase in respiratory admissions for all ages, but especially those over 75.
In the summer of 2003, a heat wave in Europe killed 70,000 people within a few weeks. Undoubtedly Utah will experience these types of weather events as the Intermountain West is one of the areas predicted to have a greater increase in temperature along with the polar areas as compared to other parts of the globe.. Because of the heat island effect residents of urban areas will be the most affected. Oppressive summertime heat claims more lives than all other weather-related disasters combined.
Dr. Elizabeth Joy
Slide
Worldwide desertification due to climate stress is already causing an unprecedented increase in dust storms. This year major episodes have occurred in China, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afganistan, Africa, Australia, and Arizona. The World Metereological Organization predicts a continuation of that trend. These dust storms can travel thousands of miles and even become distributed throughout the global atmosphere. Political events are already evolving, some as a direct result of climate change, that if allowed to unfold will likely make the health consequences of Great Basin dust much worse.
Slide
The proposed pipeline to drain the aquifers of central Nevada and western Utah and ship the water to Las Vegas will add even further water stress to an area of the Great Basin as large as the state of Vermont . There is an application before the Army Corps of Engineers by the Great Salt Lake Minerals Corp. for permission to greatly increase the amount of Great Salt Lake water they are allowed to divert to settling ponds for mineral extraction. If that is allowed, the water level will drop and thousands of acres of dry beach will be exposed, creating a new source of dust pollution contaminating Utah ’s airshed every time a storm front moves in.
Slide
There have been well documented, profound health consequences where these kinds of water diversion projects have occurred elsewhere. The Aral Sea in Uzbekistan is a lake with high salinity not unlike the Great Salt Lake . In 1960 it was the fourth largest lake on earth. It was drained to grow cotton in the surrounding desert and now it is 10% of its original size. Tens of thousands of people who depended on the lake have been displaced.
Slide
Blowing dust in the now dry lake bed has resulted in the local life expectancy dropping from 65 to 61 years with rising levels of many serious diseases especially throat and esophageal cancer.
Slide
The Owens Lake in California has become a dry lake bed because its water has been diverted to Los Angeles. Whenever the wind blows it becomes the largest single source of particulate matter air pollution in the United States and monitors have recorded levels 23 times higher than the NAAQS allow. The closest town, Keeler, Calif. exceeds those standards an average of 25 times a year even though residents produce almost no pollution in the town itself.
Slide
Even without any water diversion projects hotter temperatures and less precipitation will result in widespread loss of native vegetation in the already water stressed Great Basin which will in turn leave more areas likely to become huge sources of dust, or particulate matter pollution.
Slide
Higher temperatures and dust storms are linked to Valley Fever, or (coccidioidomycosis), a disease caused by a fungus in the soils of numerous parts of the desert Southwest and Great Basin. The American Academy of Microbiology estimates that about 200,000 Americans contract this disease every year. It can be a chronically debilitating disease, difficult to diagnose, is more of a threat to people who are immunosuppressed, diabetics and pregnant women and is fatal in about one out of a thousand patients. Some southwestern states have already seen a 400% increase in the number of cases in the last decade.
One gram of dust can contain as many as a billion microorganisms. There is now evidence that respiratory diseases like influenza, SARS, foot and mouth disease, and meningitis are among the diseases that can be transmitted by dust storms.
Slide
Dust from the West Desert also contains residual radioactive isotopes from the over 900 nuclear bomb detonations that occurred in Nevada from 1951 to 1992, specifically americium, plutonium, uranium, cobalt, cesium, strontium and europium. Any developments that increase public exposure to this radioactivity will increase the rates of diseases linked to chromosomal damage such as cancer, birth defects, immunosuppression and numerous other disease processes.
Slide
Nevada soils are a source of significant quantities of erionite, a fibrous mineral similar in configuration to asbestos and causes the same type of lung disease and lung cancer that asbestos does. In Turkey where villages have been exposed to erionite and asbestos, the lung cancer they cause has been responsible for over 50% of the total deaths.
Slide
Dust storms from the Great Basin will also bring toxic heavy metals like mercury that Dr. Maunsel Pearce will address in more detail.
Dr. Maunsel Pearce
Slide
Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and the most toxic component of air pollution according to the EPA. It is already in high enough concentration to exceed EPA’s safety thresholds in one out of 12 US women of child bearing age, exposing the fetus to loss of intellectual function. 40% of atmospheric mercury comes from the emissions of the world’s coal fired power plants that are also huge sources of green house gases. Nevada gold mines are an undoubted but unproven source of Utah ’s mercury contamination.
Slide
Mercury contamination of fish is already ubiquitous throughout the US . A recent US Geological Survey study demonstrated mercury contamination of every fish that was sampled from nearly 300 U.S. water bodies. Utah already has a serious problem with environmental mercury contamination. There are now fish consumption advisories for mercury in 17 of Utah lakes, reservoirs and streams. Utah has the nation’s only advisories against eating waterfowl because of toxic mercury levels found in 3 species of waterfowl that inhabit the Great Salt Lake.
Slide
Great Salt Lake has 38 times more methyl mercury than 97% of U.S. waters making it the hottest of hot spots of mercury pollution. New water withdrawals and diversions reducing GSL level and area will create beaches and expose sediments to wind, creating a new source of mercury and selenium in our air.
A drier, hotter climate will drop the lake level and if the Great Salt Lake Minerals Corporation expansion is permitted, tripling the size of their evaporating ponds, the public health threat will be accelerated and exacerbated.
The climate crisis will increase the mercury threat to children. As the Artic thaws, more mercury will be released into the global atmosphere. Forest fires release mercury as well and as the Northern Hemisphere’s forest fire season becomes longer and more severe, mercury contamination from this source will increase.
Charles Langelier, PhD, MS 3
Slide 1-Malaria
With hotter temperatures, tropical vector borne diseases will migrate to higher latitudes and altitudes. Mosquito populations increase dramatically with higher temperatures, which not only increase mosquito distribution but also increase the rate of pathogen maturation and replication. For instance, Falciparum malaria, the most deadly type of malaria, matures and replicates faster with warmer temperatures. Malaria already kills over 1 million each year and climate change is likely to worsen the disease burden.
Slide 2- Dengue
In a manner similar to Falciparum malaria, mosquitoes that transmit the causal agent of Dengue fever have moved north out of South America to Central America, and recently have crossed the US border leading to outbreaks of Dengue fever in Texas and Florida. Currently, dengue fever and its complications cause an estimated 50 to 100 million infections, a half-million hospitalizations, and 22,000 deaths annually in more than 100 countries, Dengue has increased 30-fold in the last 50 years.
The mosquito that carries Dengue fever, Aedes aegypti, is also capable of carrying other viruses like West Nile Virus, which can cause encephalitis and permanent brain damage. The distribution of tick-borne diseases like tick-borne encephalitis and Lyme disease is also increasing due to global warming.
Slide 3-Hydrological Cycle
Global warming can also influence the emergence of new infectious diseases, by disrupting regional climate stability. Hotter temperatures drive moisture into the atmosphere, causing droughts followed by periods of heavy rain, climatic conditions particularly well suited for disease vector spread.
Slide 4- Predator/Prey Balance
In fact, these extreme weather patterns of drought followed by heavy rain, which are predicted to happen more frequently with a warmer climate, can disrupt ecosystem function and disrupt the balance of predator and prey relationships that normally keep disease vectors like insects, ticks and rodents under control.
In fact, many of the world’s most significant infectious diseases have emerged in human populations because of environmental, ecological and climatic conditions. West Nile, Lyme disease, Valley fever and Hantavirus are all significant infectious diseases in Utah, and the emergence and distribution of each of these in Utah have been impacted by environmental and climatic changes. Infectious diseases like Malaria and Dengue are getting closer and could become greater problems in Utah populations with a warmer climate.
Slide 5-Cholera in Peru
A warmer climate will also lead to outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Decreased fresh water resources in many countries will lead to more death and sickness from waterborne diseases. Warmer ocean waters and heavy precipitation events can cause disease outbreaks along coastlines that eventually spread inland.
Slide 6- Cholera Spread Northward
In fact, scientists recently discovered that many of the largest cholera outbreaks of the past century started as a result of warmer ocean temperatures that allowed algae species and commensal pathogenic cholera bacteria to proliferate and ultimately infect human populations.
Slide 7- Toxic Algae/Conclusion
Warmer ocean waters can also lead to increases in toxic algae and shellfish poisonings, as well as human exposure to pathogenic e-coli which can thrive in warmer surface waters. Infections with Vibrio parahaemolyticus, carried by shellfish and previously confined to the Gulf states in the U.S., have occurred for the first time ever recorded in warming waters off Alaska, Washington and New York.
Its also important to remember that we are connected globally like never before, and an infectious disease outbreak in another part of the country or another part of the world can quickly become a problem in Utah, whether it’s a insect-borne disease or a waterborne disease.
Dr. Brian Moench
Slide
Dr. Kanner and Dr. Joy have addressed the of issue of increased air pollution from the stand point of increased ozone, dust and wild fire particulate matter. Let me add some detail about what we know about air pollution’s physiologic consequences so that you understand further why climate related increased air pollution is a concern for all of us.
Slide
Within minutes to hours after a spike in air pollution health consequences are already underway. Blood pressure rises, vascular inflammation and clot formation begins, followed shortly by increased numbers of heart attacks, strokes and deep vein thrombosis.
Community mortality rates stay elevated for as long as 30 days after an air pollution episode has ended even if it lasted less than 24 hours.
Slide
Inhalation of particle pollution can actually bypass the lungs, migrating directly from the linings of the nose, along the nerves to reach the brain stem.
Slide
There it causes inflammation and oxidative stress on brain cells, acutely compromising their function leading to long term neurodegeneration. This occurs in children as well as adults.
Within only a few days after exposure to an air pollution episode alterations in the functioning of genes can occur, turning them on or off inappropriately with a prolonged and possibly life long affect capable of being passed on to subsequent generations.
Slide
We have focused on readily identifiable, direct consequences to public health in Utah. However, billions of people in poorer countries will be at even greater health risk because of their lack of resources to mitigate the climate crisis’s affect on agriculture, food security, water scarcity, sanitation, population migration, and much greater vulnerability to the hazards of extreme climate events.
Slide
It is unrealistic to think that Utah residents will not be secondarily impacted by these events in other countries that likely will result in higher prices for agricultural commodities worldwide, immigration pressures and, according to our own military, a high probability of climate related armed conflict and threat to our national security.
Sustaining life as we have known it in Utah will be dependent on a future climate that is at least as favorable as the past 160 years. But the science is very clear:
Slide
we are headed into a hotter climate, with less snow pack and other precipitation extremes that will threaten our forests, rivers, streams, lakes, pastures and air quality and virtually all of the resources we depend on for quality of life and many of the industries that support our economy. Individual and public health protection follow very closely a community’s economic and quality of life preservation. Everything that makes this desert we call Utah beautiful, unique and life sustaining is at risk.
We join thousands of other scientists throughout the world who warn that aggressive government intervention and international cooperation is necessary.
Slide
We think this has become as much a moral imperative for the protection of future generations to as it is to prevent all out nuclear war. Climate crisis is the greatest public health threat of the 21st century and that includes Utah. Inaction due to capitulation to established industries, public apathy, political ideology, ignorance or simply a natural resistance to behavioral change, imperils us all. Those who urge or insist on waiting “until all the science is in,” or call this a hoax do so in defiance of overwhelming scientific evidence reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s decades long campaign to cast doubt on the adverse health effects of cigarettes.
Dr. Howie Garber
Recommendations for Action
Utah must respond in earnest to this developing climate crisis. After consulting with energy experts here are our recommendations:
1. The Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment have formally requested that the Governor develop a plan to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions. Today we ask specifically that this plan reduce the state’s greenhouse gases 25% by 2020, including a steady transformation of our electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewable sources.
We urge the adoption of a program we call 55, 65, 75. This means drive 55, turn your thermostat down to 65 in the winter and up to 75 or higher in the summer
The driving forces behind the new world economy, lead by China , have dramatically shifted from fossil fuels to renewable energy. If Utah ’s economic platform remains dependent on dinosaurs, literally, we will lose any ability to compete in the new paradigm. . In a recent study, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission demonstrated that $340 million invested in aggressive energy efficiency programs would save $1.3 billion annually, create 9,000 jobs, reduce overall state electricity use 1.6% and prevent 12 million tons of CO2 reaching the atmosphere.
2. Utah should adopt and enforce the most current energy efficiency code for homes and buildings. Utah should establish reimbursement rates for home owners and businesses that wish to generate their own electricity from clean sources . This Reimbursement should be sufficiently favorable to make it truly feasible for the average home owner and average small business owner.
3. Public education is critical to modifying behavior regarding greenhouse gas emissions. We request that the state board of education formally incorporate the teaching of greenhouse gas science into the core science curriculum of public junior high and high school. We cannot think of a more important scientific concept for our children to understand.
4. We appeal to the public for rapid adoption of other lifestyle changes.
A. We ask consumers to, wherever possible, buy local;
B. We ask homeowners in the state to convert lawns to gardens, fruit trees, nut trees, and shade trees with the goal of decreasing dependency on out of state and out of country food sources and augmenting the natural carbon sink that trees provide. According to the US Forest Service, large diameter, long-lived, leafy trees tend to be the most beneficial in regards to carbon sequestration. Tree species is a strong determining factor regarding carbon sequestration. Trees vary between being fast or slow in storing carbon. Tree species also vary in how much they output harmful volatile organic compounds (VOC’s) such as isoprene, which produces the greenhouse gas ozone. Therefore, we encourage the selection of tree species that are long lived, rapidly sequester carbon but which also do not have a high output of VOC’s. Those types of trees capable of being grown in Utah are listed on this slide.
C. We encourage a sharp reduction in meat consumption. The average American adult eats a half a pound of meat per day, far in excess of protein requirements. Meat is by far the most carbon intensive of all food commodities.
D. We appeal to the public to begin serious water conservation in our homes and businesses. Utah should adopt and enforce a formal water conservation program far more extensive than the status quo and similar to other desert cities throughout the world. Water is the limiting factor to growth and survival in the West and will become even more so with this evolving climate crisis.
E. It is long overdue that we divert highway construction funds into more mass transit infrastructure and heavily incentivize mass transit use.
5. We ask the state to develop a strategy to save regional farmland from housing development and water diversion schemes that threaten future agricultural production. As the climate crisis deepens and the price of fossil fuels inevitably climbs, especially oil, the importance of producing “local” commodities will steadily increase. That will make regional agriculture even more valuable and important to near by population centers. The previously mentioned Las Vegas pipeline would sacrifice an irreplaceable agricultural resource for more real estate and hotel “growth” in Las Vegas
Today, parents sacrifice for many years in the hope that their children will have a better future by going to college. Most adults learn to adopt personal habits that science has told them is in the interest of their long term personal health, even though the short term benefits may be imperceptible. Most adults don’t smoke because it will kill them tomorrow, but because it may kill them 30 years from now. Scientists know that we are creating an atmosphere that will endanger us all, with as much certainty as we know that smoking causes cancer.
The climate crisis should be thought of this way: the Earth is our home, it has developed a heavy smoking habit and we have been lighting the cigarettes. We must open the windows, put away the ash trays, hide the matches and stop supplying the cigarettes.
We are realistic yet optimistic about Utah doing it’s share. Over 160 years ago, our pioneer ancestors completely uprooted their lives and came to Utah. They built communities from scratch that many of them knew they would not live long enough to benefit from. They wisely stored food, clothing, and all the necessities for life in the event of some kind of catastrophe. They sacrificed virtually all they had for the greater good. We are at a similar point in history now. We ask for community sacrifice in the interest of safeguarding life as we know it. It is inconceivable to us that our pioneer ancestors wouldn’t sacrifice now to safeguard the future health for their children and grandchildren.
