The recent World
Health Organisation's warning to Asia is a timely reminder of the public health implications arising from climate change. Similar warnings by the Food
and Agricultural Organisation on declining crop yields and depleting fish stocks shows how climate change has begun to undermine human well-being.
Sars, bird-flu,
dengue fever and other recent epidemics have forced Asian governments to face up to man-made ecological degradations that causes or contributes to the rise and spread of diseases. Asia, in their economic expansion, will find it increasingly difficult to escape the direct human and economic costs of uncontrolled green house gas emission and environmental pollution.
Taking dengue fever as an example, it is estimated that mosquitoes multiply 10 times faster for every degree Celsius rise in temperature. South-East Asia recorded 10 times more dengue cases in the last 20 years, from 1978 to 1998, when its mean annual temperature went up from 26.9 to 28.4 degrees. The current surge in dengue of about 120,000 cases has resulted in about 950
deaths so far. WHO estimates that
global warming contributes directly or indirectly to some 77,000 dengue and similar deaths in the Asia-Pacific region every year, half the number of such deaths worldwide.
Dengue is only one consequence of global warming that is being felt. If no preventive measures are taken, melting Himalayan glaciers would in the next few decades cause more frequent and massive floods in low-lying coastal countries, such as Bangladesh. When the flow dwindles, water shortages will be the result. Both floods and droughts would decimate food production and degrades health and sanitation levels.
glacier melt makes up 70 per cent of the Ganges summer flow and supplies water to 500 million people. In western China, about 250 million people depend totally on glacier water for their needs. Economic development without any consideration for the environment is proving too costly. The high price now shown in human terms must convince more people and governments to act to avert disaster.For more environmental articles, visit http://thirdrock-thirdrock.blogspot.com
More abstracts about the Global Warming and It's Effects On Society.