Changing planet, changing health : how the climate crisis threatens our health and what we can do about it PDF
Preview Changing planet, changing health : how the climate crisis threatens our health and what we can do about it
Changing Planet, Changing Health This page intentionally left blank Changing Planet, Changing Health How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It Paul R. Epstein, , MD and Dan Ferber Foreword by Jeffrey Sachs University of California Press Berkeley • Los Angeles University of California Press, one of the most distin guished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and in stitutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California © 2011 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Epstein, Paul R. Changing planet, changing health : how the climate crisis threatens our health and what we can do about it / Paul R. Epstein and Dan Ferber ; foreword by Jeffrey Sachs. p. cm. Summary: “Spotlights the threats of global warming and offers a systems approach for possible treatments. Decades spent as a physician and public health scientist have allowed Dr. Epstein to examine and now comment on the dynamics of global politics, climate change, and global health. Together with journalist Dan Ferber, he expresses a fundamental need for communities (of all scales) and industries (of all kinds) to reach together for a lowcarbon economy. They make their argument by combining personal accounts with accurate histories and industry case studies. What enfolds is a prescriptive narrative for repairing an ailing planet”—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780520269095 (hardback) 1. Medical climatology. 2. Climatic changes— Health aspects. I. Ferber, Dan. II. Title. RA793.E67 2011 616.9'88—dc22 2010051311 Manufactured in the United States of America 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled, deinked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy. UC-Epstein-Ferber-CS4-Mac.indd 4 1/12/11 1:55 PM Contents List of Illustrations vii Foreword by Jeffrey Sachs x Introduction 1 1 Mozambique 6 2 The Mosquito’s Bite 29 3 Sobering Predictions 62 4 Every Breath You Take 80 5 Harvest of Trouble 101 6 Sea Change 122 7 Forests in Trouble 138 8 Storms and Sickness 161 9 The Ailing Earth 179 10 Gaining Green by Going Green 200 11 Healthy Solutions 223 12 Of Rice and Tractors 250 13 Rewriting the Rules 272 Epilogue 295 Acknowledgments 301 Notes 307 Index 347 Illustrations 1. Drs. Paul Epstein and Steve Gloyd with a Mozambican 7 colleague in Caia, Mozambique, in 1978 2. Barefoot Mozambican boys near houses made of 11 sugarcane stalks in Buzi, Mozambique, in 1978 3. Adrienne (Andy) Epstein performing triage with a father 12 and son in the emergency room at the Central Hospital of Beira, 1978 4. Nursepractitionersintraining with a patient at the 14 Central Hospital of Beira, Mozambique, 1979 5. Dr. Paul Epstein in a refugee camp at the border area of 16 Mozambique and Zimbabwe, 1985 6. CO from the Earth’s early atmosphere, drawn down by 34 2 vast forests, returning to the atmosphere by burning of fossil fuels 7. Anne Mwangi with a photo that includes her daughter 37 Elena Githeko, who suffered a lifethreatening bout of malaria in 2002 8. Andrew Githeko in front of his family’s ancestral tea 39 farm in Ihwagi, Kenya 9. Andrew Githeko sampling water from a ditch in a farm 43 field near Kisumu, Kenya vii viii | Illustrations 10. Mount Kenya, an International Biosphere Reserve and a 57 UNESCO World Heritage site 11. Susan Wangiki, laboratory technologist at the Gatei 59 Health Centre in Ihwagi, Kenya, examining a slide 12. Soaking up the heat 69 13. Jose Caballero Giron in his house in Colonia El Porvenir, 71 a slum with plenty of people for mosquitoes to feed on 14. Biological indicators 72 15. Dr. Ben Ortiz examining threeyearold asthmatic 94 Jerome Miller as his mother and brother look on 16. George Miller with a nebulizer 95 17. The Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment 104 (SoyFACE) facility near Champaign, Illinois 18. Japanese beetles devouring soybean leaves 111 19. Insects and land plants dueled for supremacy from the 112 start 20. Creeping threats from dying reefs 134 21. The framework of disease and epidemics 140 22. Mountain pine beetles in a highelevation whitebark pine 145 tree in the Rockies 23. Jesse Logan looking at a centuriesold whitebark pine 150 killed in recent years by mountain pine beetles 24. The rooftop of the Rockies, an essential whitebark pine 152 ecosystem, is being destroyed by mountain pine beetles that would once have died of cold 25. Bark beetle infestations of pine and spruce forests, 157 enabled by climate change, create tracts of tinder that fuel devastating wildfires 26. Dr. Juan Almendares comforting a woman inside her 166 home in Choluteca, Honduras 27. In Hurricane Katrina’s wake—toxins spread by floods, 169 Katrina cough from moldy buildings, posttraumatic stress disorder, poisoned wetland ecosystems, and stalled food shipments to southern Africa 28. Increase in devastating category 4 and 5 hurricanes since 171 1970 29. Residents of Colonia Soto in front of their apartment 175 building, damaged in Hurricane Mitch and still not repaired a decade later Illustrations | ix 30. Residents getting their daily supply of water in Colonia 176 Soto, a poor neighborhood in Comayagüela, Honduras 31. Outbreaks of infectious diseases carried by mosquitoes, 181 rodents, and water that often follow storms and floods 32. Climate control by blooms of phytoplankton and 194 zooplankton 33. Stabilization wedges 228 34. Coal’s health and environmental effects, from mining to 232 burning 35. Burying dangerous carbon dioxide emissions from power 235 plants 36. The real price of oil 237 37. Nuclear energy’s heavy footprint 239 38. Smart grid, clean design 247 39. Roadmap to a lowcarbon economy 248 40. Lucy Aguilera stopping her children and her sister’s 252 children from venturing onto a busy highway next to their makeshift shack 41. In El Pedernal, in central Honduras, the village water 254 supply is contaminated by heavy metals from a nearby gold mine 42. Policies for sustainability 292
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