By: Ava H.
Author's Note
In an Environmental Studies college course I have taken, we dissected a few journal articles that pertained to the environmental interconnections of the health sciences. Since there is often not much mainstream awareness of this concept, I thought presenting my summary and commentary on two articles we read could prove insightful.
Photo from: EHW
Through insightful research and analysis, both “Climate Change, Health and Existential Risks to Civilization: A Comprehensive Review” and “The impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function” discuss the intensity of climate change risks, emphasizing the need for effective responses by agencies. The articles evaluate how different cultures continue to respond and interpret the urgency of climate change and the interconnectivities on other health risks.
“Climate Change, Health and Existential Risks to Civilization: A Comprehensive Review” analyzes several scientific journals through a three-point scale to assess the extent that these articles identify “potentially catastrophic, civilization-endangering health risks associated with climate change.” The article begins with a brief history on humankind’s understanding of the effects on climate change. Much of what scientists were emphasizing decades ago are still being advocated for today, which is unfortunate that there has been this much climate inaction for several decades. Because of the sense of urgency in climate change, it is important for humankind to not only acknowledge this emergency, but also the health effects interlinked with social factors. However, this acknowledgement of environmental effects is not as simple as it may seem, given that the majority of journals were scored a 1. One needed goal is that there must be investigation into the deep and underlying causes of climate catastrophes, since the reduction of these causes would allow humankind to prevent environmental disasters from occurring even before they happened. This investigative attribute is integral in avoiding worst case scenarios, since avoiding this step leads to failure similar to the magnitude of the United States’ delayed coronavirus response. The government chose to ignore the discrete warning signs, such as people getting the virus without traveling anywhere, and the virus continued to spread under the government’s radar. As a result, thousands of lives were lost due to inaction, and many would have been saved if lockdown occurred earlier. The detrimental effects of natural disasters cannot occur to the magnitude they are today without climate change intensifying them, proving that understanding the interconnectivity of environment and culture is necessary.
Several fascinating results were concluded from the review of climate change and health literature. It is interesting to note how the papers on global warming and health with the highest rankings were written earliest, and they warned others of this existential crisis. Yet, as time went on, this sense of urgency seemed to weaken, due to a disparity of reasons. While they are a couple prominent journals leading the way for climate change literature, news and journalistic pieces scored on average 1.6. This finding could suggest that self-censorship is becoming a more important role, as climate change has unfortunately become politicized. Some health journals seem to reject climate science as well. Another problem is that connecting health and climate change can seem like a bold act, and discourages many researchers from doing so. In addition, some may believe that excess fear is counter-productive, which is why they leave out a sense of urgency within their literature. However, this strategy does not work when your house is on fire. Also, many authors do not receive any rewards for conducting such systemic research. A solution to this could be to give tenure to these researchers, so they can explore interesting ideas without fear of being fired. Based on these results, health needs to be further integrated into climate change literature, as these predicted risks can pose promising insights in the struggle against climate change.
“The impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function” discusses recent research that confirms the disastrous effects of climate change, by providing a framework on how ecosystem productivity is suffering. As temperatures continue to rise, it is essential for climate action plans to adjust accordingly in order to create a meaningful agenda. From there, the journal identifies the seven most critical impacts that are re-structuring ecosystems. For example, climate warming surprisingly exhibits its worst effects in the winter. Since snow is essential for soil insulation, less snow provokes colder soils in a warmer ecosystem, which will worsen water quality. Winter climate change also inflicts a positive feedback loop, as less snow and ice increases energy absorption, causing winter-warming to escalate and produce more instability within the climate. This positive feedback loop poses concern to cultural traditions such as the Winter Olympics. Because of rising temperatures, it is becoming increasingly difficult to host this iconic sporting event. Yet, mainstream leaders in the sports industry are not addressing this urgency, which is why such research identified in this journal article is important to bring to the public’s attention. Once people realize that essential cultural traditions such as the Olympics are threatened, society will begin to express increased concern for climate change, as these environmental transformations are only considered negative when they threaten a cultural frame of reference. Bringing cultural impacts of climate change to light is a clever strategy to emotionally appeal to the world, which will tear at people’s hearts and motivate them to help the environment.
Furthermore, climate change also intensifies the water cycle, as precipitation amounts are drastically changing throughout regions. While stream discharge is increasing throughout many US regions, it is actually decreasing in the Pacific Northeast and Southwest. These trends prove to be concerning, as rising precipitation can cause immense water fluctuations in ecosystems, which can result in increased flooding. Flooding not only exceeds an ecosystem’s natural retention capabilities, but can also rapidly spread disease organisms, contaminants, and other toxins. Drinking-water facilities can easily become overwhelmed with this new widespread toxins within incoming sewage, which could consequently lower drinking water quality as a whole. This intense flooding worsens with heavy storms, which are becoming increasingly common. In fact, major cities such as Chicago and New York have experienced quick heavy storms in the past week. The aftermath of such storms could be so detrimental that it could cause flooding in busy streets, and this is only a fraction of the heavy storm aftermath that humanity will continue to face. According to scientists, these precipitation events and increased temperatures combined with land conversions are “likely increasing emissions at the continental scale.” Understanding these unexpected causes of global warming can help humans understand the complexity of physical risks of climate change, but also will require the integration of a cultural understanding of risks in order to get humankind involved with such an environmental problem. After all, most climate policies that overlook the cultural aspects tend to fail in providing an adequate solution to climate change. Cultural factors determine how people support climate policies and their motivation to respond to them. Therefore, the integration of culture and climate must be taken into account when constructing new policies such as the Green New Deal. Not only will there be the challenge of transitioning the fossil fuel economy to one run by renewable energy, but there will also be a cultural transition that needs to occur. Humanity’s consumer culture needs to diminish, as it is not sustainable to have an economy that pushes individuals into buying useless items. Global economic activity needs to scale down, and society needs to focus on funding essential institutions such as education that will benefit everyone. People should not need to worry about losing their job because they cannot sell more meaningless products, and we must transition the consumer culture to one that values people over profit. This is where various disciplines can come into play, such as environmental art projects, which can help excite communities about high-speed rails, zero-carbon social housing, and other environmental innovations.
In conclusion to this article summary, climate change communication related to cultural aspects can mobilize individuals and can be much more effective in creating long term policies rather than speaking out strictly through a scientific or political viewpoint. Evaluating environmental problems requires multiple perspectives, which is why integrating cultural aspects is so important, as failing to address these extraordinary risks will be seen in the future as failing to protect the long term health of the future.
Through insightful analysis and proposals, “Implications of Global Change for the Assessment and Management of Human Health Risks of Chemicals in the Natural Environment” evaluates the various effects that global climate change (GCC) has inflicted onto multiple aspects of the environment, from hazardous chemical exposures to human health risks. By sharing this abundance of scientific information, the article strives to emphasize how pollutants will alter the future, and what measures are needed to take in order to mitigate such worrisome outcomes.
Human exposure to GCC encompasses many negative effects, as humans’ lifestyles will need to adjust accordingly. For example, climate change can impact how long humans spend both indoors and outdoors, which would influence exposure on both outdoor and indoor contaminants. Adverse health effects on human life from climate change are predicted by one of the tables provided by the article. Because of the excess exposure to pollutants, many individuals are at an “increased risk of cancer and endocrine, neurological, and reproductive toxicities.” This can cause concern not only for the wellbeing of people, but for hospitals, as they will continue to need to treat more patients, probably not without much aid from the government. Hopefully from the pandemic, hospitals have become better prepared for such a health crisis. Also, doctors have much more experience treating these other health issues compared to coronavirus, so that could put hospitals at another advantage. However, there is no way to know for sure, as extreme temperatures and high ozone levels will unfortunately cause more people to die due to cardiovascular problems. Other aspects of human life that will be altered include the food chain structure, which will cause individuals to not have access to the same abundance of produce that they once were. Also, the nutritional values of food are expected to decrease due to excess amounts of air pollutants. Not only will physical aspects of health be altered, but so will mental wellbeing be affected. GCC can inflict psychosocial effects both socially and community-based that include violence, along with increased vulnerability to chemical exposures.
The chemical risks of GCC composes differentiated levels of influence among situations, which is why the article explores in more depth the various decisions involved in responses to hazardous chemical exposures, including ones without climate-related drivers. Take pesticides, for instance. These chemical substances pose a dangerous threat to farmworkers that are constantly exposed to these toxins on the daily and can indeed become poisoned. The long-term health effects of pesticide exposure is not fully known, but it is clear that agrarian populations face higher health risks from pesticides. Therefore, efforts to combat pesticide exposures are usually geared towards the places at most risk: “pesticide residues in food and drinking water; exposures in farmers, farmworkers, and applicators; and community exposures.” In addition, GCC tends to usually add complexity towards risk assessments. However, implementing pesticide-residue tolerance levels is an effective regulatory method to protect the safety of the food supply. Since pesticides will cause worker populations to become increasingly vulnerable to health risks, frequent updates of risk assessments are required, along with pesticide residue monitoring. Regardless of these promising methods, rapid changes in pest-management and dietary behaviors will cause the forecast of the safety of the food supply to become more uncertain.
In conclusion, global climate change affects human exposure and human health harm from chemical risks in multiple ways by changing the degree of exposure and human sensitivity. Changing chemical exposures are expected to alter humanity's sensitivities when faced with increased heat stress, psychosocial factors, immune system suppression, and alterations in nutritional values of food. What makes this such a concerning issue is that a business-as-usual approach will only worsen the situation, as many human health risks from chemicals are expected to increase. Due to ongoing future changes, there will need to be continuous updates in health risk assessment of chemicals, along with revisions to monitoring methodologies. There tends to be an ongoing gap in the current understanding of how chemicals will change, which is why a concerted effort at the international level is essential to gain a better understanding of the impacts of GCC and other drivers on exposure, sensitivity, and risk. Also, input from a wide range of disciplines can help address these knowledge gaps, allowing future researchers to take a holistic approach when accessing environmental complexities driven by both GCC and non-climate factors.
Discussion Questions:
For individuals interested in pursuing a career in the health sciences, how can environmental interconnections be effectively integrated within your work?
For those currently in health science professions, what environmental interconnections are present in your work?
Sources:
Butler, C. (2018). Climate Change, Health and Existential Risks to Civilization: A Comprehensive Review (1989–2013). International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(10), 2266. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102266
Grimm, Nancy & Chapin III, F Stuart & Bierwagen, Britta & Gonzalez, Patrick & Groffman, Peter & Luo, Yiqi & Melton, Forrest & Nadelhoffer, Knute & Pairis, Amber & Raymond, Peter & Schimel, Joshua & Williamson, Craig. (2013). The impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 11. 474-482. 10.1890/120282.