A frightening editorial

What else can you say when more than 220 health journals around the world publish a joint editorial calling for "urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C, halt the destruction of nature, and protect health." These journals included the cream of the crop - The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Chinese Science Bulletin, The East African Medical Journal, Brazil's Revista de Saude Publica, and The National Medical Journal of India.

Some excerpts:
"The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse."

"Despite the world's necessary preoccupation with Covid-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions."

Indeed, no temperature rise is 'safe.' In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people older than 65 years has increased by more than 50%. Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality. Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities, and those with underlying health problems.

Global heating is also contributing to the decline in global yield potential for major crops, falling by 1.8% to 5.6% since 1981; this, together with the effects of extreme weather and soil depletion, is hampering efforts to reduce undernutrition. Thriving ecosystems are essential to human health, and the widespread destruction of nature, including habitats and species, is eroding water and food security and increasing the chance of pandemics.

"Governments must make fundamental changes to how our societies and economies are organized and how we live. The current strategy of encouraging markets to swap dirty for cleaner technologies is not enough.

Governments must intervene to support the redesign of transport systems, cities, production and distribution of food, markets for financial investments, health systems, and much more."

"The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C and to restore nature," the journals conclude. "Urgent, society-wide changes must be made and will lead to a fairer and healthier world."