By Mike Magee
In the aftermath of the human tragedy of last week in Texas, it would be easy (and appropriate) to concentrate on the role of Trump’s reckless recent dismantling of FEMA and related federal agencies. But to do this would be to accept that the event was an anomaly, or if Trump labeled it On Sunday on the way to a round of Golf at Bedminster, “A hundred years of catastrophe.”
In reality, such tragedies are the direct result of global warming, and last week’s suffering and losses are destined to be followed by who knows how many others here and in communities around the world.
In 2009, President Obama joined global leaders in New York City for the UN opening session. One of the spoken remaining issues was global warming. All agreed that the Kyoto protocol had failed. It failed because the goal of reducing emissions by around 5% was too low. It failed because large transition countries such as India and China were excluded. And It failed Because the American leadership has chosen.
The worldwide community today has a deeper gap from which it has to dig. In addition, we would do well to concentrate on health and safety as outcome measures, and to define strategies to manage the clear consequences of this current crisis.
Two decades ago, the warnings were clear. Without allowing, we should not only plan mitigation, but we also have to prepare the intervention of resources and deal with inevitable human injury and the failure of the disease. Of course we could not have predicted that sensible disease interventions in climate destroy hotspots around the world, such as the expansion of USAID financing in the Bush and Obama administrations, are X’d out Under Trump/Musk. Who could have imagined such reckless and ultimately self -destructive movements?
And yet, here we are:
1. Natural disasters of storms, floods, drought, forest fires and excessive heat, as predicted, are now the norm, not the exception. These realities in turn cause immediate injury, mass migrations and distraction of resources that can normally go to social infrastructure.
2. Rising temperatures are expanding the range of different disease evectors. Including mosquitoes, ticks and rodents. Malaria will take place at larger heights than before, and knuckling fever will appear further north. Ticks are now only second place on mosquitoes, such as wearing human diseases. But a much more dangerous human vector, one able to literally return a century of progress when combating infectious diseases at home and abroad has landed on our coasts. His name is RFK Jr.
3. Food and water-based diseases are increasingly common due to the higher temperatures that encourage their action and distribution. FDA ceremony and the Hobeven of the EPA are now increasing this downward risk.
4. Air quality has fallen as ozone, particles and allergens combined with heat create a deadly brew. As a result, seniors have more heart and respiratory diseases and young people more asthma.
5. Water scarcity areas expand faster and create famine, hygienic failure, migration and violence. Lack of availability of clean safe water is increasing the serious problems of water -based diseases.
6. Decrease in the amount of water and quality a negative influence on the production of crops, cattle and fishing – the number of world citizens who suffer hunger and famine.
This list was logical and the impact predictable two decades ago. It came less than a year later Hurricane Katrina Land made on August 23, 2005, in New Orleans costs $ 161 billion and 1,833 human lives. Al Gore’s “Uncomfortable truth,” Was released for the first time the following year on May 24, 2006. And he was not the only vote then.
Lawrence Gostin from Georgetown University presented a policy loaded argument in Jama That ended with this prophetic statement:
“Global health, such as global climate change, will soon be a matter that is so important for the future of the world that requires international attention, and that no state can escape the responsibility to act.”
For 105 souls (Again count) From Central Texas, time has risen. But if someone wants to believe the current government and its enablers, this newest ‘act of God’, including swollen young Christian campers, has no human fingerprints.
Mike Magee MD is a medical historian and a regular contribution to THCB. He is the author of Blue code: Inside America’s Medical Industrial Complex. (Grove/2020)
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