Talk:Effects of climate change on human health/Archive 1

Archive 1

Wiki References

Hey guys I'm not sure if anyone looks in here but there is a small issue with references at the bottom of the page. They shouldn't be doubling up the way they are. When you make a citation in the wiki be sure to give it a ref name on the original citation that looks something like this <ref name=houghton>{{cite journal|last=Houghton|first=R.A|title=Carbon emissions and the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics|journal=Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability|year=2012|month=December|volume=4|issue=6|pages=597-603|doi=10.1016/j.cosust.2012.06.006}}</ref>. That way you can then just write <ref name=houghton/> at the end of another sentence that you want to cite from the same source and it won't create multiples in the reference list. If you have already inserted the references this is an easy fix. Instead of <ref>{{cite journal|last=Houghton|first=R.A|title=Carbon emissions and the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics|journal=Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability|year=2012|month=December|volume=4|issue=6|pages=597-603|doi=10.1016/j.cosust.2012.06.006}}</ref> just add the <ref name= right before the {{cite journal| part so that it looks like this <ref name=houghton>{{cite journal|last=Houghton|first=R.A|title=Carbon emissions and the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics|journal=Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability|year=2012|month=December|volume=4|issue=6|pages=597-603|doi=10.1016/j.cosust.2012.06.006}}</ref> . You can make the ref name whatever you want to make it easy for you. I have been using the authors last name but be careful there if you are using citations with the same last name as other people. Hope that makes a little bit of sense.Mitkrow (talk) 04:37, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey I also noticed that several people are using the book from class "Changing Planet, Changing Health". Since most people are probably using different pages from the book I will make this easy for you. Here is the first citation in your section of the article using the book. <ref name=****>{{cite book|title=Changing Planet, changing health|year=2011|publisher=University of California Press|location=Los Angeles, California|pages=****|isbn=9780520369095|author=Epstein, P.;Ferber, D.}}</ref>. Copy and paste this wherever you need it and then change the ref name to something you will remeber, preferably not Epstein & Ferber because then we will run into problems (no spaces allowed in the ref name), and change the page numbers to whatever pages you used. Then if you cite the book multiple times just use <ref name=(whatever your ref name is)/>. A lot of people figured this out already but I see a couple of people struggling with it so figured I'd try to make your lives a little easier.Mitkrow (talk)

Moving stuff to this article

I've been working to restructure the articles on climate change, industry and society (CCIS) and Effects of climate change on humans (ECCH). For details, see Talk:Climate change, industry and society#Rename article and Talk:Effects of climate change on humans/Archive 1#Merging content from "climate change, industry and society". There's a quite a lot of information in CCIS and ECCH on human health. I would like to move this information to this article. In my opinion, it would be easiest to do this gradually. I would do this by breaking up the edit into small bits. This would make it easier for other editors to keep track of what's going on. Enescot (talk) 12:50, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Climate change, industry and society

As Enescot noted a year ago, the article Climate change, industry and society basically covers the same topic (despite its name). It's all about human health impacts of global warming. I would recommend that any unique content from that article be moved into this one, and then we can just have a single article on the topic. MakeBelieveMonster (talk) 17:19, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Oppose There is quiet enough content here, maybe some parts could be moved instead. The scope based title is significant enough to merit its own space. prokaryotes (talk) 18:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Climate Change and Permafrost section

I don't think that the Climate Change and Permafrost section really fits in an article about the effects of global warming on human health. However, I'm not sure exactly what to do with the section... 130.126.255.117 (talk) 00:48, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

There is a separate article about the effects of global warming on permafrost. Jarble (talk) 17:36, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I am working on editing this section. Most of my edits are deleting a majority of the information and the only part of the section that I am planning on keeping is the soil sustainability part because that is the only part that directly relates to human health. Shislegm (talk) 02:15, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Mental Health section

I'm modifying the whole mental health section, if that's alright. I'm rearranging the data inside, adding some more references, changing some wording, adding paragraphs and new data, and over reworking the whole section. I also took out the original last paragraph as it didn't seem super relevant to me. Hope it all looks alright! Apollojj (talk) 09:05, 6 March 2018 (UTC)apollojj

External links modified

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I have just modified 9 external links on Effects of global warming on human health. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110824222504/http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov:80/docs/2001/suppl-1/141-161reiter/abstract.html to http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2001/suppl-1/141-161reiter/abstract.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110112220048/http://data.unaids.org/pub/BaseDocument/2008/20081223_unep_unaids_joint_working_paper_on_cca_en.pdf to http://data.unaids.org/pub/BaseDocument/2008/20081223_unep_unaids_joint_working_paper_on_cca_en.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120421191355/http://www.niehs.nih.gov:80/health/assets/docs_a_e/climatereport2010.pdf to http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/assets/docs_a_e/climatereport2010.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150907162518/http://www.epa.gov:80/climatechange/impacts-adaptation/alaska.html to http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts-adaptation/alaska.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140112164129/http://www.arctic.gov/publications/other/permafrost.pdf to http://www.arctic.gov/publications/other/permafrost.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121124043427/http://globalwater.org:80/background.htm to http://globalwater.org/background.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120416214231/http://www.feu-us.org/images/The_Food_Gap.pdf to http://www.feu-us.org/images/The_Food_Gap.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130408231610/http://aama.asn.au/download/AMD%20August%202012.pdf to http://aama.asn.au/download/AMD%20August%202012.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110606095750/http://www.brookings.edu/speeches/2007/1214_climate_change_ferris.aspx to http://www.brookings.edu/speeches/2007/1214_climate_change_ferris.aspx

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HIV/AIDS

The HIV/AIDS section seems unrelated to the direct impacts of climate change and relies more on "what if" scenarios and a sort of domino effect of events. I recommend deleting this section all together as I do not think that it adds value to the article overall. Also, if people think that the section should be kept, there is some quoted material in there that needs to be removed per the plagiarism rules of Wikipedia. Shislegm (talk) 18:42, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

The only point from this section that I think has any value and could maybe work is the mitigation of funding from HIV/AIDS to climate change efforts, but even then, I think it is a big stretch Shislegm (talk) 18:51, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I am working on editing this article, including deleting this section, and a majority of the sections that do not deal with the direct impacts of climate change on human health. A lot of this article goes off topic and over-explains some of the topics without really touching on how it effects human health, so I am working on editing those bits out. Shislegm (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Deforestation

The deforestation section goes into way too much detail about the different types of ecosystems such as mangroves and tropical rainforests. I recommend moving those specific subsections of deforestation to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_and_climate_change because it will fit much better. I think there should just be a general overview about how deforestation will effect human health without going into the specifics of specific ecosystems because the page I liked above is already dedicated to that. Shislegm (talk) 18:47, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Drought and Flood AND Reorganizing

Why are drought and flood mentioned twice? I think the article, overall, just needs to be edited and reorganized because as of right now, the ideas are kind of all over the place and some appear twice. Shislegm (talk) 18:53, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Vascular disease section

The section on vascular disease is sourced to a single article about a rare disease, erythromelalgia, whose cause is unknown.[1] I suggest removing this section in order to give proper weight to all the other effects that are much more common and whose cause can be linked more definitively to climate change. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:03, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the section below. If the condition gets significant coverage in more sources, it would be worth mentioning. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 00:49, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Impact on vascular disease

Erythromelalgia in a 77-year-old woman

A good example of the impact of global warming on health can be seen in the disease erythromelalgia. This is a vascular disease that is commonly triggered by the involvement of change in temperature, which leads to syndromes including (first and second degree) burning pain, increased temperature, erythema and swelling, of mainly the hands and feet that are affected.

In a Chinese study, epidemic Erythromelalgia appears quite common in southern China, most likely due to a sharp decline in temperature following by a rapid increase of temperature and the effects this has on the body. The acral small superficial arteries intensely constrict and dilate during the sharp decline of temperature, whereas a sharp increase of temperature, the intense expansion of capillaries irritate the nerve endings around, and thus lead to symptoms also, burning pain, increased temperature, erythema and swelling. As climate change proceeds, more Erythromelalgia outbreaks may occur because of the extreme weather events that are projected to increase in coming decades.

References

Climate change is contributing to skyrocketing rates of infectious disease, add?

• Abrahm Lustgarten How Climate Change Is Contributing to Skyrocketing Rates of Infectious Disease; A catastrophic loss in biodiversity, reckless destruction of wildland and warming temperatures have allowed disease to explode. Ignoring the connection between climate change and pandemics would be “dangerous delusion,” one scientist said. ProPublica 7 May (RSP entry)

X1\ (talk) 06:43, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Major trim proposed for 'Mental health' section

Hello y'all. If there are no objections, in the next few days I plan to do a major trim of the mental health section. Reasons are 1) This article is now a little too long. 2) Much of the information is now covered in the recently created Psychological impact of climate change. 3) Although the original editor that expanded the section did an excellent job in many ways, there are a number of miss-representations of the sources. It's largely based of the Clayton & Doherty 2011 review - a very useful and high impact source. But it has confusing nomenclature. Contrary to how our mental health section is presented, the 3 main causal pathways in the review are 'Direct impacts', 'Indirect impacts' & 'Psychosocial impacts' (i.e. not 'Psychological impacts', which would encompass all 3 pathways.) Additionally, most of what's currently written about in 'Indirect impacts' is actually what Clayton & Doherty classify as 'psychosocial'. FeydHuxtable (talk) 15:20, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

That's a good suggestion, User:FeydHuxtable. I am finding this article too long overall with probably lots of room for trimming. EMsmile (talk) 04:34, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. I already executed the trim & removed 11.5Kb. I wasn't planning to work on this article anymore, as just after I made the above proposal, it was assigned to a student, editor VillanuevaL. Didn't want to get in their way. I understand the good editor perceives some opportunity for expansion, though hopefully they'll see your notes about trimming and do a bit of that too. If not, once their assignment comes to an end in May, it should be easy to create sub articles for some of the longer sections, and then move much of the material out. FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, FeydHuxtable. I also noticed that it's a student assignment and I used to get very excited about those student assigements. Lately, my enthousiasm has disappeared a bit. It feels like in 80% of the cases, the students don't even touch their assigned articles. In 10% of the cases they make a few small changes (usually adding new text) and in 10% of the cases they are making very good edits. So I no longer "wait" for students to work on an article when I get there and have time on my hands myself. EMsmile (talk) 08:42, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome EMsmile. I didn't know that about students. My pervious experience with them has been only on Hunger in the United States, where there's been a different student assigned most years since 2014. And in 100% of cases they made highly impressive edits and were a pleasure to work with. Still now you've advised that generally only about 20% of students make even small improvements, at least it is quite an easy ask for editor VillanuevaL to do better than average here! FeydHuxtable (talk) 08:52, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I so hope that I'll be proven wrong with my (harsh) judgement by this student or other students in future! Perhaps it's just "my" topics that are difficult or unpopular (used to be WASH related topics, now SDGs). I will take a look at Hunger in the United States. I am intrigued by the fact that you are saying it's an annual student assignment. I think a great student assignment would also be the suite of articles "Climate change in Country X" (or even in state X when it comes to the United States). EMsmile (talk) 10:48, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

That information about Covid

I find the recently added content about Covid too detailed in parts. It might be better off to be condensed and the details moved to Climate change and infectious diseases (is that a new article)? Also the lead says: "In the case of COVID-19, there is no evidence that climate change contributed significantly to the pandemic." which I believe is probably right but then later in the Covid section it makes it sound like climate change was a decisive factor. I think it was only one factor of many. Urbanisation and wild life trading probably the bigger factors but maybe it is "sexy" to blame everything on climate change now? I might be wrong. If I am wrong, then the sentence in the lead ought to be adjusted. EMsmile (talk) 13:25, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. And thanks for your recent restructuring of the article, which seems a big improvement. Yup the sub article was created a year ago. I was thinking a few days back of moving much of the disease material to it, but then saw it had been defaced with an unsightly tag. Unless I feel especially motivated, I don't normally like to touch a tagged article, as don't like to encourage tag bombers. Top tier sources like WHO still seem to say there is no evidence of a link between the COVID & climate change. But I've not linked into other sources enough to have a strong opinion, maybe the recent additions are NPOV. Either way, as you say they'd mostly be better placed in the dedicated Climate Change & Disease article. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:58, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi FeydHuxtable, that tag has now been removed from Climate change and infectious diseases. :-) I suggest we now move some of the excessive detail about Covid to there. I may not get around to doing so for another week so if you or someone else beats me to it, I would be happy. EMsmile (talk) 15:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I have moved the Covid content as well as content about other infectious diseases to Climate change and infectious diseases. I have used the excerpt function to summarise some content from the other articles. EMsmile (talk) 02:17, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Merge content from Waterborne disease and climate change?

Aren't all waterborne diseases also infectious diseases? Therefore, what's the point of having a separate article on Waterborne disease and climate change? I propose to merge the content from there to here. If not, we have to (again) work on reducing overlap and repetition. EMsmile (talk) 02:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Removed poorly sourced content about nutrition

I have removed this section because I consider it poorly sourced and speculative and only linked to the main topic in an indirect way:

Impact on nutrition

Another area of concern is the effect of climate change on the nutritional content of food for human consumption. Studies show that increasing atmospheric levels of CO₂ have an unfavourable effect on the nutrients in plants. As the carbon concentration in the plant's tissues increase, there is a corresponding decrease in the concentration of elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, zinc and iodine. Of significant concern is the protein content of plants, which also decreases in relation to elevating carbon content.

Irakli Loladze explains that the lack of essential nutrients in crops contributes the problem of micronutrient malnutrition in society, commonly known as “hidden hunger”; despite adequate caloric intake, the body still is not nutritionally satisfied and therefore continues to be “hungry”. This problem is aggravated by the rising cost of food, resulting in a global shift towards diets which are less expensive, but high in calories, fats, and animal products. This results in undernutrition and an increase in obesity and diet-related chronic diseases.

Countries worldwide are already impacted by deficiencies in micronutrients and are seeing the effects in the health of their populations. Iron deficiency affects more than 3.5 billion people; increasing maternal mortality and hindering cognitive development in children, leading to education losses. Iodine deficiency leads to ailments like goitre, brain damage and cretinism and is a problem in at least 130 different countries. Even though these deficiencies are invisible, they have great potential to impact human health on a global scale.

Small increases in CO₂ levels can cause a CO₂ fertilization effect where the growth and reproduction abilities of C₃ plants such as soybeans and rice are actually enhanced by 10-20% in laboratory experiments. This does not take into account, however, the additional burden of pests, pathogens, nutrients and water affecting the crop yield. EMsmile (talk) 06:21, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

References

Also this one: poorly sourced and not directly relevant here. Move to somewhere else or just delete?

Coral

With degradation of protective coral reefs through acidic erosion, bleaching and death, salt water is able to infiltrate fresh ground water supplies that large populations depend on. Nowhere is this more evident than atoll islands. These islands possess limited freshwater supplies, namely ground water lenses and rain fall. When the protective coral reefs surrounding them erodes due to higher temperatures and acidic water chemistry, salt water is able to infiltrate the lens and contaminate the drinking water supply. In coastal Bangladesh it has been demonstrated that seasonal hypertension in pregnant women is connected with such phenomenon due to high sodium intake from drinking water. Reef erosion, coupled with sea level rise, tends to flood low-lying areas more frequently during storm surges and weather events. Warming ocean waters generate larger and more devastating weather events that can decimate coastal populations especially without the protection of coral reefs. EMsmile (talk) 10:56, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

References

Also this one: outdated, general broad statements, not directly related to health. Move to somewhere else or just delete?

Human health (and oceans)

The health of our oceans has a direct effect on the health humans. According to Small and Nicholls, they estimated that 1.2 billion people worldwide, lived in the near-coastal region (within 100 km and 100m of the shoreline). This data was collected in 1990 and therefore is a conservative estimate in modern terms. In the U.S. alone 53% of the population lives within 50 miles of the coastal shoreline. Humans rely heavily on oceans for food, employment, recreation, weather patterns and transportation. In the U.S. alone the lands adjacent to the oceans contribute over $1 trillion annually through these various activities not to mention pharmaceutical and medicinal discoveries. In all, the oceans are very important for our survival as a species. EMsmile (talk) 11:01, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

References

Article needs trimming

The article currently has 80 kB of readable prose and is therefore way too long (see also here for guidance). My first impression is that for many of the sections, the article goes into too much depth and doesn't appropriately link to, or make use of, sub-articles. There is also overlap with Effects of climate change on humans that needs to be sorted out. EMsmile (talk) 04:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

I have done the work today that I had suggested on 11 March (nobody had objected to it). When I looked at the article more closely, I found a lot of essay-like, opinionated material. Some of it was like WP:OR. Some of it went into way too much detail. Whereever possible, I have not deleted content but moved it to relevant sub-articles. Only when I wasn't sure, I copied it to the talk page (see above). My ambition was to re-focus the article on the effects of climate change on human health - direct and indirect effects. But for the indirect effects I had to draw the line somewhere. E.g. that information about the mountain pine beetle in North America and forest fires was too far removed. It is now here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_and_ecosystems . For each step in the edit summary I explained where I have moved content to. So I hope others who are watching this article are broadly in agreement with the work that I have done. This is still work in progress. EMsmile (talk) 11:26, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Woo, that's a fairly comprehensive hatchet job... but well executed as far as I can see. Thanks for parcelling stuff out to more specific sub-articles, this does help a lot. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:12, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with Elmidae. It's not pleasure to substantially re-write or trim other peoples work, at least not if you have inclusionist leanings, but sometimes it's best for the reader. Thanks for taking this on. PS – sorry not to be helping out as much as I might have implied above. Its got busy in my day job, so may have to be on a wiki break for a while. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:59, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your notes of support, Elmidae and FeydHuxtable - much appreciated! I think articles such as this one may suffer from "slippage" over time for example when students add content while doing assignments but don't understand the structure of articles plus sub-articles correctly. So over time the articles gets more and more blown out, whereas the relevant sub-articles are perhaps starved of content (or dublicate the same content). - Looking forward to collaborate more after your wiki break, FeydHuxtable. :-) EMsmile (talk) 02:26, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Apollojj. Peer reviewers: Greifaq, Webarnold.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Shislegm. Peer reviewers: Hennsr.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): VillanuevaL.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Move content about floods and health to floods

I think the section on floods and health impacts is overly detailed and the bulk of it should be moved to floods. That's because those health impacts are the same for any type of flood, whether it's caused by climate change or not. I've also left a message on the talk page of floods so you can either comment there or here. EMsmile (talk) 12:10, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I've made that change now. The same applies for heat wave, drought and wild fire. EMsmile (talk) 09:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Restructuring along the lines of the Lancet countdown document from 2021

I've just done a major restructuring of this article, after having a call with Ian Hamilton yesterday, a content expert. We felt it would be better to structure this article along the lines of the document "The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future", Panel 1 on page 5. I think it's a lot clearer now. More work remains to cull out some outdated content, or content that goes into too much depth for things that are covered elsewhere (like health impacts from wildfires). Also, I would like to add more of the "headline findings" from the Lancet report as they seem very good to me. EMsmile (talk) 15:14, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

yes, a very good source[2] to use for this --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:14, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Types of pathways affecting health

There should be more information explaining how the different pathways affect health, so I am planning on doing more research on this topic.Jime7878 (talk) 01:40, 23 April 2022 (UTC)Jime7878(talk) 18:38, 22 April 2022 (UTC).

Exposure of vulnerable populations to heatwaves

There's information about the risk of dying from a heatwave but it’s from a 2015 report. I’ll try to see if there are more recent updates on that information. Jime7878 (talk) 01:48, 23 April 2022 (UTC)Jime7878 (talk) 18:48, 22 April 2022 (UTC).

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Policy Analysis

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 March 2022 and 30 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jime7878 (article contribs).

I've removed a recently added paragraph as it didn't fit well here and was using old references. Might fit better at effects of climate change on agriculture: "In order for fisheries and agriculture industries to produce food they need to be dependent on climate. When the climate changes drastically, it can affect this sectors and overall the U.S economy. For example, droughts and floods can lead to challenges for agriculture industries therefore it can threaten food safety. For instance, when flooding occurs the crops can get damaged or the food can become contaminated since floodwaters can transport sewage, pathogens and toxins. Overall, “higher growing season temperatures can significantly impact agricultural productivity, farm incomes and food security”." EMsmile (talk) 09:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Similarly, this text block is also not an improvement. It makes sweeping statements and is repetitive with content that is already in the article, using outdated sources: "Elderly and those who have pre-existing illnesses are more likely to die from cardiovascular, respiratory and cerebrovascular diseases. Furthermore, other vulnerable populations get affected the most due to climate change. Vulnerable populations are those who are at higher risk of health disparities. For example, children and low income families seem to be disproportionately affected by climate change. In 2000, there were more than 15,000 deaths worldwide because climate change has been increasing the global burden of disease and 88% of children got affected due to this burden. Vector-borne diseases and diarrheal and respiratory diseases have increased. "Vector-borne diseases also have wider socioeconomic impacts, increasing health inequities, and acting as a brake on socioeconomic development"." EMsmile (talk) 09:56, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Compare also with climate change and children. EMsmile (talk) 09:56, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

By the way, you left out a zero when quoting from that paper: It says there: "Climate change is increasing the global burden of disease and in the year 2000 was responsible for > 150,000 deaths worldwide. Of this disease burden, 88% fell upon children." in any case, one needs to be very careful and accurate when quoting health information and it's not always easy to attribute deaths to climate change. See also a discussion here on the talk page of the climate change article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_change/Archive_90#The_sentence:_%22WHO_has_estimated_that_between_2030_and_2050,_climate_change_would_cause_around_250,000_additional_deaths_per_year.%22 EMsmile (talk) 10:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

References

Past and future

I didn’t notice that this article addressed measurable health effects that have already happened, as distinguished from ones that are anticipated. I think there ought to be a section or subsection devoted to ones that have already happened. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:24, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

The article has plenty of information on effects that are already being observed. Just picking out a random sentence: "A study that investigated 13,115 cities found that extreme heat exposure of a wet bulb globe temperature above 30 °C tripled between 1983 and 2016." I would say particularly the health impacts of heatwaves has been well studied already (and as climate change causes more heatwaves, this connection is there). I don't think it's worth to structure the article with headings such as "current effects" and "future effects" as these things are fluid (unless you wanted a section of perhaps 50 years into the future). Note also that the body of evidence is growing every month which is why I have linked that article from the Lancet Planetary Health ("Heat exposure and cardiovascular health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis") just above on this talk page. Someone just needs to find the time to add this new information to the article. Note also the article on Effects of climate change on mental health which I recently worked on. It also gives information about current observations as well as future predictions. EMsmile (talk) 07:32, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Some sort of timeline would be very useful. What would the first item in the timeline be? Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:30, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Please update with an overview of quantifying tracking of impacts

Could there be an overview section with plain numbers and stats of (especially routinely/regularly) tracked impacts? Recently featured this in 2022 in science:

A comprehensive annually scheduled study finds climate change is "undermining every dimension of global health monitored" and reports dire conclusions from tracking of impact indicators.

Most useful there would probably be graphics summarizing the impacts in a set of combined charts (they probably don't exist yet / aren't in the commons but editors could also create them based on data from studies).

Moreover, the article Global health may also need to get worked on a bit to add related info there.

References

Prototyperspective (talk) 16:12, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Publications on heat-related morbidity and mortality

This publication in the Lancet looks interesting and worth citing: "Heat exposure and cardiovascular health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis" (link here). I don't have time for it myself right now but putting it here as a suggestion for others. EMsmile (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I've asked for advice at WikiProject Medicine how and where exactly content on heat-related morbidity and mortality should be added. Some suggestions for additional publications were made here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Heat-related_morbidity_and_mortality . I also wonder if this kind of content is better places at heat illness and then linked to from here? EMsmile (talk) 10:50, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Content about impact on sleep

I've deleted the following as it's unlikely to meet WP:MEDRS and also because the reviewing expert (see above) said "Again, this is one study. And it did not have appropriate controls. Suggest deleting." These are the two sentences: Global warming is projected to substantially erode sleep worldwide, especially for residents from lower-income countries. The greatest increases of ambient temperatures were recorded at night.

The AR 6 WG II report does mention sleep here and there, for example in this statement on page 1078: A similar relationship between heat and mood has been observed in China, where expressed mood began to decrease when the average daily temperature was over 20°C (Wang et al., 2020b). The causal mechanism is unclear but could be due to impacts on health, economic costs or social interactions (Belkin and Kouchaki, 2017; Osberghaus and Kühling, 2016) or reduced quality or quantity of sleep (Fujii et al., 2015; Obradovich et al., 2017; Obradovich and Migliorini, 2018)

So we could perhaps put something about sleep back in but with more reliable refs. EMsmile (talk) 11:34, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 11:34, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Numbers on excess deaths

I have removed these two sentences because it seems to me that these are individual studies but that for important numbers like that we should reply on data compiled in the IPCC AR 6 report rather. The comment by the reviewing expert for this was "And what about all the studies that reached very different conclusions?"

A 2021 study found that climate change is responsible for 5 million excess deaths annually worldwide. Another 2021 study estimated 9 million to 83 million excess deaths from climate change between 2020 and 2100, depending on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. EMsmile (talk) 14:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 14:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Content about physical activity

Hi User:FeydHuxtable I am surprised you put this content back in and dismissed the comment of an expert with the following edit summary (what has the bible got to do here with anything?!): "restore sourced content - regardless of what any "expert" may claim, the evidence on physical activity is extensive & overwhelming - this sort of thing is written about even in the Holy Bible (Mat 20:12) & there have been thousands of recent studies - many top tier like BMJ, CIH, Oxford University press etc". I am actually finding it a bit rude that you put quotation marks around the term expert in your statement. She's actually one of the authors of the publication that was cited for those statements so if she has concerns then I think it's worth listening to her and investigating further. This is the publication in question: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01787-6/fulltext (I think it was even me who put some of this in in the first place, taken from that publication).

I'll send the expert an e-mail and tell her about your concern but perhaps you can clarify which reliable source (following WP:MEDRS) is suitable here to substantiate these statements? It might not be as clear cut as you make it seem. In any case, I don't think that we need a separate section heading for this short piece of content.

Also, I don't think this sentence is very clear: " for example during the past four decades "the number of hours in which temperatures were too high for safe outdoor exercise" increased by an average loss of 3.7 hours for people in developing countries (low HDI country group)."

This is the content in question:

Heat and physical activity

High temperatures can reduce the frequency and duration of physical activity as well as the desire to engage in exercise.

The higher temperatures may have a substantial effect on human physiology and mental health. These effects may also be indirect: for example during the past four decades "the number of hours in which temperatures were too high for safe outdoor exercise" increased by an average loss of 3.7 hours for people in developing countries (low HDI country group). EMsmile (talk) 13:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 13:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

P.S. Maybe it'll be easier if I include you in the e-mail exchange with the excerpt and also send you her marked up pdf file that I am working with? If you know a lot about this topic and have time to get involved then it might be a more efficient route this way. If you want to go down that path, just send me an e-mail through the internal Wikipedia e-mail system so that I have your e-mail address. EMsmile (talk) 13:16, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Maybe it was hot-headed to add the quotes round expert, & I apologise for coming across as rude. But it was rather shocking to see advice from the expert: "The evidence on physical activity is limited and weak" being used to remove mention of the impact on physical activity and labour capacity from the lede & body. There's over a billion outdoor workers facing -ve health impacts from climate change via the heat channel - there is abundant & undeniable evidence for this. So IMO we should definitely be retaining coverage of this aspect in the article.

The Bible mention was just to show the adverse effects of heat on workers has been a known thing for thousands of years. If one searches Google Scholar for "climate change and heat stress on workers" there are over a half million results, there are over 17,000 even if you limit it to papers published 2022 & later.

Here's a couple of papers that look at the issue from a global perspective The Direct Impact of Climate Change on Regional Labor Productivity , Estimating population heat exposure and impacts on working people in conjunction with climate change. Some of the more local studies have most concerning findings: Heat strain, volume depletion and kidney function in California agricultural workers female workers ... have greatly increased odds of developing acute kidney injury. Here's a 2023 study published by Oxford University Press just on the specific relationship between climate change and kidney issues: Climate change and nephrology. Even in an advanced country like the US, climate change related heat deaths by their > 1 million agriculture workers already led to several states imposing new protective regulations back in 2021, and the risk of further deaths (at least in terms of "number of days spent working in unsafe conditions") is expected to "double by mid-century, and, without mitigation, triple by the end of it"

As to which particular RS we should use, the existing Lancet source is among the best by MEDS criteria. I'll reword the sentence you've flagged as unclear. Im not sure about discussing with the expert by email, I may get back to you. As long as we don't totally remove all mention of the health impact on physical activity / workers I'd probably not object to any fine tuning the expert suggests. PS, the removal of the risk posed via Ozone increases during heatwaves is another deletion that should maybe be reversed. I understand the expert believes "WGI concluded, based on new research, that ozone is not likely to increase." - as I recall the AR6 findings on Ozone were nuanced & somewhat tentative; I dont recall any mention that Ozone is going to decrease in the context of the health hazardous ( >100 µg/m³ ) concentrations increasingly found in the air breathed by city dwellers during heatwaves. I guess perhaps that spikes of "ciy air" Ozone may deacrease as electrification progresses, but for now it's very much a live health problem. That said, I'm less confident about that compared to case that we ought not to remove all mention of the effect on physical activity & workers.FeydHuxtable (talk) 15:01, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Checking AR6, WG2, Chp7 Health, Wellbeing and the Changing Structure of Communities it has much to say about the negative impact of climate change & heat on physical activity & workers. It may be best not to pile on too much alarming content so I only added a v small amount to the article. Incidently, while I was only looking for info related to physical activity, I noticed Chp7 says this about Ozone: "rates of adverse health impacts from ozone air pollution exposure have increased (very high confidence)" - I'd guess any findings about Ozone not being expected to increase might be at some higher atmospheric layer that arent generally inhaled by humans. I'll wait a few days before adding back the mention of increased Ozone during heatwaves, in case you or the expert still feel its not due weight. Or perhaps I'm missing something, I dont know much about O3 compared to heat stress. Other than the physical activity & Ozone thing, it was nice to see so much improvement to the article today - thanks to you and the expert for that. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:37, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for these clarifications! Great stuff. I think your concern is more about the outdoor workers (which I share and which is included in the section on labour capacity), whereas the other sentence which I had removed and which is now back in was more about excercise (sporting activities) outdoors, right? It said "High temperatures can reduce the frequency and duration of physical activity as well as the desire to engage in exercise." I think the argument there was that when it gets hotter people are less likely to go jogging hence put on weight and have mental health issues. This argument seems somewhat flawed (and U.S. centric maybe?) because even in hot countries (e.g. Australia), outdoor exercise is popular. The expert had said "The evidence on physical activity is limited and weak" - I think she was referring to outdoor sport, not labour but I will check this with her.

About ozone, I'll investigate this also a bit more with the expert. Her point was (for the mention in the lead) "WGI concluded, based on new research, that ozone is not likely to increase. This should be removed to be consistent with WGI." So maybe the solution is to discuss it in the main text but to not have it in the lead. It might be undue weight in the lead? - I plan to enter part 2 of her comments into the article today. To be continued. :-) EMsmile (talk) 11:30, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes you're right EMsmile. Impact on workers was my made concern -as CC has already impacted hundreds of millions in that regard, and there are hundreds of thousands of studies touching on this - it would be good if 'labour capacity' could be added back to the lede. I guess it can wait for the expert to clarify if their "limited and weak" point was just about recreational exercise & sport. Im still of the opinion we should have a brief mention of the exercise / sport impact at least in the body; impact on sport is mentioned several times in the AR6 WG2 chapter I linked to above. But you've long been the main editor on this page, so if you go ahead & delete the "physical activity" section again, that's fine. Sorry again for being a bit hasty on that before. Similarly happy to defer to you on whether its due weight to mention Ozone in the lede. FeydHuxtable (talk) 14:47, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I am glad we got that worked out together, thank for your the fruitful collaboration once more. The term "physical activity" is a bit confusing, as least for a non-native speaker like me. Is it outdoor work or is it outdoor sport. In any case, I have put the part about outdoor work back into the lead now. Looking at the marked up pdf file again, the expert had only highlighted the words "physical activity" in the lead, and commented "The evidence on physical activity is limited and weak", but had not highlighted the words "and labour capacity". So it was mistake to have taken out both of them from the lead. This is a good example what happens when a non-expert gets advice from an expert and then still gets it wrong when trying to edit the Wikipedia article accordingly! So you were definitely right in objecting to the removal of "and labour capacity" from the lead!

I will also think more about the ozone question and check with her again. The lead is still on the short side (361 words), it could be brought up to say 550 words. In that case there would be space for the ozone question.

And I don't see myself as the main author or an expert on this topic (even if I have indeed made lots of edits to the article). It's a fascinating topic; I am just a member of the interested public who's trying to get the content experts to have a look and to let us know what needs changing. I am going to work further on this in the coming days as I have still have half of the marked-up pdf file to get through. EMsmile (talk) 09:31, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Depending on context, some native english spakers might take "physical activity" to mean the broad class of bodily actions - including things like manual labour, sports, walking for transport reasons, etc. But like you say it's ambiguous, and some might take it to mean just excercise & sport. Great to know you have further improvements comming soon. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:21, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Took out text block about water security issues

I've removed a text block that had been added by a student in this edit. The content is not wrong but does not belong here in as much depth. It's covered well at water security and with better references. Copied below here in case someone wants to rescue something.

Water management

Climate change poses a threat to our current systems for water management, which in turn poses a threat to the availability of drinking water. Traditional water management systems use rely heavily on the assumption of stationarity. Stationarity in water management is "the idea that natural systems fluctuate within an unchanging envelope of variability." The significant anthropogenically induced change in Earth's climate has altered hydrologic stationarity, changing the means and extremes of precipitation, evapotranspiration, and river discharge rates. Traditionally, water plans are based on historic data, such as streamflow data and historic precipitation rates. With the variability of climate change, many of these models are rendered ineffective. For example, in the Colorado basin, there has been an observed increase in high and low stream flow by 24% when compared to historic data. This increase variability in the water cycle has the potential to render traditional methods of water planning and management ineffective, leading to shortage of drinking water supply.

Water quality

Water quality can be affected by climate change in several ways. In some regions, climate change will drive an increase in precipitation. The increasing volume of water has the potential to overwhelm sewer systems and water treatment plants, resulting in contaminated water entering municipal water supplies. Moreover, heavy downpours can increase runoff into surface water bodies. Runoff contaminants may include sediments, nutrients, pollutants, animal excrement, and other harmful materials. The increase in runoff into surface waters can result in a degradation of water quality. In addition, freshwater resources along the coastline are at risk of saltwater contamination. As the sea level rises with climate change, saltwater will move into freshwater areas, contaminating drinking water supplies. Moreover, the increase in water consumption in regions of drought can cause salt waters to infiltrate further upstream as freshwater is drained from rivers and reservoirs upstream. The increase in droughts can lead to saltwater contamination in once-reliable freshwater sources.

Water treatment

In areas of increased flooding and precipitation, water treatment plants will not be able to keep up with the increased water volume, leading to contamination. On the other end of the spectrum, the increase in droughts and temperatures can result in lower streamflow, therefore treatment will have to be increased to meet minimum flow requirements in some regions. On top of this, rising sea levels from climate change can damage infrastructure and reduce treatment efficiency. As water treatment becomes less effective, water-borne diseases will become more prevalent.

Water related illnesses

See also: Waterborne disease and climate change

Climate change increases the risk of illness via "increasing temperature, more frequent heavy rains and runoff, and the effects of storms". EMsmile (talk) 22:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 22:08, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

ICD codes

I note there is no {{medical resources}}, and I'm not confident it's needed; but, if anyone does want to add, the ICD offers the following "external cause" codes for effects of excessive natural heat:

• ICD-11 NF01
• ICD-10 X30

Little pob (talk) 08:47, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I removed mention of suicide (for now)

I've removed this sentence (copied below in green) for two reasons: I couldn't figure out why they use "non-accidental and injury-related deaths" instead of just suicide. Also, the aspect of suicide is included in the sub-article effects of climate change on mental health so I think we might not really need it here. Also from memory, I think the evidence on suicide from heat alone is rather weak. Mind you, Chapter 7 of the WG 2 report does mention suicide a few times. So perhaps it's worth having, I am undecided. This article is the overview article and cannot tackle everything in depth (whereas the suicide issue is covered in the sub-article effects of climate change on mental health.

This is the sentence in question: They also reported increases in "non-accidental and injury-related deaths" (e.g. suicides). EMsmile (talk) 10:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

References

EMsmile (talk) 10:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Expert review (April 2023)

Hi, as part of this project we have contacted content experts for this topic and kindly got comments by a reviewer from a university in the United States. She sent them to us in a marked up pdf file. Over the course of next week, I will be addressing her comments and editing the Wikipedia article accordingly. Here are some upfront comments by her which she sent to us by e-mail on 10 April 2023 (and has allowed me to post them here):

• There are sections of the article that comes from WGI. I am not checking those in detail. They are helpful to include.
• The article often lacks nuance, with statements that climate change “will” result in particular impacts, without any discussion of assumptions about adaptation, mitigation, or development pathway. The result is the article is often a statement of the worst case.
• The impression is the article is a series of one sentence summaries from specific papers, not an assessment or even synthesis.
• The papers selected are often those that show the most extreme association between weather/climate and health, often without discussion of the range of associations. At some points, it feels more like an advocacy piece, than a scientifically balanced article. There is no indication what criteria were used to select the papers.
• With all that, bringing the article up to date could range from focusing on correcting inaccuracies to starting to update the references. There of course is no guarantee that other people won’t add back some of the removed material. Updating the references is obviously a more significant effort.
• Another point for discussion: there is a move by some in the scientific community to not label communities or populations as vulnerable or marginalized because it takes away agency. While I understand and agree with the point, I don’t see a consensus on alternative language, so I don’t have any particular suggestions — this is just for your information. (comment added by me: reply from User:Jonathanlynn by e-mail on this point was "I'm not an expert but it seems to me difficult to avoid describing some groups or countries as vulnerable when discussing climate impacts. Perhaps "exposed"?" EMsmile (talk) 11:11, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I am almost through with addressing all the changes that this expert has sent me via a marked-up Word document. Remaining sections that I still need to go through to address her comments are those for food security and ozone. For food security, I don't want to go into too much depth because we have the sub-article effects of climate change on agriculture. Remaining work for this article as far as I can see (I won't get back to this until early next week; if anyone has time to tackle any of this, in particular Points 3-7, please do; also if you have more points to add to the list, please do:

1. Improving the content on food security but without adding too much detail (so not making it longer); also looking at the water security section again.
2. Improving the content about ozone (see also comments below on this talk page).
3. Re-checking if any of the sentences that are written as quoted text could be changed into own text.
4. Reviewing the entire article for improvements in reading ease. I use this website to check the reading ease score.
5. Make the lead longer and a better summary of the article (I think 450 to 500 words would be ideal).
6. Looking for suitable images for the article.
7. In particular for the lead, I am wondering if we should have a 2 x 2 image collage like we have for climate change adaptation? EMsmile (talk) 12:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)