How Climate Change Affects Our Health In order to stay healthy, we need to make sure our surroundings are healthy. That includes our home, our friends, our family, and—most importantly—our planet. There’s only one planet Earth, and as humans living on it, it’s our job to make sure we keep it healthy so that it, in turn, will keep us healthy as well. With people denying the existence of climate change, however, taking care of Earth becomes more difficult than it needs to be. Not everyone realizes just how the climate crisis affects us immediately, so learning just how climate change impacts us is a good first step toward healing our world. Here are a few ways climate change is affecting our health.
Heatwaves Extreme heat is more deadly than any other weather-related hazard in the world, being responsible for more deaths than tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes in the United States alone. Heat can overwhelm the human body and make it difficult to maintain healthy body temperature while shutting off our only means of cooling ourselves down: sweating. If it’s too hot and too humid, sweat isn’t able to evaporate and won’t be able to cool us down as a result; likewise, prolonged exposure to heat will shut down our ability to sweat first. Additionally, being exposed to extreme heat for too long can lead to heat cramps, heat exhaustion (which requires
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emergency medical treatment), and—most seriously—heat stroke (which can lead to death without immediate medical attention).
Hurricanes Hurricanes are widely known to be the cause of mass destruction when they roll up to the coast, and climate change is only making this weather more extreme—and more dangerous. Floodwaters from hurricanes can remain long after the rain stops, and the swamped areas can lead to an increase in waterborne infections and diseases like cholera. Mold can take over an area and cause serious respiratory problems for people who remain in the area. Vector-borne illnesses can also arise and be spread by swamp-dwelling insects like mosquitoes, fleas, mites, and ticks. As the climate changes and more areas become hospital toward vector-borne illnesses, the scope of disease outbreaks is changing and beginning to pop up where they didn’t previously exist.
Infectious Disease Warmer environments and an increase in rainstorms both create the perfect habitat for insects to thrive. At a broad glance, this might seem like nothing more than an annoyance that’ll leave us with a few itchy bumps after spending time outdoors, but in reality, an increase in insects like mosquitoes, ticks, and flies means an increase of (potentially deadly) disease. Known as vectors to scientists, insects are known as the deadliest animal to humans and are spreading and bringing these diseases farther than they ever have before. Climate change causes warmer weather and still waters, which causes these vectors to live longer lives and migrate to places that were previously too cold for them to survive. Climate change is also helping waterborne pathogens like bacteria, viruses, and protozoa to grow because they, too, thrive in warmer climates. This is also a danger to our health. Scientists have already found a rise in certain infectious diseases around the globe due to vectors and waterborne pathogens. This includes Lyme disease (transmitted by ticks), West Nile virus (transmitted by mosquitoes which have fed on infected birds), malaria (transmitted by mosquitoes), and flesh-eating bacteria (caused by vibriosis in warm seawater).
Mental Health In addition to physical ailments, this extreme weather can also take a toll on people’s mental health, which can drastically affect a person’s well-being. Since mental illness is often unseen, these health issues are normally left in the background and ignored in favor of easier-to-understand health conditions, if not forgotten about entirely. This isn’t a good thing, as
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some people can experience serious mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. Displacement and being forced to relocate after a disaster like a hurricane can also inflict acculturation stress onto the survivors of the natural disaster: this means that migrants are more likely to develop psychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia, than the native population of where they’ve migrated to or those who voluntarily migrate to a different location. People who go through a natural disaster related to climate (hurricanes, floods, bush fires, etc.) are also “at a greater risk of developing acute stress reaction and adjustment disorder.” These are generally anxiety-spectrum disorders that, with proper treatment, can subside over time, though others can develop bipolar disorder or depression. Depression, in particular, is likely to be more pronounced in those who live in small towns as opposed to large cities, and as climate change continues to increase, mental illnesses will probably impact a greater number of people in relation to climate change-related disasters. This is particularly concerning for farmers, whose livelihoods often suffer substantially because of droughts brought on by heatwaves. In both developed and developing countries, a link has been found between droughts and farmer suicides. Economic hardships fall onto farmers when crops fail because of the climate, and adding crop failure to increased expenses, debt traps, prolonged exposure to heat, and migration ultimately leads to an increased number of suicide attempts made by farmers alone. Farmers aren’t the only ones at risk of suicide; as shown with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, the devastating aftermath of the storm plus pure desperation led to the number of calls to the suicide hotline to double after years of dropping. By the end of 2017, the suicide rate in Puerto Rico increased 29% compared to the previous year.
Take Away As it can clearly be seen, climate change has a larger impact on the health of humans than some people believe. As residents on Earth, it’s our job to take care of the planet because when we do, the planet will take care of us in turn. Start looking at your own carbon footprint, join nonprofit organizations whose mission is to help the environment, contact your government officials to inform them of how climate change is a big deal—whatever you decide to do, taking care of Earth starts with all of us. You can help decide whether we continue to watch it die, or help do your part so we can ensure it’ll continue to survive.
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Leadership Quotes for Crisis Management As we continue to live in uncertain times, it can be easy to fall into despair—especially if you’re part of a management team. Everyone is looking up to you for what to do and how to handle situations while working in an entirely different environment, and you won’t always have an answer. In moments like these, it’s helpful to find something that inspires us to keep pushing forward no matter the crisis at hand, because that’s what a good leader does. Some go to Pinterest for this, some decide to meditate, and some look at quotes to keep them going. Here are a few crisis management and leadership quotes to help you keep striving for excellence.
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“Any deep crisis is an opportunity to make your life extraordinary in some way.” — Martha Beck “In crisis management, be quick with the facts and slow with the blame.” — Leonard Saffir “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.” — Abraham Lincoln “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” — Theodore Roosevelt
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6. “It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” — George Washington 7. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche 8. “Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day, and that’s the way baseball is.” — Bob Feller 9. “The secret to success is good leadership, and good leadership is all about making the lives of your team members or workers better.” — Tony Dungy 10. “Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.” — Colin Powell 11. “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin
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The Pros and Cons of Owning an Electric Car As people strive to become more energy-efficient, the electric car’s popularity is steadily increasing and becoming as common as Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars. Rather than using petrol or diesel gas engines to power the car as ICE cars do, electric cars are powered by a rechargeable battery-powered engine that can be charged (either for free or a fee) at public charging stations. If you’re considering getting an electric car, it would be wise to consider the pros and cons of owning such a vehicle before making a purchase.
Pros
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Better for the environment: Because these cars are fully electric, they’re better for the environment than ICE vehicles. Electric cars don’t use an exhaust system, so they release no emissions into the air like gas engines do. This helps keep the air cleaner and produces fewer greenhouse gases. Electricity is renewable while gasoline is not: Unlike gas-powered engines, which rely on using oil (a non-renewable resource), electric cars can be powered by renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and water power. Those who take it a step further and install solar panels into their home are able to power their electric cars in their
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garages as well. Electricity is also cheaper than gas, costing a third of what gas-powered cars do to run. Less frequent (and less expensive) maintenance: No gas means no oil, which means no more oil changes to worry about for your car. Maintenance that is typically associated with gas engines will also become a thing of the past. Since electric cars are easier on the brakes, you’ll need to worry about brake replacements less than you do with ICE cars.
Cons
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Shorter range of travel: Unfortunately, electric cars can’t travel as far as gas-powered cars can. Though companies continue to work on finding ways to improve this range, electric cars can still only travel between 60 and 100 miles on a full charge. On the other hand, gas-powered cars can sometimes make it up to 400 miles on a full tank of gas. Recharging takes time: While filling a gas tank up can take a few minutes at the gas station, recharging the battery of an electric car will take much longer. Depending on the model, it can take electric cars up to 20 hours to fully charge (though newer models take about four hours). Having a charging station in your garage can make this more manageable, though, and there are kits that can help cut down the recharge time of your vehicle. Difficult to find a charging station: While some areas have a plethora of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to stop at, this isn’t the case for everywhere. Don’t expect to take a road trip in an electric car anytime soon unless you know where recharging stations are along your route. This may not be an issue for much longer as more spots pop up around the country, but until then, this will be an obstacle to overcome when making trips anywhere.
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