In the latest issue of Lancet, scientists argue that global climate change presents the biggest health threat to humans in this century.
Part of the risk is connected to diseases effected by temperature that will become much more prevalent and lethal. But the bigger factor might be the instability among many populations:
Climate change will exacerbate the divide between rich and poor, hitting the poorest communities first and hardest.
Population growth, primarily in least developed regions, will combine with climatic effects to cause instability of food and water supplies. That in turn will drive mass migrations and create civil unrest, they say.
“The Indian government has nearly completed plans for seven-foot-high double-thickness razor wire and steel fence 4500 kilometres long along the entire border with Bangladesh and it’s there to keep out the climate migrants,” said Institute for Health and Human Performance professor Hugh Montgomery.
