Jessica Birthisel | April 8, 2011
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| Photo by Ryan Dorgan |
| Science writer Dan Ferber talked about climate change and health during a visit to campus Thursday. |
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The book Changing Planet, Changing Health, co-authored with Paul Epstein, took Ferber around the globe, from Mozambique to Honduras, to investigate how climate change is altering patterns of disease.
Before getting into the public health angle of his reporting, Ferber discussed the scientific basis for climate change.
“I know there’s a lot of confusing information out there, so I’m going through real quick how we know what we know, how we know climate is changing, and how we know human activities are responsible,” said Ferber.
His described how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts as a blanket over the atmosphere, increasing the heat underneath. The collection of data from weather stations all over the world confirms climate changes, said Ferber. Scientists use climate models to predict future climate change and reactions.
“Climate models are sophisticated computer programs that take information about the sun’s intensity, about volcanic emissions and about green house gas production by humans, and they calculate temperature and other variables,” said Ferber. “What’s important here is that these models work. They predict reality.”
Absolute certainty is impossible, said Ferber, but in his years covering science, he said he has rarely seen an issue with such agreement by scientists across the board.
“This is not debated anymore,” said Ferber.
Ferber outlined multiple ways global climate change impacts human health. First, increased temperatures affect the spread of infections diseases. For the book, he interviewed a doctor and malaria expert in Kenya, Andrew Githeko, whose niece was diagnosed with cerebral malaria, one of the deadliest forms of the disease.
This ties into global warming, said Ferber, because the mosquitoes that carry the most dangerous forms of malaria thrive in warmer weather.
“As temperatures warm just a little bit, things happen,” said Ferber. “The mosquito larvae mature faster, the adults take more blood meals and, inside the mosquitoes, the malaria parasites develop faster.”
Closer to home, Ferber said infections disease like Lyme disease and West Nile virus will also thrive in North America as a result of climate change and its impact on environmental moisture.
For the book, Ferber also reported from the United States.
“I went to Harlem, which is the epicenter of an outbreak of asthma in this country,” said Ferber. As a result of burning fossil fuels, high smog levels create a variety of health consequences, particularly in the lungs.
At a Harlem pediatrician’s office, Ferber talked to one mother of three asthmatic children. He said their 0nly option on “bad air days” is to stay inside.
“They can’t go outside and play like kids want to do because they’re so vulnerable to these sort of asthma attacks,” said Ferber.
Other health consequences of global warming, said Ferber, include heat waves and extreme weather, such as downpours, blizzards, floods and droughts, all of which produce a variety of threats to human health.
He cautioned that no one storm can be attributed to global climate change, but patterns over a course of years can and do indicate climate change effects.
Ferber sees promise in the work of Juan Almendares, a doctor in Honduras. One of the for non-governmental agencies he runs, Water for Life, builds water catchment systems for people whose routines and wellness are hurt by a lack access to water.
“These simple measures can go a very long way,” said Ferber, with regard to the health of citizens, particularly those in high-poverty regions.
Githeko, the doctor in Kenya, has made major headway in malaria epidemic prediction through the use of climate data, Ferber said. By computing mosquito biology, temperature, rainfall and other variables, this doctor has been successful in predicting malaria epidemics months ahead of time, thus reducing the severity of the outbreaks.
Heat wave early warning systems are also valuable, said Ferber, and cities without them cite hundreds more deaths in heat waves than the cities that utilize them.
In the book, Ferber and Epsteein look at how to change the conditions that create these situations. They promote a low-carbon economy consisting of large, society-scale changes rooted in a variety of alternative forms of energy.
A smart, cleanly-powered grid fueled by the distribution of renewable energy holds potential, said Ferber. At a global level, he recommends that international organizations provide money to developing countries for the preservation of their forests and the initiation of a renewable energy transition.
Adjunct lecturer Zeynep Altinay, MA’10, who also has a master’s degree in environmental science, has taught science writing courses at the school. She is interested in reading Ferber’s book to examine the solutions he and his co-author offer.
“His talk, and I assume his book, though I haven’t had a chance to read it, held a lot of information for journalism students and policy makers,” she said.
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