Climate Change Could Be the World's Biggest Health Threat

May 14, 2009— -- TORONTO -- The biggest global health threat of this century is climate change, according to a new report prepared jointly by University College London and The Lancet.

Climate change will change for the worse patterns of disease, food security, water and sanitation, and extreme weather, according to Anthony Costello, FRCPCH, of University College London and colleagues.

"This is a bad diagnosis for our children and grandchildren," Dr. Costello told reporters, not only in the developing world but also in industrialized countries.

The journal's editor in chief, Richard Horton, FRCP, said climate change is "an urgent threat, it is a dangerous threat, it is neglected and requires an unprecedented response."

The researchers called for health professionals to get involved in a new "public health movement that frames the threat of climate change for humankind as a health issue."

The 94-page report is to be published in the May 16 issue of The Lancet.

Dr. Costello said the researchers concluded that mean global temperatures will rise by between 2oC and 6oC over the next 100 years.

Among other things, they said, the increase will mean:

Co-author Hugh Montgomery, M.D., also of University College London, said the research suggested that one-third to two-thirds of all known species could go extinct over the next 40 years.

That would be the "fastest mass extinction the world has ever seen," Dr. Montgomery said, and would have harmful effects on humanity, a species at the top of the global food chain.