[ad_1]
Elsewhere in the world, mudslides erupted in the Japanese town of Atami in Shizuoka prefecture, entire villages were flooded by torrential rain in West Germany, and a fire destroyed the Canadian town of Lytton.
Some of these disasters pose physical dangers to children. Get hot flashes and extreme heat: Pregnant people, babies, and young children are all more susceptible to heatstroke than older children and most adults because their bodies can’t cool down and stay that way. Studies even show that unborn babies exposed to extreme heat while in the womb can lead to negative health outcomes later, such as lower birth weight.
For older children, as the number of hot days increases with global warming, they are at risk of heatstroke in schools without air conditioning and during outdoor activities, such as sports.
The latest IPCC assessment also discusses how disasters, both acute exposure to one and then long-term recovery from one, can damage the mental health and well-being of all those affected, especially children.
After a major flood occurred in England in 2000, for example, researchers tracked the health of people whose homes were flooded and not, according to Kristie Ebi of the University of Washington, who helped write the health chapter of the report. “There was a very clear difference in the likelihood of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder” between the different groups, he explained.
Headline-spurring disasters, which are becoming more frequent and more intense, are perhaps the clearest signs of warming of 1.1 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial times. But there’s more to the climate impact here, as a new report has detailed.
Even before my son was born, for example, two species were extinct and climate change played a role: the Golden toad in Costa Rica in 1990, as well as Australia’s Bramble Cay melomy, a type of rodent, in 2016. And a third species. near extinction: Australian lemuroid ringtail possum. And there are more local extinctions: Climate-related local extinctions were detected in 47% of the 976 animal and plant species studied.
The impact of climate change on top of the problem of food availability and high prices can be “a deadly combination for children,” said Rachel Bezner Kerr of Cornell University, coauthor of the IPCC chapter on food systems, “especially in low-income countries, especially low-income households, especially in rural areas.
“So we have one study that shows between 1993 and 2012, increased temperatures are associated with child litter in 30 countries in Africa,” he added. Wasting refers to a child who is too thin for his height, according to the World Health Organization.
Malnutrition is already a huge problem among children in certain developing countries, and the problem will only get worse in a warmer world if special measures are not taken to prevent this possibility.
How Hot Will It Be Fun At My Daughter’s Age?
When world leaders signed the Paris climate agreement in 2016, they agreed to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), ideally to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Now scientists predict that it is “more likely than not” that global average temperatures will exceed 1.5 degrees in the coming decades, regardless. This could happen in 2030, when my son is 10 years old.
That’s why the next few years are so important. How quickly people reduce greenhouse gas emissions this decade will help dictate how the 1.5 degree threshold is exceeded and what happens next. Will the temperature continue to rise or will it start to fall again?
Moreover, what people do now to start adapting to the warming that is already here and locked in for the future will reduce the damage associated with the crisis.
By 2030, for example, it is possible that countries will adopt a bold goal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and water. If so, it could have many benefits, from keeping some species alive to strengthening natural ecosystems that protect against floods, help absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and do much more. And if China moves to a half-decarbonized electricity supply for homes and vehicles by 2030, according to the report, the country can expect to prevent 55,000-69,000 deaths that year.
It could be that urban areas could see flood exposure increase by 2.7 times in 2030 compared to 2000, or an additional 48,000 children under the age of 15 worldwide could die from diarrhea, or the number of people living in extreme poverty could be. Add 122 million, or extreme drought in the Amazon will accelerate the migration of traditional communities and Indigenous peoples to cities, or fresh water will be severely limited to some small islands.
By 2040, when my son is 20, the glaciers on Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, may be gone.
[ad_2]
Source link