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NEWS
& TOOLS FOR HEALTH
PROFESSIONALS |
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Welcome to Healthy Environment,
Healthy Tomorrow, a quarterly e-newsletter produced
by the Oregon Environmental Council (OEC). Here you will find timely
information on the latest science, news and resources on the link between
health and the environment.
In this issue, we focus on the impacts
of climate change on human health. Public concern about global warming is
increasing with An Inconvenient Truth winning an Academy Award for best
documentary this February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the federal
government has the right to regulate heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2)
earlier this month; comprehensive global warming legislation currently
being considered by the Oregon Legislature this session, and the 4th
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due out
in May.
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Health
Impacts of Global Warming in Brief |
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An unstable climate poses a
number of physical and biological risks. Warming favors the spread of
infectious diseases such as malaria, West
Nile virus, and Lyme disease. Warming increases the production
of smog and allergens, which in turn exacerbate asthma and other
respiratory distress. Warming leads to more extreme weather events such as
heat waves and floods, which create conditions conducive to disease
outbreaks. And climate change and infectious diseases threaten essential
life-support systems such as livestock, agriculture, forests and marine
life.
In this issue we will explore two lesser known connections
between global warming and human health: greater mercury content in fish
and more poisonous poison ivy!
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The
Mercury/Global Warming Link |
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Warming oceans, changes in
the hydrological cycle, and forest fires are all linked to higher levels
of mercury contamination in fish. A study in the Faroe Islands, a group of
islands in Northern Europe, demonstrated
that with just a one degree rise in ocean temperatures, mercury
concentrations in cod and pilot whales increase 3 to 5 percent. (1) A study in Minnesota found that during major flooding episodes,
methylmercury concentrations are elevated in Minnesota rivers,
mostly due to mercury runoff from nearby land surfaces. (2) And Canadian researchers found that forest
fires caused a five-fold increase in mercury accumulation in rainbow trout
in lakes within the fire zone. (3) Climate change is predicted to increase all
three of these phenomenon resulting in even fewer fish that are safe for
human consumption.
(1)
Booth, S. and Zeller, D.
Mercury, Food Webs, and Marine Mammals: Implications of Diet and Climate
Change for Human Health. Environmental
Health Perspectives 113(5): 521-526 (May 2005).
(2)
Balogh, S., Swain, E.B.,
Nollet, Y.H. Elevated methylmercury concentrations and loadings during
flooding in Minnesota rivers.
Science of the Total Environment 368(1): 138-148 (September 2006) (from
selected papers from the 7th International Conference on Mercury as a
Global Pollutant,
Slovenia,
2004).
(3) Kelly, E.N., Schindler,
D.W., St. Louis, V.L., Donald, D.B., Vladicka, K.E. Forest fire increases
mercury accumulation by fishes via food web restructuring and increased
mercury inputs. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 103(51): 19380-19385 (December
2006).
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Global
Warming May Aid Noxious Weeds |
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Noxious weeds, including
poison ivy and ragweed – the pollen of which is a leading cause of
allergies – will flourish as levels of CO2 in the atmosphere increase. At
an experimental plot where scientists can precisely control the
concentration of carbon dioxide in the air, Duke University researchers discovered
that when exposed to higher levels of CO2, poison ivy goes haywire.
The plant not only grew faster, but produced a more noxious form of its
rash-causing chemical – in other words, a more poisonous poison ivy. The
study found that poison ivy grew about 149 percent faster in an
environment with a higher concentration of CO2. At the same time, urushiol
– the chemical in poison ivy that causes rashes and sometimes more serious
symptoms – was found to be about 153 percent more concentrated per leaf.
And rising CO2 seems to favor the growth of weeds above the growth of
plants we’d prefer to see succeed. (4)
(4) Mohan, J.E., Ziska, L.H., Schlesinger, W.H., Thomas, R.B.,
Sicher, R.C., George, K., Clark, J.S. Biomass and toxicity responses of
poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) to elevated atmospheric
CO2. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 103 (24): 9086-9089 (June
2006)
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Tools
You Can Use: Preventing Pollen Impact |
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The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma &
Immunology recommends these easy methods to reduce exposure to
pollen:
- Avoid being outside during
the early morning and late afternoon hours. Pollen levels peak during
these times.
- Keep car and house windows
closed, and use the air conditioner to help keep out pollen.
- For laundry, use a clothes
dryer that will filter out pollen trapped on
clothing.
- Consider vacationing in
areas low in pollen, such as the beach.
- Reduce the amount of
pollen you bring indoors by taking off shoes and outer clothing before
you go inside.
- Before going to bed, wash
your hair to reduce the amount of pollen you might inhale while
sleeping.
Oregon
has the opportunity to take a leadership role in solving global warming.
Doing so is vital to protecting our health, our environment and our
economy. Three bills laying out smart, practical policy on global warming
have been introduced in the state legislature. For more on these bills and
Oregon
opportunities to lead in global warming solutions, click here. And send an email message to your legislators today urging
them to vote yes on this legislation.
Climate change predicted to have dire effects on health:
Experts urge action now to prevent deaths April 2007 (an article in
American Public Health Association’s The Nation’s Health, April
2007).
Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic
Dimensions (a report by the Harvard Medical School, November
2005).
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