Content by: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Posted by: Eco-Question Editor
Source: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Photo Credit: © Victor Azinheira / UNEP, United States– www.unep.org
Special Thanks:
Global warming means more than just summer heat waves. Buildings and roads warm up quickly and hold heat for a long time. So rising temperatures turn cities and towns into real "hot spots." How does that affect our health?
Heat waves can turn summers into bummers. Each day seems hotter than the day before, and we begin to wonder whether it will ever cool off. With global warming, we’ll be sweating through more and more hot times.
Heat waves can hit almost anywhere, but they’re particularly severe in and around cities. That’s no accident. Consider the key ingredients of cities and towns. There are buildings and more buildings, roads and more roads, sidewalks and more sidewalks.
Back to top
(FULL STORY)
Content by: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Posted by: Eco-Question Editor
Source: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Photo Credit: © United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – www.unep.org
Special Thanks:
People have known – and feared – cholera for thousands of years. Only recently, though, have scientists understood how cholera epidemics leap from continent to continent. It turns out the disease thrives inside plankton living in warm water. As the planet heats up, warmer water could mean more cholera.
Cholera is the most widespread water-borne disease to afflict humans. It is an intestinal infection caused by bacteria. People encounter the cholera bacterium (Vibrio cholera) through contaminated food or water.
Cholera thrives on poor sanitation. People in many places do not have modern plumbing or sewage systems. So human waste often gets into the water supply. When that waste contains the cholera bacterium, an epidemic becomes all too likely. Outbreaks are particularly common in India, Bangladesh, Peru, and coastal Africa.
Back to top
(FULL STORY)
Content by: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Posted by: Eco-Question Editor
Source: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Photo Credit: © International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – www.iucn.org
Special Thanks:
- Jonathan Patz / Marjorie Share
EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
- Michael Dougherty
Regional Communications Coordinator, Asia Regional Office
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – www.iucn.org
Changing climate patterns may make extreme weather events – thunderstorms, hurricanes, and tornadoes – more common in some parts of the world. What can we do?
Hurricanes and tornadoes are storms taken to the extreme. Hurricanes and other tropical storms bring some of the scariest experiences nature can dish up: violent winds, torrential rains, huge waves, and flash floods. Tornadoes, or twisters, are swirling, funnel-shaped clouds that darken after hitting the ground. They usually accompany severe thunderstorms.
Wind speed defines tropical storms. To be considered a hurricane, the storm must create not-so-gentle breezes that sprint along at 118 kilometers (74 miles) an hour. On average, 45 tropical storms reach hurricane strength each year.
Back to top
(FULL STORY)
Content by: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Posted by: Eco-Question Editor
Source: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Photo Credit:
- © International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – www.iucn.org
- © Napapun Wongtala
Special Thanks:
- Jonathan Patz / Marjorie Share
EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
- Michael Dougherty
Regional Communications Coordinator, Asia Regional Office
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – www.iucn.org
- Napapun Wongtala
Droughts don’t have the drama of hurricanes or floods. These dry periods creep up on us slowly and quietly. But they can cause serious economic damage, food shortages, unsafe drinking water – and disease.
Droughts change history. Researchers link a 300-year drought that struck Mesopotamia about 4,000 years ago to the collapse of the Akkadians, who ruled the world’s first great empire. Historians also blame droughts for the disappearance of pre-Inca civilizations in Latin America.
No one knows how frequently catastrophic droughts occur. Earth has endured them since at least the end of the Ice Age. In recent history, major droughts seem to appear twice a century or more.
Back to top
(FULL STORY)
Content by: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Posted by: Eco-Question Editor
Source: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Photo Credit:
Special Thanks:
Each day, 800 million people don’t get enough food. A quarter of those empty bellies belong to kids. If we can’t feed the world now, what will we do when global warming affects farming in ways we can’t imagine?
Weather is the wild card of farming. Even small shifts in temperature, rainfall, and sunlight can drastically affect a farmer’s crops – and the world’s food supply. There are other significant causes for food shortages, such as losing farmland to erosion and urban sprawl. All of this is bad news on a planet with more than 6 billion people, nearly 14 percent of whom don’t get enough to eat.
Back to top
(FULL STORY)
Content by: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Posted by: Eco-Question Editor
Source: EcoHealth101 – www.ecohealth101.org
Photo Credit:
- © T Mukai (UNEP, Japan)
- © Lupidi (UNEP)
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – www.unep.org
- © Tesla Motors – www.teslamotors.com
- © Wantana Rungsapsombat
Special Thanks:
Factories, power plants, cars, and other modern technologies pump countless, invisible particles into our atmosphere. In the air, these chemicals trap heat and can create smog – a foul blend of smoke and fog.
Take a nice, deep breath. What just went into your lungs? If the air around you is clean, you inhaled a mix of nitrogen (78 percent), oxygen (21 percent), and tiny amounts of other chemicals (1 percent). You probably couldn’t see, taste, or smell what you breathed.
Back to top
(FULL STORY)
