Climate change is more than just an environmental threat

Climate change is sadly much more than just an environmental threat, it is also a serious health threat that could cause the death of millions of people across the globe. According to the new book "Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It" written by Dan Ferber and Dr. Paul Epstein climate change has already sparkled the spread of infectious diseases and respiratory ailments across the globe and has so far contributed to thousands of deaths through heat waves and other extreme weather events.

The authors of this book believe that human health is directly connected with the climate change impact. What this basically means is that the health of our future generations will primarily depend on our response to the growing climate threat. So far this response has been anything but adequate.

Even the slight increase of temperature is enough to open the door for many pests, and more pests means more infectious diseases such as malaria. The scientists also pointed out that these pests will also target wildlife, wipe out forests and even increase the risk of fires in forests.

Climate change could also increase the number of people suffering from asthma and allergies (with the combination of heat and increased levels of CO2), particularly among children.

The combination of heat waves and droughts will very likely threaten food supply in many corners of the world, and drive up the food price on global level, which will in the end result in even more poverty and even more hungry people in the world.

Less food will cause social unrest in many parts of the world, and this could lead to civil wars and other military conflicts.

These are all valid reasons that should force world leaders into making strong response to climate change threat. However, the international climate talks were up to now just that, talks, and nothing more, and the current political situation in the world doesn't give us much optimism for a significant change in months to come.

Whether we like it or not we have the real problem in our hands. Ignoring it won't make it go away.