Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Health

Rogan & Mr. Bruce Grogan, College of Public Health, University of Nebraska Medical Center Author

06/08/2016 Added

72 Plays

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Seminar on Climate Change for the Climate Change Seminar for Elected Officials of the Nebraska Legislature - Health

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[00:00:00.125]Chair the department of environmental,
[00:00:02.924]agricultural and occupational health.
[00:00:06.292]You know the college was founded in 2007
[00:00:11.913]and when we founded the department,
[00:00:15.704]we very deliberately put agriculture in our name.
[00:00:19.051]Because we feel we have a responsibility to address
[00:00:23.857]the public health concerns
[00:00:26.644]that relate to agriculture.
[00:00:29.327]So I can't help commenting
[00:00:31.849]after listening about forestry,
[00:00:34.241]that one of the things I love living in Omaha,
[00:00:37.027]is if you're on high ground for example,
[00:00:39.549]for those of you that know Omaha,
[00:00:41.253]at 90th and Dodge and you look out over the city,
[00:00:44.290]you see trees.
[00:00:45.596]And it's so beautiful and I really like that a lot.
[00:00:48.187](laughter)
[00:00:49.020]Anyway, moving on.
[00:00:50.815]So climate change affects human health in two ways.
[00:00:55.442]It can change the severity and the frequency
[00:00:59.020]of health problems that already exist,
[00:01:02.301]in a given climate,
[00:01:06.699]with weather factors.
[00:01:08.460]And it can also create unanticipated
[00:01:12.568]health problems or health threats
[00:01:15.234]in places where they haven't been,
[00:01:17.578]previously they haven't occurred.
[00:01:20.547]So problems, and because of climate change,
[00:01:23.918]problems can occur because of non-climate stressors.
[00:01:27.443]Such as changes in land use,
[00:01:29.589]degradation of ecosystems,
[00:01:31.709]changing conditions in infrastructure,
[00:01:33.780]and changes in agricultural production and livestock use.
[00:01:37.570]Some of the extreme migrations
[00:01:40.632]that are going on in the world today,
[00:01:42.292]are not only because of political turmoil
[00:01:44.489]but also because of the lack of food and water
[00:01:47.903]in places that used to have these things.
[00:01:51.387]So these climate stressors can lead to
[00:01:55.703]extreme heat, poor air quality,
[00:01:58.423]reduced food and water quality,
[00:02:00.694]changes in infectious agents
[00:02:02.226]and displacement of populations.
[00:02:04.678]So some of the health impacts that are detailed
[00:02:09.884]in the booklet, the health section from 2015,
[00:02:16.316]there can be an increase in
[00:02:18.156]heat related illnesses from global warming.
[00:02:21.654]Decreased air quality from o-zone and particulate matter.
[00:02:26.550]This particularly impacts asthma
[00:02:29.744]and cardiovascular diseases.
[00:02:32.219]We have vector born disease transmitted to humans
[00:02:35.610]due to the changes in the density of mosquitoes
[00:02:39.322]and ticks and rodents and other animals.
[00:02:41.324]I'm gonna talk about these in a little more detail
[00:02:43.638]in the few minutes that I have.
[00:02:45.454]And water related illnesses.
[00:02:47.755]Interestingly, at least to me,
[00:02:51.104]the impacts on food supply that lead to
[00:02:54.632]food insecurity and undernutrition,
[00:03:00.646]the rising temperatures not only decrease food safety
[00:03:04.796]by increasing the incidences of food born illnesses
[00:03:09.184]that we're all familiar with,
[00:03:10.981]but additionally crops can be less nutritious
[00:03:14.836]because the rising heat leads to
[00:03:17.787]altered uptake of micronutrients like minerals,
[00:03:21.713]and an increase in carbohydrates
[00:03:26.434]coming from decreased nitrogen content.
[00:03:29.964]So foods, grains that once had relatively
[00:03:33.760]high protein contents and less carbohydrates in 'em,
[00:03:37.372]with the decreased nitrogen
[00:03:39.214]can end up providing you with
[00:03:42.109]the calories from the carbon, but you don't get the protein,
[00:03:46.526]the amount of protein can decrease.
[00:03:48.521]And that can lead to under-nutrition.
[00:03:51.218]And lastly, I'm not gonna come back to this but,
[00:03:55.286]it's been demonstrated that rising temperatures
[00:03:57.796]can lead to higher rates of personal violence
[00:04:01.588]and social disruptions.
[00:04:04.098]So, every year it's estimated that
[00:04:06.977]weather related natural disasters result in
[00:04:11.135]60,000 deaths, mainly in developing countries.
[00:04:16.300]And by the 2090s, climate change is expected
[00:04:19.967]to widen the area affected by drought,
[00:04:23.300]double the frequency of extreme drought,
[00:04:25.651]and increase the average duration of droughts, sixfold.
[00:04:32.556]In the presence of extreme heat, I think we all know this,
[00:04:35.975]but these are the health effects
[00:04:37.692]that you see with extreme heat.
[00:04:41.015]You have loss of temperature control,
[00:04:43.592]you get heat cramps and heat exhaustion
[00:04:46.199]and heat stroke and hypothermia.
[00:04:48.416]And if you've got chronic conditions
[00:04:50.792]like cardiovascular disease, you get into even more trouble.
[00:04:54.714]Naturally this affects the elderly,
[00:04:56.717]children, people working out doors in particular,
[00:05:00.028]and unfortunately the economically disadvantaged people,
[00:05:03.873]because they have fewer resources to deal with this.
[00:05:07.344]Between 2030 and 2050,
[00:05:09.409]climate change is anticipated to cause an additional
[00:05:14.230]38,000 deaths per year due to heat exposure, in the elderly.
[00:05:19.154]In fact in the summer of 2013,
[00:05:22.145]which was the warmest summer in Europe since 1500,
[00:05:28.389]the extreme heatwave in Europe,
[00:05:32.018]caused more than 30,000 death there.
[00:05:35.485]In the elderly in particular.
[00:05:38.318]Also,
[00:05:39.771]we begin to see a fungus
[00:05:42.279]called cryptococcus gattii that normally grows
[00:05:46.303]in the tropics, in the subtropics.
[00:05:49.111]It's now causing diseases in the pacific north-west
[00:05:52.689]because the oceans have warmed.
[00:05:55.298]There have been outbreaks of another microorganism
[00:06:00.086]that causes gastrointestinal disease in oysters.
[00:06:03.651]And these are being harvested now
[00:06:05.627]in the waters off Alaska because those waters are warming.
[00:06:10.328]Sweden has seen an increase in tic born
[00:06:13.985]brain inflammations since the mid 80s
[00:06:17.525]because the tics are now moving into Sweden
[00:06:19.687]that didn't used to be able to go in Sweden
[00:06:22.010]because it was colder.
[00:06:23.969]And as we all maybe are aware,
[00:06:26.785]lyme disease has increased more than three fold
[00:06:31.033]in the United States in the number of high-risk counties.
[00:06:36.034]And this has happened since 1992.
[00:06:38.877]Now almost 50 percent of the counties in the United States
[00:06:42.218]have the kinds of tics that carry lyme disease.
[00:06:47.850]And the problems with drought are expected
[00:06:51.336]to be most severe in the mid west,
[00:06:54.877]but that spills over into the great plains,
[00:06:57.346]particularly Nebraska.
[00:06:59.470]The other problem that you might not think about
[00:07:02.624]is that higher temperatures bring more pollen.
[00:07:07.351]And you make think of pollen as a nuisance,
[00:07:10.158]but pollen also can be a real health problem.
[00:07:15.035]This of course you have not only bigger plants
[00:07:19.030]like ragweed gets bigger when it's hotter,
[00:07:22.848]but it also can grow longer,
[00:07:24.409]so you've got bigger problems
[00:07:27.079]with the airborne kinds of pollen.
[00:07:33.595]Now asthma affects 300 million people around the world.
[00:07:38.400]So this is a, exacerbating asthma is a real problem.
[00:07:45.325]In the past 15 years, on a global level,
[00:07:49.273]diseases transmitted by ticks,
[00:07:51.483]and these include Malaria, Lyme disease
[00:07:54.920]and now the birth defects
[00:07:56.380]that are associated with the Zika virus,
[00:07:58.955]that we never worried about until the last few months,
[00:08:04.301]have led to a twelve percent increase
[00:08:09.177]in disabled life years
[00:08:11.395]and a 20 percent increase in death.
[00:08:14.544]So these aren't trivial effects.
[00:08:17.799]The water related illnesses due to
[00:08:21.175]infectious agents and toxins,
[00:08:23.638]we've seen this in lakes around Lincoln here,
[00:08:27.167]and chemicals introduced by humans also are rising.
[00:08:31.964]And we have this problem that's been alluded to
[00:08:33.923]by several other speakers in terms of variable rainfall.
[00:08:38.523]And the lack of safe water
[00:08:41.164]compromises hygiene,
[00:08:43.600]and increase the risk of diarrhoeal disease.
[00:08:49.233]In fact, diarrhoeal disease kills almost 600,000 children
[00:08:53.645]under the age of five around the world.
[00:08:56.929]And it's thought that climate change is probably going,
[00:09:00.593]in these ways is gonna account for another 48,000 deaths
[00:09:04.801]throughout the year.
[00:09:07.650]Here in the great plains we have these intense rainfalls
[00:09:12.249]that we've been talking about, as I know you're all aware.
[00:09:17.021]But this affects not just the agriculture,
[00:09:20.537]and things like this, but it affects our infrastructures.
[00:09:25.121]For drinking water, handling waste water,
[00:09:27.952]handling storm waters,
[00:09:29.777]and all these can lead to increases in exposure
[00:09:34.152]of water-related pathogens, and chemicals,
[00:09:37.580]and the kind of algal toxins
[00:09:40.187]that are usually by late summer a problem around Lincoln.
[00:09:45.752]So this idea that, not this idea,
[00:09:48.584]this fact that higher temperatures
[00:09:53.370]interfere with the nutritional value of plants,
[00:09:58.291]and you can end up with this so-called 'hidden hunger',
[00:10:02.950]these kinds of deficiencies where particularly children
[00:10:07.022]aren't getting enough protein.
[00:10:08.552]They're getting enough calories
[00:10:09.664]so they don't feel so hungry,
[00:10:11.213]but they're not getting enough proteins and micro-nutrients.
[00:10:15.031]These kinds of things,
[00:10:16.820]they affect the immune system,
[00:10:19.349]they really affect cognitive development,
[00:10:24.292]and they can also be a factor in the prevalence of obesity.
[00:10:30.535]As I was looking at all this,
[00:10:32.052]I found one thing that's better,
[00:10:33.813]out of the climate change, health wise,
[00:10:36.476]in northern Europe, there's less of a season
[00:10:40.413]for the um...
[00:10:43.442]respiratory disease called,
[00:10:46.868]if you're parents you probably know it as RSV,
[00:10:50.668]and it's a common lung infection in children.
[00:10:54.946]There's less of that now because the really cold season
[00:10:58.828]is shorter than it used to be.
[00:11:04.167]So what can we do about all this?
[00:11:06.980]I think it's a very gloomy stuff to talk about.
[00:11:09.293](laughter)
[00:11:10.165]About my laundry list of gloomy things here.
[00:11:13.450]In the college of public health,
[00:11:15.814]and other public health places,
[00:11:17.950]we're trying to understand how climate changes
[00:11:22.876]are affecting, increasing or affecting
[00:11:25.950]risks to human health.
[00:11:27.677]And of course we still have a lot left to do
[00:11:29.519]that we would like to know more about.
[00:11:31.843]And figure out ways to intervene in these.
[00:11:36.109]It occurred to me that maybe I should mention,
[00:11:40.032]while we were talking about mitigating things
[00:11:42.531]that if you've been on the university of Nebraska
[00:11:44.996]medical center campus, in the last year or so,
[00:11:50.404]and I've been there a long time,
[00:11:52.201]and the campus is almost unrecognizable
[00:11:54.444]because there's so many new buildings.
[00:11:57.026]And despite the fact that our building footprint
[00:12:00.406]has grown so much over last
[00:12:04.184]ten, 15 years,
[00:12:06.000]we're now using less energy than we were before.
[00:12:10.985]So the MED center is really, very consciously,
[00:12:15.897]doing not only mitigation, but really trying to help
[00:12:18.982]with reducing energy costs.
[00:12:21.045]And I think that's a very notable thing,
[00:12:24.408]in terms of trying to deal with this climate change.
[00:12:29.597]The building that I'm in, the college of public health
[00:12:31.600]that opened in 2010 is a LEED certified building,
[00:12:34.296]and I think all the new buildings that are going up are.
[00:12:39.181]The other thing that we're doing, I would mention
[00:12:42.038]it's not exactly directly related to climate change,
[00:12:44.985]but I'm really pleased that
[00:12:48.050]one of the young faculty members in my department
[00:12:51.087]as of July one will have a partial appointment
[00:12:53.883]and an extension here down at UNL,
[00:12:56.408]because we're collaborating on agricultural
[00:13:01.356]problems and projects so that we can
[00:13:05.819]try to make a difference.
[00:13:09.467]So those are my comments,
[00:13:10.517]you also have a copy of what I've just said in your book,
[00:13:13.487]in addition to what's in the report from last fall.
[00:13:17.940]Okay? Okay.
[00:13:19.649]Any, any questions
[00:13:22.685]on this particular topic?
[00:13:26.535]Yes?
[00:13:27.368]I guess, with what's been on,
[00:13:28.996]what is causing this meteorite spread of the Zika virus?
[00:13:32.864]I mean I'm not sure it's climate change or what.
[00:13:35.399]I mean all of a sudden it's dominating the news.
[00:13:37.689](laughs)
[00:13:38.522]I think there's two things.
[00:13:40.297]I think part of it is the fact that
[00:13:43.224]we're so globally connected now,
[00:13:47.507]that you can be exposed to the virus in Brazil today
[00:13:51.712]and comeback to Nebraska,
[00:13:53.500]and you're just brought it to Nebraska.
[00:13:56.519]That's part of it.
[00:13:57.845]I think the other part of it is climate change,
[00:13:59.875]now these mosquitoes have been able to move northward
[00:14:04.147]up here into north America, at least southern north America
[00:14:09.814]and they can survive there.
[00:14:12.317]I gather,
[00:14:14.775]this really...
[00:14:17.359]I'm not an expert on this.
[00:14:19.002]I understand that it kinda started over in Africa
[00:14:21.485]where lots of these things do.
[00:14:23.418]It got moved to Brazil, and found lots of habitat in Brazil
[00:14:27.654]that it really liked.
[00:14:29.568]And apparently it's different from,
[00:14:33.305]many of the mosquitoes like to go lay their eggs
[00:14:36.322]in all lakes and things like that.
[00:14:39.037]I grew up in east Tennessee and I had I guess
[00:14:42.267]a charmed childhood there because,
[00:14:45.571]the Tennessee Valley Authority,
[00:14:48.283]they would wait until the mosquitoes laid their legs,
[00:14:51.299]whatever mosquitoes were there,
[00:14:52.802]and then they would very deliberately
[00:14:54.708]drop the level in all the lakes in east Tennessee
[00:14:57.322]so most of the mosquitoes eggs died.
[00:15:00.490]So we didn't really have much of a mosquito problem
[00:15:02.456]back then in east Tennessee.
[00:15:06.221]So anyway, I gather this Zika...
[00:15:10.048]the mosquito that carries the Zika virus,
[00:15:12.406]which apparently can not live as far north as Nebraska,
[00:15:15.557]so we're not in danger from it coming here
[00:15:19.002]and infecting us at this point,
[00:15:20.497]it's just southern Florida and Texas
[00:15:23.425]and all along in there where it's warm enough.
[00:15:26.710]It likes to lay it's eggs
[00:15:29.457]in little bodies of water.
[00:15:32.071]For example, you throw away a candy wrapper
[00:15:36.593]and some rainfall gets in there,
[00:15:38.360]and it loves to go into the shallow places like that.
[00:15:40.772]And just a little big of water.
[00:15:42.356]So it's much harder to eradicate.
[00:15:44.794]You can't just go out and do the kinds of things
[00:15:48.621]that places with mosquitoes have been doing,
[00:15:51.185]you've gotta really go much more aggressively
[00:15:54.683]with a lot more manpower to get rid of them.
[00:15:57.129]And it just mushroomed,
[00:15:59.212]that strain of mosquito in Brazil,
[00:16:01.936]and now it's come north,
[00:16:04.340]and the really scary thing, one of the many scary things
[00:16:09.241]is that it turns out it's not just,
[00:16:14.289]if a pregnant woman gets bitten by a mosquito
[00:16:17.929]and gets infected and then
[00:16:20.245]ends up with a child with a birth defect,
[00:16:24.168]it's that also if her husband went to Brazil
[00:16:27.853]and came back with it, it can be sexually transmitted.
[00:16:30.870]And that just compounds the problem.
[00:16:34.061]And what the virus does,
[00:16:36.810]this is kinda off the subject,
[00:16:37.643]but what the virus does,
[00:16:38.695](murmuring laughter)
[00:16:39.528]you asked,
[00:16:40.970]is it infects the brain
[00:16:43.265]and then it chews away the brain tissue
[00:16:46.122]in this developing fetus
[00:16:49.786]and then actually even, then the cranium kinda collapses.
[00:16:54.594]Because the brain isn't there
[00:16:56.804]pushing the head to get bigger.
[00:16:59.196]And that's how you end up with the microcephaly
[00:17:01.657]and a lot of the brain's been destroyed.
[00:17:04.234]So,
[00:17:07.293]I gather as I've read about it,
[00:17:10.146]that in the 70s Brazil had this under control.
[00:17:14.232]They had lots of mosquito eradication going
[00:17:17.437]and everything was fine, and then they said,
[00:17:20.168]"gee we don't need to spend money on this
[00:17:21.950]"because we don't have a problem anymore",
[00:17:23.994]and now they've got a problem in spades.
[00:17:26.557]So that's my long answer to your simple question.

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Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Health

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