What are the impacts?
We now understand and recognize that climate change will have significant impacts on the world around us. But how will climate change affect our health? Who will it hurt the most? Scientists and public health organizations have long discussed the relationship between chemicals and pollution on the quality of life of the world’s population. But the world health community are now beginning to become concerned that climate change will exacerbate existing threats to our health and particularly vulnerable populations like children and the elderly. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are beginning to study this important relationship.

Center for Disease Control
Some of the effects of climate change are likely to include more variable weather, heat waves, heavy precipitation events, flooding, droughts, more intense storms such as hurricanes, sea level rise, and air pollution. Each of these changes has the potential to negatively affect health. While climate change is recognized as a global issue, the effects of climate change will vary across geographic regions and populations. Although scientific understanding of the effects of climate change is still emerging, there is a pressing need to prepare for potential health risks. http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/climatechange/

Our Children
According to the World Health Organization, there are 2.9 children aged 0-19 world wide. Children are exposed to serious health risks from environmental hazards. Over 40% of the global burden of disease attributed to environmental factors falls on children below five years of age, who account for only about 10% of the world's population. Environmental risk factors often act in concert, and their effects are exacerbated by adverse social and economic conditions, particularly conflict, poverty and malnutrition.

What You Can Do to Protect Children from Environmental Risks http://yosemite.epa.gov/ochp/ochpweb.nsf/content/tips.htm

World Health Organization http://www.who.int/ceh/en/

• Each year, at least three million children under the age of five die due to environment-related diseases.
• Acute respiratory infections annually kill an estimated two million children under the age of five. As much as 60 percent of acute respiratory infections worldwide are related to environmental conditions.
• Diarrhoeal diseases claim the lives of nearly two million children every year. Eighty to 90 percent of these diarrhea cases are related to environmental conditions, in particular, contaminated water and inadequate sanitation.
• Nearly one million children under the age of five died of malaria in 1998. Up to 90 percent of malaria cases are attributed to environmental factors

Presentation: Charting the Future of Environmental Public Health by Dr. Howard Frumkin, M.D., Dr.P.H., Director of the National Center for Environmental Health
“[w]e need to pursue justice. We know across the public health world, including in environmental public health, that not all of us are equally affected by public health problems. Some people are disproportionately exposed and disproportionately at risk. This has given rise to the transformative field of environmental justice. Poor communities and communities of color have taught us all that people at risk deserve special consideration. We need to devote our attention to those communities. We saw in Hurricane Katrina that not all of us are equally at risk from some of the kinds of severe weather events that we expect with climate change, and we need to keep that absolutely at the center of our attention.” http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/conference/web_server_frumkin/launch_l.htm

Energy Use and Energy Intensity of the U.S. Chemical Industry http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/industry/industrial_LBNL-44314.pdf

Infectious Diseases Malaria. Dengue Fever. Encephalitis. These names are not usually heard in emergency rooms and doctor’s offices in the United States. But if we don’t act to curb global warming, they will be. As temperatures rise, disease-carrying mosquitoes and rodents spread, infecting people in their wake. Doctors at the Harvard Medical School have linked recent U.S. outbreaks of dengue ("breakbone") fever, malaria, hantavirus and other diseases to climate change.
http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/health/disease.asp

What is malaria
http://www.netsforlifeafrica.org/79301_ENG_HTM.htm

National Council of Churches Resource on Mercury http://www.nccecojustice.org/mercury.html

Outdoor Air Quality http://www.nccecojustice.org/outdoorair.html