Aeroallergens, Allergic Disease, and Climate Change: Impacts and Adaptation

Recent research has shown that there are many effects of climate change on aeroallergens and thus allergic diseases in humans. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration acts as a fertilizer for plant growth. The fertilizing effects of carbon dioxide, as well as increased temperatures from climate change, increase pollen production and the allergen content of pollen grains. In addition, higher temperatures are changing the timing and duration of the pollen season. As regional climates change, plants can move into new areas and changes in atmospheric circulation can blow pollen- and spore-containing dust to new areas, thus introducing people to allergens to which they have not been exposed previously. Climate change also influences the concentrations of airborne pollutants, which alone, and in conjunction with aeroallergens, can exacerbate asthma or other respiratory illnesses. The few epidemiological analyses of meteorological factors, aeroallergens, and allergic diseases demonstrate the pathways through which climate can exert its influence on aeroallergens and allergic diseases. In addition to the need for more research, there is the imperative to take preventive and adaptive actions to address the onset and exacerbation of allergic diseases associated with climate variability and change.     

Climate Change and Health Research in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

Anthropologically induced climate change, caused by an increased concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is an emerging threat to human health. Consequences of climate change may affect the prevalence of various diseases and environmental and social maladies that affect population health. In this article, we reviewed the literature on climate change and health in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. This region already faces numerous humanitarian crises, from conflicts to natural hazards and a high burden of disease. Climate change is likely to aggravate these emergencies, necessitating a strengthening of health systems and capacities in the region. However, the existing literature on climate change from the region is sparse and informational gaps stand in the way of regional preparedness and adaptation. Further research is needed to assess climatic changes and related health impacts in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Such knowledge will allow countries to identify preparedness vulnerabilities, evaluate capacity to adapt to climate change, and develop adaptation strategies to allay the health impacts of climate change.     

Utz Wachil: Findings from an International Study of Indigenous Perspectives on Health and Environment

This article reports previously unpublished results of a collaborative study undertaken in 2003 by health workers of the UK-based organisation Health Unlimited, and by researchers of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This study marked the first of a series of collaborative activities aimed at highlighting the situation of Indigenous peoples, some in the most isolated ecosystems of the planet. While many researchers focus on quantitative analysis of the health and environmental conditions of Indigenous peoples, our 2003 study aimed at exploring the views of Indigenous peoples in isolated communities in five countries on their environment and their health. In this article we look closely at the web of knowledge and belief that underpins Indigenous peoples’ concepts of health and well-being, and their relationship to land and the environment. Although many Indigenous people have been forced off their traditional lands and live in rural settlements, towns, and cities, there are still a large number of people living in very small Indigenous communities in remote areas. This article focuses on 20 such communities in six countries. We explore traditional knowledge and practice and its relationship to Western medicine and services. The research findings highlight the importance of Indigenous knowledge systems for the emerging ecohealth community and suggest that we have much to learn from Indigenous peoples in our pursuit of a more holistic science. Utz Wachil is from the K’iche language originating in Totonicapan Department, Guatemala. It translates literally as “fine/well face-ness,” face meaning one’s aspect in general, not only physical appearance.     

Science, Salmon, and Sea Lice: Constructing Practice and Place in an Environmental Controversy

Over the last three decades salmon aquaculture has become both a significant coastal industry and a focus of controversy regarding its environmental impacts. Both circumstances have also provoked a great deal of environmental research. This article examines one episode in the history of this research. The Broughton Archipelago is a region of islands and channels on the Pacific coast of Canada, densely populated with salmon farms. Beginning in 2001 this region attracted researchers from several institutions, who examined the ecology of the farms, and particularly the possibility that they release large numbers of parasites (known as sea lice), which then infect wild salmon. This local research community drew on aspects of the regional environment, including its ecological conditions, and opportunities for surveys, field experiments, and ecological modeling, to construct methods that were both situated in this place, yet intended to be persuasive to audiences outside the region. Knowledge of this environment was also influenced by knowledge from elsewhere, including the results of European research on sea lice, and various disciplinary perspectives. Research results were invoked to support opposing views of the impacts of salmon farms, as well as contrasting perspectives on the region's identity. Sea lice themselves, within the context of the ecosystem that gave them meaning, were objectified as the ecological link between salmon farms and the environment, and the basis for research and debate over these farms. This historical episode therefore demonstrates the inseparability of scientific practice, knowledge and place, particularly in the context of controversy.     

Climate Change Influences on Environmental and Human Health Chemical Standards

Regulatory agencies use many chemical standards to help protect human health and the environment. Some of these standards could potentially be adversely influenced by climate change, so it is important to scope the likelihood of such changes, and develop a plan for addressing them. A review of the literature showed that many complex interactions could occur between climate change factors, chemicals, and receptors. However, the way in which chemical standards are currently set is already likely to take into account predicted climate changes in temperate regions, at least implicitly. In contrast, compliance monitoring to ensure that chemical standards are not breached may be compromised if climate change leads to more variability in measured parameters, with a consequent reduction in the statistical power of monitoring programs.     

Living on Climate-Changed Country: Indigenous Health,Well-Being and Climate Change in Remote Australian Communities

Closing the gap between the health and well-being status of Indigenous people living in remote areas of northern Australia and non-Indigenous Australians has long been a major target of federal health policy. With climate projections suggesting large increases in hot spells in desert regions and more extremes in rainfall in other areas of the north, direct and indirect impacts resulting from these changes are likely to further entrench this health and well-being disparity. This paper argues that it is time to explicitly draw on Indigenous definitions of health, which directly address the need to connect individual and community health to the health of their country, in order to develop effective climate adaptation and health strategies. We detail how current health policies overlook this ‘missing’ dimension of Indigenous connection to country, and why that is likely to be detrimental to the health and well-being of people living in remote communities in a climate-changed future.     

Empiricism and Modeling for Marine Fisheries: Advancing an Interdisciplinary Science

Marine fisheries science is a broad field that is fundamentally concerned with sustainability across ecological, economic, and social dimensions. Ensuring the delivery of food, security, equity, and well-being while sustaining ecosystems in the face of rapid change is, by far, the main challenge facing marine fisheries. A tighter integration of modeling and empiricism is needed to confront this challenge. In particular, improved incorporation of empirically grounded and realistic representation of human behaviors into models will greatly enhance our ability to predict likely outcomes under alternative adaptive strategies. Challenges to this integration certainly exist, but many of these can be overcome via improved professional training that reduces cultural rifts between empiricists and modelers and between natural and social sciences, ideally ending the presumption that there is a divide between empiricism and modeling.     

Climate Change and Global Health: Quantifying a Growing Ethical Crisis

Climate change, as an environmental hazard operating at the global scale, poses a unique and “involuntary exposure” to many societies, and therefore represents possibly the largest health inequity of our time. According to statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), regions or populations already experiencing the most increase in diseases attributable to temperature rise in the past 30 years ironically contain those populations least responsible for causing greenhouse gas warming of the planet. Average global carbon emissions approximate one metric ton per year (tC/yr) per person. In 2004, United States per capita emissions neared 6 tC/yr (with Canada and Australia not far behind), and Japan and Western European countries range from 2 to 5 tC/yr per capita. Yet developing countries’ per capita emissions approximate 0.6 tC/yr, and more than 50 countries are below 0.2 tC/yr (or 30-fold less than an average American). This imbalance between populations suffering from an increase in climate-sensitive diseases versus those nations producing greenhouse gases that cause global warming can be quantified using a “natural debt” index, which is the cumulative depleted CO₂ emissions per capita. This is a better representation of the responsibility for current warming than a single year’s emissions. By this measure, for example, the relative responsibilities of the U.S. in relation to those of India or China is nearly double that using an index of current emissions, although it does not greatly change the relationship between India and China. Rich countries like the U.S. have caused much more of today’s warming than poor ones, which have not been emitting at significant levels for many years yet, no matter what current emissions indicate. Along with taking necessary measures to reduce the extent of global warming and the associated impacts, society also needs to pursue equitable solutions that first protect the most vulnerable population groups; be they defined by demographics, income, or location. For example, according to the WHO, 88% of the disease burden attributable to climate change afflicts children under age 5 (obviously an innocent and “nonconsenting” segment of the population), presenting another major axis of inequity. Not only is the health burden from climate change itself greatest among the world’s poor, but some of the major mitigation approaches to reduce the degree of warming may produce negative side effects disproportionately among the poor, for example, competition for land from biofuels creating pressure on food prices. Of course, in today’s globalized world, eventually all nations will share some risk, but underserved populations will suffer first and most strongly from climate change. Moreover, growing recognition that society faces a nonlinear and potentially irreversible threat has deep ethical implications about humanity’s stewardship of the planet that affect both rich and poor.     

Climate Change and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case-Based Perspective

Over the coming decades, sub-Saharan Africa will face profound stresses and challenges from global climate change. Many of these will manifest as adverse health outcomes. This article uses a series of five hypothetical cases to review the climate impacts on the health and well-being of individuals and populations in sub-Saharan Africa. This approach fosters insights into the human dimensions of the risks to health, their interaction with local human ecology, and awareness of the diverse health ramifications of external environmental changes. Each case illustrates the health impact resulting from a specific environmental or social consequence of climate change, including impacts on agriculture and food security, droughts, floods, malaria, and population displacement. Whereas the article focuses on discrete manifestations of climate change, individuals will, in practice, face multiple stresses from climate change (i.e., floods and malaria) concomitant with other non-climate stressors (i.e., HIV/AIDS, globalization, etc.). These multiple sources of vulnerability must be considered when designing climate change and socioeconomic development interventions.     

Integrating Social Science into the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network: Social Dimensions of Ecological Change and Ecological Dimensions of Social Change

The integration of the social sciences into long-term ecological research is an urgent priority. To address this need, a group of social, earth, and life scientists associated with the National Science Foundations (NSF) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network have articulated a conceptual framework for understanding the human dimensions of ecological change for the LTER Network. This framework explicitly advocates that what is often divided into natural and human systems be considered a single, complex social-ecological system (SES). In this paper, we propose a list of core social science research areas, concepts, and questions; identify the need for multiscale investigatory frameworks crucial for implementing integrated research; and suggest practical approaches for integration. In sum, this paper is a general outline for empirical and cross-site research projects where investigators agree that bringing together social, biological, and earth scientists can lead to synthetic approaches and a unified understanding of the mechanisms regulating SES. Although the motivation for this goal is specific to the LTER Network and similar projects, we believe that the issues and ideas presented here are widely applicable to other interdisciplinary SES studies.