Time and tide wait for no man

Global warming presents a new hazard to human health. Recognising the predominant human mechanisms for our failure to address this problem may help in formulating strategies for action

Humanity is making little progress in solving the global issues of war, famine, poverty, environmental destruction, population overload, and climate change that increasingly threaten its wellbeing, health, and survival. The national and international responses to all these major problems are totally inadequate, and the medical profession should be active in seeking remedies.

While all these global issues seem insoluble in their scale and complexity, global warming presents a particular and unfamiliar hazard to human health. The United States, with 4% of the world's population, produces a quarter of its greenhouse gases. The BMJ has addressed the inadequacies of the US president's response to global warming.1 Ill health due to climate change is likely to arise both directly (such as via thermal stress) and through complex mechanisms that disturb ecological systems, many of which are already stressed by pollution, bio-invasion, and loss of resilience due to altered biodiversity. For example, the impacts of climate change on plant physiology and agroecosystem functioning may interact with soil degradation to decrease the yields of crops needed to feed a growing human population. Global warming may thus impair health by reductions in nutrition, economic activity, and habitable locations and increases in infectious diseases. Extreme weather events and a changing distribution of precipitation could cause physical disasters, exacerbate conflicts, and augment …