Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
tribes, heading west to leave the drought-stricken Central Asian steppes. Europe
may again face similar pressures as climatic change in North Africa and the
Middle East proceeds. For similar reasons, Australia is likely to remain, at least
relatively, an attractive haven for populations afflicted by an even greater degree
of environmental and socio-political stress.
Migration and displacement entail a wide and variable mix of risks to health
- particularly for those that are moving, but also for those left behind and, often,
for the receiving host communities. The possibilities include impoverishment
and under-nutrition, exposures to infectious diseases, injuries and deaths (e.g.
drowning), mental trauma and physical conflict situations (McMichael et al.,
2012). Further, if public health surveillance and support programmes falter under
the probable economically stressed conditions, various incoming groups may
introduce serious infectious diseases such as multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. A
Four Degree World would be very different from any in which environmental
refugees have previously been studied, and hence the pattern and character of
people movements is hard to foresee as are the likely numbers. There could also
be much displacement from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Impacts on the health system
Australia's healthcare system will come under exponentially increasing pressure
as temperatures rise. There is likely to be an initial shift in rates of some
injuries, health disorders and heat-related deaths, subsequently merging into
a transformation in the profile of types of disease and health disorders and in
the sheer size, sometimes urgency, of an escalating climate-related demand.
Intensified heatwaves in an overheating Australia (with an ageing population)
will place increasing stresses on healthcare systems and on the vital penumbra
of supportive infrastructure (power, transport, communications, etc.). Climate
change - along with other environmental disruptions and social-demographic
changes in and around Australia and the neighbouring Asian and Pacific region
- will amplify the likelihood of new infectious diseases entering Australia or of
existing ones flaring up and spreading. There would then be a manyfold increase
in the population's infectious disease burden. In a Four Degree World, the map
of infectious diseases in Australia would change radically, especially in segments
of the population that by then would be underfed, weakened and susceptible to
infection.
The potentially huge changes in the demands on, and the institutional and
staffing profile of, the healthcare system would require a massive recurrent
national expenditure. Health insurance policies may change for the worse if the
climatic crisis precipitated a national (probably global) financial crisis, let alone
economic collapse. The fact is that we cannot realistically imagine what changes
a
1
4°C Australia would impose on environmental and ecological conditions,
liveability of cities, rural livelihoods, social institutions, government-decision
making processes and the profile of human health and survival. Nor can we guess
the costs.
