Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Future healthcare costs are merely hinted at in recent experiences of unusually
extreme weather events in Australia. Extreme weather disasters today cause
injuries, disease and death; they also cause social disruption and incur billions
of dollars in damage costs. This is well illustrated by the December 2010 and
January 2011 flooding in Queensland and the tropical cyclones Anthony and
Yasi. Over 75 per cent of Queensland was declared a disaster zone; 35 people were
killed by the floods; and overall about 2.5 million people were adversely affected
(QFCI, 2011).
Those floods and cyclones were hugely disruptive to Queensland health services
(Queensland Health, 2011). The heightened demands and stresses included:
flooding and cyclones necessitated cancelling 1,396 booked elective surgeries
because of the combination of increased demand on hospitals and staff
unavailability;
over 200 current patients in cyclone-stricken areas were transferred to
Brisbane hospitals, hugely increasing 'long waits' for elective surgery;
more than 17,000 tetanus/diphtheria vaccines were distributed in order to
reduce the risk of infectious disease; and
Queensland Health's phone service answered 54,881 calls from flood-affected
areas.
The flooding also seriously damaged existing health infrastructure. The
Queensland and Federal governments subsequently spent $18 million over two
years to repair damage to health facilities (Queensland Health, 2011). To provide
long-term mental health support following the floods and cyclones, $37.8 million
was also provided for 2011-13 to fund the Queensland Mental Health Natural
Disaster Recovery Plan. Serious enough today, these current weather disaster
costs will look small in a 1 2°C Australia - and will look like petty cash in a
1 4°C Australia.
Concluding comment
This chapter has offered a very approximate estimation and/or description of the
main types of adverse impacts of a Four Degree World on Australia's population
health. The key point to recognize is that, in reality, we cannot confidently
foresee the full range and magnitude of health threats that would then prevail.
Would that extent of heating, amplified by another 2-3°C by the urban 'heat
island' effect, cause big-city and suburb residents to relocate to the coasts,
southern Tasmania or New Zealand? In fact, we will be mostly sailing blind into
a future environment, landscape and set of social conditions and geopolitical
relations that may be radically disrupted and different from today's. The changes
due to a 2°C rise will not be a simple doubling of the changes at 1 1°C, and the
changes and impacts at 1 4°C will not be twice those at 2°C.
That message, surely, conveys an important long-term perspective, warning of
the inadequacy of relying on continued incremental attempts at technical and
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search