The Global Syndemic, Part Two

 The image below is hard to read, I know. But I ' m going to unpack most of it in the coming posts.   Let ' s start with the simplest, most direct problem: heat itself. Excessive heat that lasts for several days kills people. It ' s not a major cause of death in the U.S., although it ' s hard to quantify because studies have found that heat is often not recorded as a cause of death on death certificates when in fact it should be. Based on death certificates the rate is generally between 2 and 4 deaths per million people per year in the U.S. But globally, the number of heatwave events is rising.   The consequences will be most profound, of course, in the hottest parts of the earth. Heatwaves in the Middle East, India, and elsewhere in the tropics are starting to make some places uninhabitable, which will contribute to the international migration crisis. Next, given the year we ' ve just lived through, I don ' t have to tell you about wildfires. Wildfires are a normal occurrence, of course, and are essential to the maintenance of ecosystems where they occur. In,  fact, while the extent of wildfire in North America has been much greater recently than it has been for many decades, it may be, it may be comparable to the extent in the early 20th Century.* However, wildfires globally are happening now in places they have not happened before, and on an unprecedented scale. I haven ' t been able to find a concise graphic showing the extent ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs