Climate change 'a threat to health'

The consequences of climate change could become more of a threat to human health than obesity or alcohol, the president of the Royal College of Physicians has warned.

Prof Ian Gilmore said doctors have a role to play in the battle against global warming and it is time they "stepped up to the plate" to help combat the potentially massive effects of a changing climate.

The RCP president was one of a number of leading doctors issuing a stark warning on the dangers of climate change at a conference for the medical profession in London.

"The effects of global warming on health could eclipse those of smoking, alcohol and obesity," he said.

While climate change is a problem on a global scale, "the knock-on effect to health in this country if there's global starvation, drought and so on, would be greater in the UK than obesity," he said.

Some of the health problems that could occur in Britain include increased rates of asthma as pollution rises, more deaths from heat waves and new diseases, such as malaria, arriving on our shores.

Worldwide changes to the spread of disease, greater incidence of heat stress, increasing natural disasters and threats to the availability of food and water will all have an impact on human well-being and health services.

The conference at the Royal College was also told that measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could have benefits for human health - reducing obesity, heart disease and cancer.

Ian Roberts, professor of epidemiology and public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said: "Moving city commuters to walking, cycling and public transport would reduce fossil fuel energy use, traffic injuries, air pollution and by increasing physical activity would tackle the growing obesity epidemic.

"Policies to reduce greenhouse emissions during food production, particularly the methane from livestock production, would involve reducing meat intake and this would lead to reductions in bowel cancer and heart disease," he said.

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