In 2014,
ER visits for
breathing
problems
increased by
42 per cent in
Yellowknife.All over the world, people are facing
health hazards that are directly linked to
climate breakdown. And according to a
2017 United Nations report that explores
the worsening human-health impact
of this crisis, we’re losing ground every
year. If we fail to reverse this trend, we’ll
see a marked increase in deaths by 2030.
As Canadians, we should be singu-
larly alarmed, as we’ll confront a broad
range of climate disasters. “We’re a
very large country, with a lot of differ-
ent geography and geology. We have
floods in Quebec and fires in Alberta,”
says Dr. Bradley Dibble, a cardiologist
in Barrie, Ont.
According to a major Envi-
ronment and Climate Change
Canada report released in April,
our country is heating up twice
as fast as the world’s average.
Yet a 2017 Health Canada poll
found that over half of the pop-
ulation doesn’t believe that cli-
mate change is currently threat-
ening our health and our lives.They’re wrong. This environmental
emergency is making Canadians sick in
ways many of us never predicted. Some
groups are especially vulnerable, such
as the very young or old, those with
existing medical conditions and those
who live on the margins due to socio-
economic factors. But none of us is safe.
“The climate crisis is ultimately going
to be a health issue,” notes Dibble. “The
planet will survive, and some species
will survive, but the human species will
be in real jeopardy in coming decades.”
That’s because your health is already
at risk in multiple ways.YYYOURRRBREEATTHHINGG
ISSS COOMPPRRROMMISED
Any time we burn fossil fuels, we’re
pumping fine particulate matter from
oil, gas and other toxins into the air.
“Some of these carbon particles can
persist in the lungs for decades, like
soot in a chimney,” says Dr. Don Sin, a
respirologist and director of the Centre
for Heart Lung Innovation at St. Paul’s
Hospital in Vancouver.
The buildup causes inflam-
mation and can eventually con-
tribute to conditions like chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease
(COPD) and asthma. Over 7,000
Canadians died from complica-
tions due to poor air quality in- A study in the European
Heart Journal earlier this year
found that air pollution now
reader’s digest
36 october 2019