The news is not new at all, but Copernicus, the European system that monitors the climate, has launched a new alarm. 2024 will be the hottest year on record and the average global temperature will be more than 1,5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. There is no way around it, the policies to contain environmental imbalances are not working. Next week, the Cop 29 on climate opens in Baku, Azerbaijan. It is said that many preparatory documents of the Conference are already being revised after the victory of Donal Trump in the US elections. The President will not be present but his inauguration in January at the White House will be a cumbersome ghost in Baku.
Copernicus data originate from a mixed emission level, due to both industrial and urban discharges. The repercussions on the economies of European countries in particular are worth 2% of GDP equal to over 400 billion euros per year. All studies say that we need to intervene on the structural causes of emissions that are causing the planet to warm at unimaginable rates. A good part of the expenditure resulting from global warming is absorbed by healthcare. The Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima) after the Copernicus data has focused precisely on the effects of temperatures on human health. From this point of view, heat knows no borders: in the West as in the East of the world. In other words, diseases transmitted through water, food, insects and parasites are increasing sharply everywhere. And with them the need for health care.
What do environmental doctors say?
“Global warming alters the balance of all ecosystems, threatening the essential elements of human life such as water, air and food, and modifies the frequency and distribution of many infectious diseases,” explains Sima. The food safety risks as a result of floods or overflows in cultivated countryside. Italy, with the recent floods in the Po Valley, is a very reliable example. Without realizing it too much, heat also alters the psyche and for a world that has 200 million people suffering from depression, this is not irrelevant. "The term "solastalgia" was recently coined" says Sima president, Alexander Miani. “It means the anguish caused by the drastic change in climate: which causes a state of stress and anxiety among the most vulnerable citizens that can lead to post-traumatic disorders and even suicides”. Warning after warning, it is always too late to take action. Being “for the first time at 1,5°C above the pre-industrial temperature: it is a threshold that is not only symbolic, but that makes us understand where we are going if we continue like this” is the comment of the scientist and climatologist Antonello Pasini.
