Diseases that jump between species tend to have an easier time eventually making the leap to humans. Bird flu, for example, has been spreading with greater ease among wild animals as rising seas and other factors push nesting bird species inland, where they’re more likely to run into other species. That poses a threat to people living in those areas, and it also leads to dangerous intermingling between animal newcomers and existing species. To escape rising temperatures in their native ranges, animals are beginning to move to higher, cooler elevations, bringing diseases with them. People are suffering and dying right now.” “This is not just something off in the future,” Neil Vora, a physician with the nonprofit Conservation International, said. Researchers have begun piecing together a patchwork of evidence that illuminates the formidable threat climate-driven diseases currently pose to human health - and the scope of the dangers to come. Diseases old and new are becoming more prevalent and even cropping up in places they’ve never been found before. Climate change displaces some 20 million people every year - people who need housing, medical care, food, and other essentials that put strain on already-fragile systems that are growing ever more stressed.Īll of these factors create conditions ripe for human illness. Meanwhile, the number of people experiencing extreme repercussions of a warming planet continues to grow. Populations of species that humans rely on for sustenance are dwindling and getting pushed into ever-smaller slices of habitat, creating new zoonotic-disease hotspots. Deforestation, mining, agriculture, and urban sprawl are taking bites out of the globe’s remaining wild areas, contributing to biodiversity loss that’s occurring at a rate unprecedented in human history. These changes are not happening in a vacuum. And they’re not alone: Ticks, mosquitos, bacteria, algae, even fungi are on the move, shifting or expanding their historical ranges to adapt to climatic conditions that are evolving at an unprecedented pace. NEW YORK (AP) - People around the world are living longer, healthier lives than they were just half a century ago.Ĭlimate change threatens to undo that progress.Īcross the planet, animals - and the diseases they carry - are shifting to accommodate a globe on the fritz.
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