Climate Change

1. What do you personally find most troubling about climate change?

What I find most troubling is the warming of the Earth. I keep reading about how its going to get so hot and only the rich will be able to escape by affording to travel elsewhere during heat waves. It makes me think of hot cities such as Dubai, or even Texas. What are the chances that one day it will get too hot and we wont be able to go outside anymore in certain places? 

side note: i recently read an article that said Dubai is planning on putting air conditioners outside!!

2.As a public health professional, what do you think needs the greatest attention right now?

 

So this is something I'm conflicted with. I feel like in terms of climate change public health and other divisions put too much emphasis on the individual person. They pressure them to make change, when in reality the data says that 100 or so companies are responsible for some high percentage of emissions (I think it was like 70%. I'll try and find the citaton). So I think Public Health should focus on making people aware of who those 100 companies are and then pushing for a boycott. 

However in terms of overall attention, I think public health needs to focus on obesity, because its 

1. preventable

2. expensive

3. associated with too many other diseases

3.If you were visiting with a long-lost relative who had never heard about climate change, how would you describe it and its attendant human health and ecological threats?

I simply describe it by saying, that for the past millions of years Earth has gone through cooling and warming cycles. The last one being the Ice Age. However as humans evolved we created things that changed the natural environment, throwing off the natural cycles and creating a new one. One where the Earth warms at a much faster rate and this warming has cosquences such as the melting of glaciers from the last ice age, which produces flooding and which can release previously "frozen" diseases.