<
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/06/nx-s1-5215837/young-people-heat-risk-climate-change>
'Extreme heat puts stress on everyone's bodies. In recent years, scientists and
policymakers have homed in on the risks heat poses to older people, whose
bodies become more sensitive to heat with increasing age.
But a new study in the journal
Science Advances suggests that there is
another group at risk, and one that gets less attention.
"Young people are disproportionately vulnerable to heat," says Andrew Wilson,
an environmental scientist at Stanford University and an author of the new
analysis.
The study, which focused on Mexico, found that people under 35 made up
three-quarters of the country's deaths related to heat in recent decades, with
risks concentrated amongst children under 4 years old and young adults from 18
to 35. That percentage is likely to increase in the future as human-caused
climate change intensifies the number of sticky, humid heat days in the
country.
The warming climate will also drive a drop in deaths related to cold weather,
the study finds, at the same time as heat-related deaths rise. The study
projects that overall, deaths influenced by temperatures will drop within
Mexico. But who is dying will likely change. The study finds that in the past,
temperature-related deaths have been concentrated among seniors and driven
mostly by cold weather. In a hotter world, the burden of temperature-related
deaths is likely to shift toward younger people.
The result is "a really surprising inequality across age groups," says Wilson.
The results underscore the complexity of temperature-related deaths in a
changing climate, says Tamma Carleton, an environmental economist at the
University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved with the study. In
many mid-latitude and northern regions, the number of overall deaths from
extreme temperatures is projected to drop. But in places that are already hot,
deaths from heat are projected to soar.
In aggregate, "in most of the world we're going to see net increases under
warming because those heat increases are going to overpower declines on the
cold side," she says. "But it is a dance that can look very different in
different regions of the world." And the impacts, Carleton says, are generally
much greater in countries that have historically contributed the least to
human-driven climate change.'
Via Tess.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
