CLIMATE CHANGE CONCERNS
By Kirk Winter
On October 29 at a Special Meeting of CKL Council, members listened intently to a presentation by Sue Shikaze, a Health Promoter from the HKPR District Health Unit. Shikaze was laying out research that the Health Unit has regarding the impact of climate change on their catchment area, and what they plan to do to combat climate change in HKPR.
Shikaze explained that the Health Unit has been asked by the province to “find links between climate and health.” They have also been tasked with determining “the current and future health risks associated with climate change and determine who is most vulnerable.”
The Lancet, Great Britain’s leading medical publication, laid the threat out in stark terms in 2009 when they stated, “Climate change is the greatest public health challenge of the 21st century.”
The Health Unit has determined that there are four key ways that climate change impacts health.
Rising temperatures
Extreme weather
Decreasing air quality
Vector borne diseases
Data has been collected in CKL since 1981 about the number of “tropical nights” that we experience every summer. A “tropical night” is defined as an evening where the air temperature does not drop below 20 Celsius. On average, between 1981 and 2005 we experienced five of those evenings each year. By 2050, we are expected to have to deal with 30 of those sticky evenings, and by 2080 that number is expected to rise to 55.
Those kinds of temperatures will likely lead to permanent heat emergencies for the months of July and August. Emergency wards would be filled to overflowing with the young, the old, the sick and the immune-compromised looking for ways to cope with that unheard-of kind of heat.
By 2050 scientists expect to see rainfall from “extremely wet days” increase by 50 percent, and by 2080 increase 89 percent. That kind of rainfall could cause extensive flooding and be responsible for the loss of lives. Climate experts agree unanimously that significant extreme weather incidents are on the rise, and the hurricane season in Florida this fall has certainly borne that supposition out.
Our family doctor concurred that the last two or three years have been record allergy seasons. Airborne particulate has outstripped allergy shots, which have been all but phased out, and over-the-counter remedies that cannot keep up with the ever-changing air quality. People with asthma will certainly find numerous sweltering evenings predicted by the HKPR Health Unit especially difficult.
Vector borne diseases like West Nile Virus and Lyme Disease will be monitored carefully moving forward, and are expected to become more commonplace. Mosquitoes and ticks are expected to expand their ranges and have longer seasons.
The Ministry of Natural Resources shared that this summer was “a record season for mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies and horse flies. There were more detected than normal and their seasons appeared to arrive sooner and last longer than would normally be expected.” As a cottage owner in Haliburton, I can certainly concur with their findings. We closed our cottage in late October and there were still mosquitoes about, virtually unheard of at this time of year. Phase One of the HKPR climate/health action plan will tentatively be presented to Council next month. Phase Two will be tentatively rolled out for June of 2020.