Educating for a Healthy Environment

[Abstract] We need to educate our children to adapt to the effects of climate change because even if greenhouse gases are reduced in the near future, the earth's climate will continue to change and will affect the health of all citizens throughout the planet, particularly the young. Pre-tests and post-tests used before and after lessons showed that middle school children in New Delhi, India, could be effectively made aware of the reasons for climate change, its effects on health, and the adaptive measures they need to adopt, through a variety of methods, such as presentations, videos, quizzes, and games. Learning to adapt to global warming can be made a pleasant experience. [Keywords] climate change; health effects; adaptation; mitigation; greenhouse effect; global warming Educating for a Healthy Environment People all over the world agree that greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity are responsible for global climate change. There has been an observed 0.5 degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures since the mid-1970s, which is partly due to these anthropogenic emissions. It is also believed that these changes are going to lead to adverse health effects ranging from heat strokes and injury from extreme weather events to hunger and infectious diseases in many parts of the world (McMichael, Woodruff, & Hales, 2006, para. 2). As described by Smith and Ezzati (2005), there is a tendency in societies to "sweep environmental health problems from out of the house and into the community during the first stages of development and then out from the community to the general global environment during later stages" This shifting of risk by the affluent has put the poor and vulnerable at the receiving end of the transition (p. 295). If the health risks are analyzed according to mortality rates and age, as in WHO' s Global Burden of Disease (GBD), it becomes evident that infectious diseases which are intimately connected with age and sanitation are often highest among the very young, increasing with malnourishment, deficiency, accessibility to clean resources, and lack of resilience. Therefore, the proportion of mortality from such diseases is highest among infants and children below the age of five even in developed countries. Among the ages 15 to 65, deaths from diseases, which are aggravated by personal habits like smoking, drinking, substance abuse, and unsafe sex, are the highest and, therefore, as countries address basic environmental and sanitation issues and infant mortality reduces, deaths from chronic diseases appear to take over. Deaths from unintended injury (accidents) and intentional violence remain constant (Smith & Ezzati, 2005, figure 6c&d). Thus, when global warming causes extreme weather events or increases in infectious disease causing organisms and their vectors, it's the very young and the vulnerable all over the world that will primarily be affected. However, the maximum effect of this increase is going to be seen among those who are the poorest and the most vulnerable, among whom will be children under the age of five and all those who do not have access to safe and clean resources, nutrition, and healthcare, especially in the poor and developing countries. Therefore, we need to prepare ourselves and our next generations to anticipate the consequences of climate change and adapt to it by understanding how these changes can affect our health and what we can do as individuals to protect ourselves and others from it. There are several diseases and threats to human health that have been found dependent on the climate. Extreme temperatures can lead directly to loss of life, while climate-related disturbances in ecological systems, such as changes in the range of infective parasites, can indirectly impact the incidence of serious infectious diseases. In addition, higher temperatures affect air and water quality, which, in turn, may be detrimental to human health. …