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Climate change impacting health care to the tune of $820B a year
Published: May 25, 2021 4:03 PM EDT
Updated: May 25, 2021 5:31 PM EDT
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Climate change is not just affecting the Earth and our air, it’s now affecting health care.
A new report finds the financial impact tops $820 billion in health costs each year, and it could cost all of us more in the future.
Sniffling, sneezing, asthma and allergies. Dr. Renee Salas, an emergency medical physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, said she sees the impacts of climate change firsthand in her ER.
“I often talk about a 4-year-old girl who arrived for her third asthma visit that week, driven by factors like climate intensified pollen and air pollution,” she said.
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NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Air pollution from fossil fuels costs each American an average of $2,500 a year in extra medical bills, researchers said on Thursday, as climate change hurts both health and finances.
The national pricetag was put at more than $820 billion a year, with air pollution contributing to an estimated 107,000 premature deaths annually, said the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental advocacy group,
“The science is clear: the dangerous effects of climate change - and their profound costs to our health and our pocketbooks - will worsen each year we fail to curb the pollution,” said the NDRC’s Vijay Limaye.
The impacts of climate change and fossil fuel production are tied to more than $820 billion a year in physical and mental health care costs, according to a report issued Thursday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The report, co-produced with the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health and Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action, found that health problems from soot air pollution alone have a yearly price tag of $820 billion. Ozone pollution caused by burning fuels and increased temperatures, meanwhile, adds roughly $7.9 billion in annual health costs.
The report also incorporates naturally occurring phenomena affected by temperature increases and concentration of carbon dioxide. For example, warming has exacerbated the effects of allergenic oak pollen, which led to an estimated $11.4 million in annual costs, according to the report. Researchers estimated that in 2010, allergenic oak pollen was the cause of more than 21,000 emergency room visits.
Climate change ravaged the West last year and 2021 could be worse
‘We’ve got a pretty deep hole that 2020 has dug for us.’
(Francisco Kjolseth | Tribune file photo) This Jan. 6, 2021, file photo shows limited snowfall in Big Cottonwood Canyon where south facing slopes showed bare spots. Already in the grip of a stubborn drought, Utah, along with the entire Intermountain West, is facing what looks to be another bleak water year as climate change settles into the region.
By Judy Fahys | Updated: 7:34 p.m.
If there were any doubts that the climate is changing in the Colorado River Basin, 2020 went a long way toward dispelling them, thanks to yet another year of extreme weather.