7gen Bloc

As we near an agreement that will begin to curb our country's CO2 emissions, much of the debate centers on how the auctioning of emissions will impact various industries. Largely out of view is the massive impact on human health that lies ahead and the fact that the most devastating effects will fall upon those who are already the most vulnerable.

A new report, completed by University College London and published in The Lancet, details the disease, food and water shortages, and poor sanitation issues that will be created by climate change and says they will generate a huge death toll.

In a story published by the Times of London, Professor Anthony Costello, a pediatrician and director of UCL Institute for Global Health comments that the threat is a "clear and present danger" that will affect billions of lives. The world, he says, needs a 21st-century public health movement to deal with climate change.

"The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation," says Professor Costello. "The impacts will be felt all around the world -- and not just in some distant future but in our lifetimes and those of our children."

I sit in the camp of my fellow Greenpeace colleagues who are extremely disappointed by the limited progress that the current congressional legislation seeks to create. It is breathtaking to think that as intelligent as we believe ourselves to be, we would knowingly put the health of billions of our fellow citizens and, even more astoundingly, the health of our own children at risk by not doing absolutely everything possible to prevent the tragedy that surely awaits us if we do anything less.

photo: Clinton Steeds