NoMethodError: undefined method `arity' for :none:Symbol

Print friendly page

See original article

Life in an unhealthy climate

Abnormal weather has a far greater impact on people's health than previously imagined.
16 Sep 2011 17:03 Mandi Smallhorne

A
firefighter battles a fire fuelled by strong winds and record temperatures in Vyksa, Russia. (Mikhail
Voskresensky, Reuters)
Krish Perumal does not look forward to Durbans summers. A
middle-aged
supervisor in a rubberproducing company, he was struck by asthma about 25 years ago when he was in his early 30s. Its
worse when its hot and humid, he says. When you get bad wheezing, then you can get the flu.
Perumal believes his condition is caused by industrial pollutionand he may be right. He lives in south
Durban, home to two of South Africas biggest oil refineries and more than 120 industries, and more than
280 000 people. The area is a notorious pollution hot spot and a study done a few years ago showed that
children here were twice as likely to get asthma as those in the northern parts of the city.
But there is reason to believe that global warming may be playing a part in the rise in respiratory disease
here and elsewhere (asthma rates have been soaring around the world in the past three decades). Average

temperatures in Southern Africa have risen by 1.5C over the past century as opposed to 0.8C globally,
according to Dr Francois Engelbrecht of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The
combination of higher temperatures and industrial pollutants is bad news for asthma sufferers like
Perumaland gives him a special interest in the 17th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17), which will take place in Durban from November
28.
The pollutant by-product of interest here is ozone, which is something most of us connect to the hole in
the ozone layer happening in the Antarctic high up in the sky. But ground-level ozone is common in our
cities. It forms when nitrogen oxides (NOx, a product of combustion in cars, trucks, industrial processes
and coal-fired power plants) react with volatile organic compounds in sunlight, explains Dan Ferber, coauthor with Dr Paul Epstein of Changing Planet, Changing Health (University of California Press).
Ground-level ozone irritates the respiratory system, damages lung tissue and reduces lung function. It
triggers coughing, chest discomfort, a scratchy feeling in the throat and other symptoms. It makes people
more susceptible to respiratory infections and it exacerbates asthma and emphysema.
Effects on health
When he started working on the book, Ferber says, he had no idea what he would discover. The overall
scope of the potential health problems was surprising to me.
Ferber says that because scientists focus on their own specialities, the public receives information about
climate change piecemeala study that looks at how crops are being affected; research on expanding
ranges for mosquitoes; insight into changing patterns of rainfall. It is only when you step back and try to
take in the whole picture that you realise this should be framed as a public health crisis, he says.
Consider how all-encompassing the effects on health are. Most of South Africa has been malaria-free
hitherto. But it is common cause that climate change will likely increase the range of the Anopheles
mosquito that carries malaria. It will also altersometimes increasing, sometimes reducingthe range
of other insects that carry disease, such as the ticks that carry Congo fever. South Africa needs to be
prepared for a possible rise in insect-borne diseases.
Then there is water. Water is the primary medium through which people in Africa will experience
climate change impacts. By 2020, it is estimated that 75-million to 250-million Africans will be exposed
to increased water stress, writes Dr Mary Galvin in a forthcoming publication by the Environmental
Monitoring Group, Water and Climate Change: An Exploration for the Concerned and Curious.
Projections indicate that South Africa will not benefit from the fact that warmer air holds more moisture:
specific climatic features mean that, overall, we will be hotter but not get much increase in useful
rainfall.
Some of the rainfall will come in extreme weather events such as the recent floods in the Newcastle and
Upington regions, which can damage crops and do not necessarily sink into the underground water table,
instead running off and washing away precious topsoil.
What does this mean for our health? Water is, of course, a vital nutrient, but it is also crucial to a secure
food supply. A reduced rainfall, combined with changes in times when crops can be planted and
harvested because of higher temperatures, will likely add to greater food insecurity. Lester Brown,
president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, DC, has estimated that for every 1C increase in
temperature, yields of staple grains will drop by 10%. This, of course, like all the impacts of climate
change, will hit the poor hardest.

I can say with confidence that there is a link between rising food prices and climate change, says
Ferber. Drought in Australia, wildfires in Russia and other events affect global food supply. In August,
for example, China Daily reported that South Koreas rice harvest was expected to reach a 10-year low
next year because of abnormal weather conditions, which we should perhaps be calling the new
normal.
An absence of fresh, clean water in adequate amounts for drinking and washing, coupled with
undernourished people add up to a perfect health storm: water-borne diseases like cholera thrive in such
conditions and malnourished peoples immune systems are unable to mount a sufficient defence.
We should be putting thought into adapting to a water-poor future, says Galvin: Sustainable water usage
solutions that could be implemented not simply by ecologically progressive households or municipalities
but on a national scale include rainwater-harvesting landscapes for growing food, from commercial
agriculture to small-scale farms to homestead gardens; the use of grey water to irrigate agriculture, parks
and public sites; ecological treatment of sewage; dry sanitation systems such as compost toilets and pit
latrines; and reducing water leaks.
Adaptation will also require improving river and local wetland health; adjusting farming practice with
resilient crops and shifting seasons; expanding the number of households with food gardens; and
preparing for drought or floods.
Heat effects on productivity
We all know about the 2003 heat wave, the hottest on record in more than 450 years, which killed about
40 000 people in Europe. Perhaps we dismiss the significance of this in our minds because the news
focus was on the elderly people who died in great numbers. What went largely unnoticed at the time was
a significant increase in deaths among those under 65demonstrating that heat has a substantial effect
on younger people too. Interestingly, although far more elderly women than men died, men were about
twice as likely to die as women in the younger age group.
Heat waves will be more common in future, but the increase in average temperatures alone is likely to
have an impact on human health in ways that will reduce productivity, shorten life spans and decrease
wellbeing significantly, as Professor Tord Kjellstrom and his South African colleagues pointed out at a
seminar at the University of Johannesburg in August. Kjellstrom is an internationally recognised expert
on the health impacts of climate changehe is part-time professor and visiting fellow at the National
Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University in Canberra and is
developing a global programme of studies on high occupational temperature health and productivity
suppression (Hothaps) that is aimed at quantifying the impacts of heat exposure at work.
In a warming world we will experience the highest temperatures during the day, while we are at work.
The majority of workers will not be able to escape the heat in air-conditioned offices. They will be out in
the fields harvesting crops, labouring on construction sites or in factories that are inadequately cooled
doing the work that feeds us and gives us the pleasant and useful things in life.
Professor Angela Mathee, head of the Medical Research Councils Environment and Health Research
Unit, and colleagues Joy Oba and Andre Rose have done a pilot study as part of Hothaps. They
demonstrated that many outdoor workers were already exposed to alarmingly severe health and
productivity impacts from heat exposure.
Focus groups in Johannesburg and Upington spoke of increased thirst, excessive sweating, exhaustion,
dry noses, blisters, burning eyes, headaches, nose bleeds and dizziness, among a host of other effects
including chronic tiredness: When it is very hot, sometimes when you wake up in the morning you feel

exhausted, said one Upington participant. As temperatures rise further in the near future, symptoms like
these will have to be urgently addressed by employers and the government.
Sweating it out
Excessive perspiration is a serious heat-related health concern that can become a killer. Kjellstrom spoke
about South American sugar-cane cutters who sweated several litres of fluid in a day, but only brought
two litres of water to work with them because they had to walk and could not carry more. Because the
employers did not provide water in the field, each day they would have to wait until knock-off time to
replace the deficit, which had led to a spate of life-threatening kidney conditions in relatively young
workers.
The imbalance of salts that results from heavy sweating is one reason why heat exposure reduces
productivity: it leads to a lessened ability to work intensively and a loss of perceptual and motor
performanceeven mild dehydration has been shown to decrease mental performance. The brain also
sends a signal to decrease muscle tone, which leaves people feeling tired and listless.
People will be working at a slower paceif you are working in a consistent temperature above 28C you
should work only half your normal hours, says the professorand their risk of accidents on the job also
will increase. There are psychosocial effects as well: aggression rises, for example, increasing the risk of
conflict and interpersonal friction in the workplace.
In addition, Kjellstrom points out, heat in many workplaces will interact with chemicals such as solvents
and pesticides used on the job; these will evaporate faster, boosting the danger of exposure for workers.
And workers who wear protective clothing will be hotter while at the same time being less able to
perspire as effectively. In Southeast Asia, innovators are coming up with concepts to tackle this problem.
One inventor has developed a vest containing tubes of material that stay frozen solid until about 25C
when the temperature hits 30C you stick it in the freezer again.
South African research
Weve known about the effects of heat in the workplace for a long time, says Kjellstrom. But it is only
recently that people have begun to link this knowledge with the oncoming juggernaut of climate change.
Interestingly, the original research on heat and labour was done right here in South Africa about 60 years
ago. Dr CH Wyndham tested the work capacity of fit young men who came to work in the hot
underground of Johannesburgs mines. He found that although about 64% of men could cope with
moderate physical labour in hot conditions, only a few were able to cope with heavy labour. He decided
to acclimatise them by having them exercise in a warm gym daily for a few weeks, after which the
number who could do hard labour jumped to 29%still less than a third. Wyndhams concept is still in
use to acclimatise and harden new recruits and men who return to the mines after holidays.
Will our future climate be hot enough to trigger these on-the-job health problems? The answer is yes. At
the CSIR recently, atmospheric modeller Dr Francois Engelbrecht presented the results of six simulations
or models of our future, the largest exercise of its kind ever done here. The news is not good: Southern
Africa has an observed temperature increase over the past century of double the global average, and this
trend will continue over the decades between now and centurys end. So ifand its an unlikely prospect
we manage to keep the global increase down to two degrees, Southern Africa will experience four.
This means that whereas a pleasant Gauteng January day between 1960 and 2000 was usually about
25C, it would in future be about 29C. If, as many scientists now believe is likely, the increase is three
or four degrees globally, we are going to have some stinking hot summers.
The middle class and the wealthy will be able to buy their way out of many of these impacts for the next

decade or soair conditioners and filters will protect us from the heat and pollutants and insect
repellents from mozzies and ticks. And we will probably moan at the price of water and food. But
climate change will affect the poor the most, worsening the divide between rich and poor and placing
serious demands on the public purse.
Few hold out much hope for a meaningful and binding treaty at COP17. But the dark picture experts
paint of our future health prospects if we do not act, and act now,
provides South Africans with urgent
reasons to hopeand lobbyfor an outcome that holds some promise.
All material Mail & Guardian Online. Material may not be published or reproduced in any form
without prior written permission.