Study: Warming Will be the 21st Century's Greatest Health Threat

There's a reason I subtitle this blog "The Bearer of Bad Tidings;" good news isn't news very often. No one cares about the headline, "House Not on Fire." That said, here's the news, bad as it is.

Bloomberg News:

Global warming is the biggest public health threat of the 21st century, eclipsing infectious diseases, water shortages and poverty, a team of medical and climate-change researchers concluded.

The phenomenon will be felt first in the developing world, further burdening a population already in crisis from food shortages, said the report from University College London that was published today in The Lancet journal. The changing climate will also cause real and lasting damage to the Western world, affecting generations to come, said Anthony Costello, a pediatrician at University College London.

"Climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation," Costello said during a news conference. "We are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely frightening and turbulent."

According to the report, "A warmer planet will flood cities, leading to mass migration of coastal-dwelling residents and triggering wars as resources such as food and water become scarcer, the researchers said. Rising temperatures will spread diseases like malaria and increase deaths from flooding, drought and more intense storms."

That sounds pleasant. And those who would deny a human cause for global warming saw one of their favorite scapegoats -- the sun -- absolved this week. Turns out changes in the sun aren't responsible, according to a study published in Geophysical Research Letters. They're too minor to have any real effect on our climate.

This one's all us. Are we willing to drive off the cliff because turning might cost a little money or are we going to be sane and adult about this and take responsibility for our own actions?