Reading assignment: Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological, and Economic Dimensions

"Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological, and Economic Dimensions"

Harvard Medical School, 2005, free download from ­www.climatechangefutures.org/report/index.html

As major political controversies go, global climate change ranks right up there. Not into doing ideological battle? Let's focus on potential impacts.

This report was three years in the making and covers 140 pages (including notes and references), but the product is worth the effort. Some of it is technical, but it's well explained, and there are even pictures!

Paul Epstein of Harvard Medical School was one of the first scientists of international repute to put serious effort into discussing modern climate change and its effects in a way that registered with scientists and the public.

Given its social and political implications, it's not surprising that his work has been misquoted across the political spectrum, but he has been careful to distinguish between data and projections, and between measured warming (which is no longer really in doubt), what caused it and what the effects are/will be (far from settled). It's easy to editorialize on the topic, but this report isn't about causes or placing blame, it's about potential impacts based on two scenarios.

Epstein and Evan Mills, of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, have compiled detailed and compelling discussion focusing on three areas: health (emerging and expanding diseases), economics (particularly insurance) and ecology (biodiversity and the shifting balance between pests and the factors that control them).

The introductory material sets the stage neatly by reviewing the physical aspects of climate change and what's happening; the purpose is to provide context rather than dwell on the process. The scenarios (neither best- nor worst-case) take the same process and eventual outcome and model two different paths: one stepped and the other more abrupt.

There are ample and wide-ranging impacts in events that have nothing to do with climate change. For example, although tsunamis are generated irrespective of climate, their impact can be magnified by sea-level rise and the degradation of reefs and other coastal barriers.

If you want a glimpse into disease emergence and existing disease spread, along with their global impacts, but don't want to read one of Laurie Garrett's excellent but very long books, you'll find this worthwhile and almost as scary.