The consequences of climate change—including warming, drought, and sea-level rise—worsen most infectious diseases by facilitating transmission and increasing the severity of outbreaks, according to a study published today (August 8) in Nature Climate Change. The study finds that climate change has the potential to exacerbate outbreaks of 58 percent of the 375 pathogens that have infected humans in recorded history.
“Systems have been evolving for millions of years and now humans have come along and changed things,” study coauthor Camilo Mora at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa tells NBC News, adding that “we are punching nature, but nature is punching us back.”
To assess the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on disease, Mora and his colleagues analyzed more than 3,200 published scientific works, identifying outbreaks reported as having been intensified by at least one climate hazard, such as drought. Tallying the pathogens that cropped up in that evaluation, the ...
