Climate Change

Climate Change Poses Pregnancy Risks

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COVID-19 has understandably preoccupied us for months, nevertheless many other critical threats have not taken a holiday. One threat — climate change — looms large, and will punish the earth long after the virus is off the front pages.

An exhaustive study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that pregnant women exposed to air pollution or high temperatures intensified by climate change risk preterm birth, low birth weight and stillbirth.

Climate Change

WiRED Team in Kenya Takes Action against COVID-19

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The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic to Kisumu, Kenya, is placing a heavy burden on a population already suffering routinely from disease and lack of basic health care. If that weren’t enough, since early 2020, East Africa has experienced unprecedented waves of locust swarms — a crisis linked to climate change — which has destroyed livestock and crops and threatens to worsen food scarcity.

Climate Change

Rollbacks: An Assault Against Life on Earth

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WiRED International’s goal is to provide free medical and health information materials and training to low-resource communities around the world. We place all our work within the context of One Health principles — that all life on our planet is interconnected. While COVID-19 is drawing everyone’s attention, conditions leading to climate change are increasing as the federal administration is rolling back nearly 100 environmental and land use regulations in our own country. In this article, WiRED board member, Dr. Elizabeth Fine, reviews a recent film that addresses how the loosening of environmental protection laws in the United States impacts our health.

Climate Change

Climate Change Perspective from Generation Z

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As governments around the world rightly focus on the growing COVID-19 outbreak, we need to be mindful of a variety of other existential threats that will not disappear with a cure or a vaccine. The most evident threat is climate change; throughout the next decades, it will severely impact every aspect of life, including human health. In this article, one of our young writers shares her passionate concern, and her words remind us that her generation faces huge challenges even after the COVID-19 issue resolves.

Climate Change

The Impact of Climate Change on Human Health

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This time last year, I wrote an editorial describing the wildfires burning north of San Francisco, where many WiRED volunteers and board members live. Because of air pollution, we were holed up in our homes, able to venture outside only for chores and obligations we could not avoid. This year the fires have returned, and so has the air pollution, although the air isn’t as foul as it was last year. This year’s new disaster-related feature was the preemptive electricity outages, where power companies plunged 2.7 million people into darkness. Of course, neither the pollution nor the blackouts approach the horrors of the fires themselves and the losses to people who suffered through those infernos.

Climate Change

Air Pollution and Climate Change

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The World Health Organization (WHO) placed air pollution and climate change at the top of its list of ten threats to global health in 2019 — even ahead of such concerns as noncommunicable diseases and Ebola. Air pollution seriously affects health. There are two main types of air pollution: ambient air pollution (outdoor pollution) and household (or indoor) air pollution (pollution generated by household combustion of coal, wood or kerosene using open fires or basic stoves in poorly ventilated spaces).