The effects of heat waves on mental health

The weekly round-up on the climate crisis and data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

A “silent killer”.This is how doctors defined heat waves because they claim many more victims than most people realize.And they have impacts on bodies and mental health.

According to the United Nations, 2.4 billion people worldwide are under threat by “increasingly severe heat waves, caused largely by a fossil fuel-induced climate crisis.”

A study recently published on Nature Medicine found that in 2023 – the warmest year on record although scientists they predict that 2024 will soon take its place – heat waves, worsened by carbon dioxide pollution, have killed almost 50 thousand people in Europe.And the death rate would have been 80% higher if people had not adapted to rising temperatures over the past two decades.This means that efforts to adapt societies to heat waves are effective, explains to Guardian Elisa Gallo, environmental epidemiologist at ISGlobal and lead author of the study.“But the number of heat-related deaths is still too high and Europe is warming at double the rate of the global average:we cannot rest on our laurels."

As already noted by the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations, heat waves in Europe are becoming more intense, longer and more frequent.By 2050, the report continues, around half of the European population could be exposed to a high or very high risk of heat wave stress during summer.

#IPCC #ClimateReport shows heatwaves in Europe will become more frequent, more intense & will last longer.

By 2050, about half of the European population may be exposed to high or very high risk of heat stress during summer.

➡️ https://t.co/FkIviyk5Qp pic.twitter.com/xxbEaAtR5V

— IPCC (@IPCC_CH) August 12, 2024

“Adaptation to rising temperatures has played a crucial role in preventing mortality in Europe, but remains insufficient,” added Dominic Royé, a researcher at the Climate Research Foundation, who was not involved in the study.

“Extreme heat is having an extreme impact on people and the planet.The world must take up the challenge of rising temperatures,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres last month, urging greater international cooperation.Guterres called for action in four areas:1) Caring for vulnerable people;2) Protect workers;3) Use data and scientific research to increase adaptive capacity;4) Limit the increase in global temperature to 1.5°C by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Scientists say governments can protect people from heat waves by designing cool cities with more parks and less concrete, setting up early warning systems to warn people of impending danger, and strengthening health systems so doctors and nurses don't are forced to overload themselves when temperatures rise.

But individual actions, such as staying indoors and drinking water, also have a strong effect on the number of deaths.Checking on neighbors and elderly relatives who live alone can make a difference.Dr. Santi Di Pietro, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pavia, said his colleagues are treating more patients per day than they were treating in early January during flu season.

“Climate change must be considered a health problem,” explains Gallo.Even in the workplace.

According to a report of the International Labor Organization (ILO), more than 70% of the world's workforce is at risk of death or illness due to extreme heat.Nearly 23 million workplace injuries worldwide are caused by excessive heat.

Africa (93%) and the Arabian Peninsula (83%) are the areas where the workforce is most exposed to heat waves.Europe and Central Asia are the regions where the risk of extreme heat is increasing faster than anywhere else in the world, with an increase of more than 17% since 2020.The report predicts that heat waves will cause around 1.6 million deaths globally by 2050, and that Southeast Asia could be among the hardest-hit regions.

In the long term, workers develop serious and debilitating chronic diseases, which affect the cardiovascular and respiratory systems and the kidneys.Also according to the ILO, 26.2 million people suffer from chronic kidney disease due to heat stress at work.

The categories most at risk are, in particular, firefighters, bakers, farmers, construction workers, miners, boiler workers, factory workers.Workers aged 65 or over, overweight, suffering from heart disease or high blood pressure are at greater risk.

Finally, one of the least debated aspects is that relating to the impacts of heat waves on mental health.In recent years, discussions about the impact of climate change on mental health they focused on eco anxiety, a term that indicates chronic worry, fear or anxiety related to the fate of the planet due to serious climate events.

Less is said about some lines of research that are trying to better understand the effects of climate change, particularly extreme heat, on mental health.Among these, also the latest IPCC report, which found that rising global temperatures have “adversely affected” mental health in regions around the world.

In general, heat and discomfort can affect a person's mood, leading them to feel more irritable and stressed with knock-on effects on behavior.A growing number of research links extreme heat to an increase in violent behavior. 

Extreme heat can have even more significant implications on sleep.Research shows that heating at night is worsening the quality and hours of sleep globally.Days or weeks of sleeping in rooms that are too hot can not only aggravate chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, but also negatively affect psychiatric disorders

All of these aspects are exacerbated for those with mental health problems.In these cases, research has identified an increase in hospital admissions of people with mental health problems and also a greater risk of dying during periods of high temperatures.

However, there remain many gaps in understanding the biological, psychological, social and environmental interactions between mental health and heat. explains Alessandro Massazza, project advisor on climate change and mental health at Wellcome, a foundation focusing on mental health, infectious diseases and climate. Research is still sporadic and limited and, with them, also government policies:mental health barely features in climate-related commitments around the world.

Currently, only 3% of climate commitments submitted by national governments under the Paris Agreement mention mental health, Massazza continues. South Australia is one of the few states which provides targeted support for at-risk groups, including those with mental illnesses.Also nature-based policies, which improve access to green and blue spaces, and transport policies which encourage the use of slow means of locomotion, like bicycles, have been shown to have benefits for mental health and the environment.

“A better understanding of how and why extreme heat has a negative impact on mental health – concludes Massazza – will be essential to achieving a world in which no one is hindered by mental health problems, even in the context of a changing climate”.

Climate, even the Paris Olympics were a lesson in greenwashing

The Olympics are a sustainability nightmare and Paris 2024, despite making notable progress, was no exception.

Before the start of the Paris Olympics, the organizers stated that they wanted to make sustainability the distinctive feature of this edition of the Games.In light of climate change, they promised it would be a “climate-historical” event and “game-changers like we've never seen before.”

Indeed, the organizers went to great lengths.To limit the carbon footprint, the construction of new sports facilities and new sites, such as the Media Village for journalists and the Olympic Village. Materials of biological origin were used, especially wood, and recycled, such as the seats in the aquatic center or the podiums for the awards, made of recycled plastic.The construction of the Olympic Village required lower carbon intensity – the amount of carbon dioxide released to generate one kilowatt hour of electricity:less than 650 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per square meter (kgCO2e/m2), half the French average for the construction of office structures (1,400 kgCO2e/m2) and multi-family homes (1,300 kgCO2e/m2).Even the catering has aimed at zero food waste and has seen a reduction in carbon emissions, favoring local zero-mile suppliers, food composting, a 50-60% reduction in animal products and doubling the amount of plant-based products in the menu.The organizers of the Paris Olympic Games they also claimed that 100% electricity used in the Olympic venues came from renewable sources (even if it was difficult to verify this statement).

All this certainly represents a step forward compared to the past, but there are still many critical issues.Most of the greenhouse gas emissions produced by major sporting events – about 85% has been estimated – comes from fans' travel, journalists and athletes to reach the event.According to previous estimates, the Paris Games would have released 1.58 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, equivalent in a few weeks to the average emissions of over 150,000 French people in an entire year, writes Mediapart.In reality, it will take time to assess the final carbon footprint of the event.

Furthermore, the organizers relied heavily on climate compensation projects through the purchase of carbon credits:in practice, large companies, instead of reducing emissions, compensate for the climate-changing gases emitted by purchasing credits through projects or investments in "green" technologies in other countries, very often states in the so-called southern hemisphere.Various journalistic investigations have revealed the negative impacts on local communities - which in some cases have seen their territories expropriated for the creation of nature parks - when it was not a question of real scams, as in the case of the one that the federal police Brazilian government has defined “Operation Greenwashing” in the Amazon:carbon credits sold with a total value of 34 million dollars from illegally invaded areas.

And even with respect to the environmental sustainability of the new buildings, not everything went as described by the organizers. An investigation by Mediapart he defined the temporary skate park built in Place de la Concorde as "an avalanche of concrete".The very idea is "an environmental and economic absurdity", commented the president of a French group of skate parks, considered the environmental impacts of cement.

All of this shows once again the ecological absurdity of holding these types of 20th century style mega-events in a world that is burning.

An academic research, which analyzed the sustainability of 16 different Olympics from 1992 to 2020, noted that the last four editions of the Games before Paris 2024 they were the least sustainable ever.In order Sochi 2014 [winter games], Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and London 2012.

If we really want sustainable games, the only way forward is explains an article published on Scientific American, is to reduce the size of these mega-events, limit the number of tourists arriving from far away, make supply chains greener and make energy sources transparent.Until then, the Olympics will remain an exercise in greenwashing, a yawning gulf between sustainable words and deeds.

What is the "dark oxygen" produced by metals at the bottom of the sea and which could change our knowledge of the origin of life on Earth

About half of the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean.Until now, it was thought to be produced by marine plants through photosynthesis, which requires sunlight.But a group of scientists discovered the production of “dark oxygen (“dark oxygen”) from naturally occurring lumps of metal on the ocean floor.This discovery – explain the authors of the research – could change our understanding of the origins of life on Earth.

According to the research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metal “nodules” that split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.Nodules form when metals dissolved in seawater collect on shell fragments or other debris.It is a process that takes millions of years.Because these nodules contain metals such as lithium, cobalt and copper, all needed for battery production, many mining companies are developing technology to harvest them and bring them to the surface.Which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process and harm marine life that depends on the oxygen produced.More than 800 marine scientists from 44 countries have signed a petition highlighting environmental risks and calling for a halt to mining activities.[Source: Nature Geoscience]

Malawi, how climate disaster survivors are rebuilding their communities thanks to the world's first loss and damage fund

A year and a half ago, in March 2023, Cyclone Freddy left a terrible trail of destruction when it hit southern Africa:679 deaths, 659 thousand displaced in southern Malawi, physical damage and economic losses of over 450 million euros, of which 45.5 million in the district of Nsanje alone.Before 2015, Malawi had never seen a cyclone.

Sixteen months later, 2,695 families have received non-repayable financing for reconstruction.And they were able to begin to revive a community that seemed destroyed, as in the case of the 10 thousand people displaced from the Namiyala area in an elementary school, transformed into a makeshift camp.The funds, equal to around 700 euros for each family, were distributed in three tranches as part of a fund launched by the Scottish Government at COP28 in 2023, with the participation of the US non-profit organization GiveDirectly, which provides humanitarian aid in cash and has been operating in Malawi since 2019.And with these funds the displaced families were able to rebuild their homes, buy new clothes, allow their children to return to school, and pay for labor.

“The West has an obligation to help us rebuild and readjust.We are not responsible for many of the problems we are facing now,” says Charles Kalemba, commissioner of the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA).“The United Nations should be used to mobilize resources.It is useful to talk to governments, but we have been talking for more than 20 years now.We are about to enter COP29, and we have been talking for 29 years.Many of those commitments remain just that, commitments."[Source: Guardian]

Five ways Hawaii is trying to prevent the next devastating wildfire

A year ago, the deadliest American wildfire in more than a century claimed 102 lives on the island of Maui, Hawaii, leaving the historic town of Lahaina in ashes and setting off a series of investigations into what could have been done to better prepare for such a disaster.Since then, laws have been passed, emergency agencies have implemented new policies, and residents and officials have grappled with how to rebuild the city.But some of the most important steps that could help prepare for - or prevent - the next disaster have not been taken, in part because there are questions about how to financially support the necessary interventions.The result is that, a year after the disaster, the island remains worryingly vulnerable to wild fires which climate scientists say are a growing threat.

However, the administration has identified five types of intervention to prevent future fires:1) New investments to organize interventions, avoid delays, increase the number of firefighters;2) Reduce grasslands at risk of fire;3) Improve the security of the electricity grid;4) Reorganize evacuation strategies;5) A climate impact tax to fund protection measures against fires and other disasters.[Source: New York Times]

Data on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere

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