Climate change: how grave the threat?

Climate change is not the biggest global health threat.

The UCL Lancet Commission on climate change and health (May 16, p 1693) concludes: “Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”. In this report, the authors emphasise not only the immediacy and gravity of this threat, but also the directness: while the poorest in the world will be the fi rst aff ected, none will be spared. The escalating carbon footprint of the devel...

Climate change. A global threat to cardiopulmonary health.

Recent changes in the global climate system have resulted in excess mortality and morbidity, particularly among susceptible individuals with preexisting cardiopulmonary disease. These weather patterns are projected to continue and intensify as a result of rising CO2 levels, according to the most recent projections by climate scientists. In this Pulmonary Perspective, motivated by the American T...

How Climate Change Affects Children's Health.

How nature copes with climate change

As the world is about to find out whether or not our civilisation is up to the challenge of dealing with climate change, research shows a wide range of responses from other species, which may benefit or suffer from the change, and mitigate it or make it worse. Michael Gross reports.

How does climate change cause extinction?

Anthropogenic climate change is predicted to be a major cause of species extinctions in the next 100 years. But what will actually cause these extinctions? For example, will it be limited physiological tolerance to high temperatures, changing biotic interactions or other factors? Here, we systematically review the proximate causes of climate-change related extinctions and their empirical suppor...