There is increasing understanding that climate change will have profound,
mostly harmful effects on human health. In this authoritative book,
international experts examine long-recognized areas of health concern for
populations vulnerable to climate change, describing effects that are
both direct, such as heat waves, and indirect, such as via vector-borne diseases.
Set in a broad international, economic, political and environmental context,
this unique book expands these issues by reviving and championing a third ('tertiary')
category of longer term impacts on global health: famine, population dislocation,
conflict and collapse. This edition has an expanded foundation, with new chapters
discussing nuclear war, population and limits to growth, among others.
This lively yet scholarly resource explores all these issues, finishing with a practical
discussion of avenues to reform. As Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights, states in the foreword: 'Climate change interacts with many
undesirable aspects of human behaviour, including inequality, racism and other
manifestations of injustice. Climate change policies, as practised by most countries in
the global North, not only interact with these long-standing forms of injustice, but
exemplify a new form, of startling magnitude.'
The book is dedicated to Tony McMichael, Will Steffen and Maurice King.
This book will be invaluable for students, post-graduates, researchers and
policy-makers in public health, climate change and medicine.
