Editorial: Port pollution is a crisis. It’s going to take more than a $20 container fee to fix it.
In the past week, several public health emergencies and crises have been highlighted by the media: Ebola, the opioid epidemic, California wildfire, the California drought, and now, climate change.
We’re already experiencing the impact of climate change in extreme weather patterns like droughts, fires, and floods. Extreme weather affects people’s health as well as their economy and quality of life. The public health impacts of climate change are a leading concern.
Climate change is expected to increase the frequency, intensity and severity of extreme weather. A 2014 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that global climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of all types of extreme weather events.
The report said these changes would result in significant increases in the frequency and severity of floods, storm surges, droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather events. The effects of climate change could become more severe and will take decades to fully understand.
In 2015, we saw record-breaking temperature and snowfall in northern parts of the state. We are already seeing the effects of temperature volatility on our health as we see more extreme heat records, record lows and cold records.
We also see the effects of more and more extreme weather events like hurricanes hitting Miami, Chicago and New York City.
The effects of drought and wildfire on our health are often under-reported and under-recognized. However, these changes are real and are occurring across an ever-increasing number of communities and cities across California.
The drought crisis is also becoming an increasingly complex and expensive problem. This is made more financially and emotionally difficult by the drought crisis’s impacts on the state’s health care system and the increased health care costs associated with these health concerns.
As the drought deepens and wildfires continue to ravage California, the
