Climate change: The biggest global-health threat of the 21st century

A major report on managing the health effects of climate change, launched jointly by 'The Lancet? and UCL today, says that climate change is the biggest global-health threat of the 21st century. Links: Lead author Professor Anthony Costello (UCL Institute for Global Health) says that failure to act will result in an intergenerational injustice, with our children and grandchildren scorning our generation for ignoring the climate change threat - with moral outrage similar to how we today look back on those who brought in and did nothing to stop slavery. 'Managing the Health Effects of Climate Change? is the work of UCL academics from many disciplines across the university ' including health, anthropology, geography, engineering, economics, law and philosophy. Professor Costello says that this climate-change project brought down the traditional interdisciplinary barriers common at all universities, and hopes it could act as a model for global governance bodies to work together. Watch a video featuring members of the UCL?Lancet Commission The UCL team focused on key areas: patterns of disease and mortality, food security, water and sanitation, shelter and human settlements, extreme events, and population migration. Professor Costello says: 'The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation. The impacts will be felt not just in the UK, but all around the world - and not just in some distant future but in our lifetimes and those of our children.' - Disease and mortality.