The impact of environmental and climate change on humans: Increased disease, armed conflict and poverty

Environmental pollution and climate change are a reality and the international community has now recognized the need to take measures to protect environment.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by fossil fuels is warming the planet and disrupting all ecosystems. The temperature has already increased by one degree Celsius since 1880, the sea level has already risen by 20 cm in the last 120 years and now extreme natural events (floods, droughts, fires, African dust) are becoming more frequent and more intensively.

Environmental and climate changes lead to an increase in many diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancers especially in vulnerable populations, to pandemics, to economic instability worldwide, to an increase in migration flows, as well as to an increase in armed conflicts. World Health Organization research showed that the small increase in global temperature from 1970 to 2004 was responsible for 140,000 more deaths per year worldwide. Unfortunately, in the year 2010 deaths increased by 400,000 and are predicted to increase significantly by 2030. The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in the era of climate medicine and has shown emphatically that climate change can alter the practice of medicine on a day-to-day basis. clinical act.

The above was mentioned at its 1st Congress Hellenic Society of Environmental and Climatic Medicine. The conference was under the auspices of the international organization “The Global Climate and Health Alliance”, of which the Hellenic Society of Environmental and Climate Medicine is an official member since 2020, the School of Medicine of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (EKPA) and the Scientific Union of the G.N.A. “Evangelism”.

The conference presented the ways in which climate change alters the presentation and treatment of diseases in almost every specialty of medicine as well as the ways in which public health structures should be prepared.

Scientists of international scope participated in the proceedings of the conference, including the emeritus professor of Pediatrics and Endocrinology of the Greek Academy of Sciences, Mr. Georgios Chrousos, the Research Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the Institute of Technology and Research, managing scientific advisor and director of the Research & Education Institute of the ELPEN Group Mr. Konstantinos Stratakis, Professor of Cardiology at Georgetown University, Washington, USA, Mr. Vasilios Papadimitriou, Professor of Cardiology EKPA Ms. Konstantinos Tsioufis, Professor of Obstetrics – Gynecology and Sterilization EKPA, Mr. Sofia Kalantaridou, Emeritus Professor of Pathology EKPA and Spyridon Durakis and the assistant professor of Hygiene and Epidemiology EKPA, Mr. Gikas Majorkinis.

Registrations exceeded 1450 from doctors of various specialties. The president of the International Organization “The Global Climate and Health Alliance” and former president of the American Public Health Association, Jenny Miller, and the assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Boston, delivered a greeting at the beginning of the conference. , USA, Renee Salas.

RES-EMP

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