The Unhealthy Tip of the Climate Change Iceberg
Originally published in the Sudbury Star on June 12, 2021 as "The tip of the climate change iceberg." https://www.thesudburystar.com/opinion/columnists/blacklock-the-tip-of-the-climate-change-iceberg
On April 15, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sunk. It wasn’t the exquisite blue-white peak of ice we see in photographs that doomed the supposedly unsinkable ship to a watery fate. The real danger in icebergs lurks below the surface, unknown and unmeasurable. Or at least that’s how things were before radar was invented.
We who live in 2021 are faced with a metaphoric iceberg of our own, and one of gargantuan proportions. This iceberg (yes, it’s a melting one) is a human creation called climate change, and we’re steaming straight towards it at full speed. We’ve studied our iceberg extensively, and we’ve made progress understanding the risks we face. We already know enough to compel any sensible ship’s captain to reverse course and make haste for a safe port. But such a manoeuvre would require courage, and a sense of urgency we still seem to lack.
Mostly, we’ve been busy scrutinizing the tip of our iceberg. And so, when the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices recently attempted to calculate the health costs we’re going to face as a result of climate change, they encountered some significant limitations. To date, most research has focused on the kinds of dangers we’re familiar with, on the impacts and risks that lend themselves to measuring and modeling. But other potential perils lurk beneath the surface.
The Institute’s report came out on June 2nd, just in time for this past week’s heat wave and spate of air quality alerts. As it happens, the well-studied tip of the climate iceberg features health threats like heat waves, air pollution in the form of ozone at ground level (where we generally do our breathing), and of course Lyme disease, which migrates further north with each passing year.
Heat and ground level ozone are killers and they often keep company. Ozone is produced when sunlight ignites chemical reactions between air pollutants like nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), much of which arise from burning fossil fuels. Heat speeds up the process.
Now. . . assuming it’s actually possible to put a monetary value on a human life, the report calculates that deaths from ground level ozone could cost us $50-100 billion by 2050, depending on whether we turn the emissions ship around immediately, or keep barreling on at top speed. Throw in another $3-4 billion for heat-related deaths, and $7-15 billion for the loss of productivity that accompanies excess heat, and you have what we can predict with confidence.
What’s even more concerning, however, are the unknowns. Afterall, some 90 percent of an iceberg hides underwater, its dangers yet to be discovered, its costs yet to be reckoned. How, for example, will an unstable climate affect the economy, and our capacity to even provide health care? How will the ensuing destruction of much-loved ecosystems and rising species extinction rates affect our mental health, which is already in rough shape due to COVID.
And whose health are we concerned with here anyway? Whose lives and deaths are we presuming to calculate? Probably not those of the rich and reasonably well-off. They will have access to air conditioners, and the option of staying indoors when it’s too hot or smoggy outside. As always, it will boil down to the usual risk factors, things like income, age, race, education, working conditions, internet access, and so on. And on.
So what does the Institute report recommend? It suggests we promptly change course and hightail it to new destination. Unfortunately, we’ve left it rather late. Big boats can’t turn around on a dime; we’re not going to escape giving the iceberg at least a serious glancing blow. Clearly it behooves us to make sure that everyone on board has a life preserver, and access to a lifeboat. Especially the most vulnerable among us.
Sources:
https://climatechoices.ca/reports/the-health-costs-of-climate-change/ (accessed June 9, 2021)