guardian
the
8 WEDNESDAY 7 JANUARY 2015
“Climate change-a trillion dollar issue”
Heat stress an enormous and costly worry
Jane Wells
Climate change is already making life
unbearable for many, not least by making
it more difficult than ever to earn a living
in some of the hottest places on earth.
As an example, in Istanbul the maximum
temperature in the hottest months is rising by one degree a decade. That means
that temperatures on the already scorching summer days may increase by 10
degrees within a century! These effects
are now beginning to be calculated economically and the figures are frightening.
The Ruby Coast Research Centre, led
by Tord Kjellstrom, has been focusing
on this issue, and the effects on working people. Twenty developing countries
have used the Centre’s findings to quantify the working hours likely to be lost as a
result of climate change, and the consequent global costs. These amounted to
$US 2 trillion in 2030. In the USA, alone,
the annual loss was estimated at $US 50
billion. In more recent months a US report
has calculated annual losses at $US 78
billion by 2050!
Originally from Sweden, Tord was
Professor of Environmental Health at
Auckland University when he spoke at a
2002, he had a two year stint in Australia,
and by 2004 was working as an independent consultant on climate change
and health in Ruby Bay.
The research question he sought
answers to was: How does heat affect
the health and daily lives of people in the
hottest parts of the world?
Eventually he established the RCRC
– the Ruby Coast Research Centre. It’s
a formidable group of six highly qualified, concerned and motivated folk, all
living within half an hour of one another.
There’s physicist and physiologist Bruno
Lemke; software developer Matthias
Otto; Olivia Hyatt, a PhD in Geology;
Tord, and two retired professors – David
Briggs and Chris Freyberg. They meet
regularly, and to make their findings easily available to anyone have set up a
website, www.climateCHIP.org, which is
still under development.
Using information from thousands of
weather stations around the globe, the
website, and a software program produced by the group, calculate levels of
heat stress to the end of the century.
The impacts are both dramatic and clear.
Research from across the world shows
“We have a wealth of energetic and skilled
scientists living in our area, and some of them
may wish to contribute their expertise to
counteract what’s undoubtedly one of the
greatest
challenges facing the global community.”
Climate Change conference in India. He
was followed by speakers on agriculture,
forestry and industry. To Tord’s consternation every speaker completely ignored
the plight of the workers necessary to all
these industries. “No one mentioned the
workers or the effects of workplace heat.
The agricultural spokesperson talked
about soil and grains, but nothing about
the workers. They all spoke as if no people were involved!”
Tord has spent much of the intervening
15 years analysing the problem in more
detail. After leaving the university in
that people working in hot climates suffer
worse health, experience more accidents
and are at greatly increased risk of certain diseases. For instance, sugar cane
cutters in Central America are already
suffering from a deadly epidemic of kidney disease related to their heat stress
while working.
“All over the world everyone’s natural
body temperature is 37 degrees. If body
temperature rises above this level, people become ill and may even die. To prevent this happening, under excessively
hot conditions people have to stop work
Tord Kjellstrom leads the Ruby Bay Research Centre. The members meet
monthly. The group is making its findings available to everyone via the website www.ClimateCHIP.org.
or at least work more slowly and take
more rest. This inevitably affects productivity. One hundred staff may be working
in 30 degrees of heat, but if the temperature goes up to 35 degrees the boss will
get only 80% of the work or she’ll have to
employ 120 people to share the tasks.”
Tord has visited factories and farms in
several tropical countries and was told
at a car factory in India “that in the 4 to
5 hottest months, when it is 42 degrees
inside the factory, for some jobs two
people are employed in place of the one
during the cooler months.”
“In the Philippines, following the disastrous typhoon, there were terrible problems for emergency response workers.
Much of the work was lost as workers
coped with the increasing heat. Places
like inland India are already at the limit of
coping. The worst effects of the increasing heat stress will be suffered by low
income countries in the tropics.”
New Zealand is likely to see a less serious impact of rising heat as we have a
colder climate to start with and because
we’re surrounded by sea, which will limit
the temperature rise. However, Tord’s
message is that this is a global problem,
and New Zealand has the potential to
make important contributions to knowledge about climate change. The country
also needs to be more conscious of the
urgency of switching to renewable energy
in order to help reduce global warming.
“I think that in the Tasman/Nelson area
the local governments and communities
could get together and make our area
carbon neutral. More can be done to set
up systems less reliant on fossil fuels.”
Tord also encourages more scientists to
get involved with this work. “We have a
wealth of energetic and skilled scientists
living in our area, and some of them
may wish to contribute their expertise
to counteract what’s undoubtedly one of
the greatest challenges facing the global
community.”
Tord suggests that NMIT and other
institutions could develop a coordinated
approach to research and media communications about what needs to be done to
protect this planet from climate change.
Tord’s email is [email protected]