Heat is on the list of the state problems

In 2007-08 a report “Fighting climate change: human solidarity in a divided world” was drafted under the umbrella of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). It reads that in all probability the change of climate will considerably affect human health in the 21st century, and bad health is one of the main factors that slows down the development of human potential. The abovementioned report predicts that death rates caused by summer heat can rise to 55 percent by 2020, more than double by 2050, and more than triple by 2080.

The aftereffects of the climate change can be hardly eliminated in a matter of several years or decades. The effect of the climate change will additionally transform as a result of such factors as development level, poverty, and education.

The poorest population strata will be able to efficiently react to the climate change: for example, they won’t be able to buy air conditioners during extreme heat. Therefore if one does not control the current tendency of climate change, the society will face even a higher number of traumas, diseases, and deaths in future. For getting adapted to the global change of climate one needs to develop a complex of preventive measures with the participation of healthcare and other services, as well as doctors of various specialties. Cooperation is needed to develop efficient decisions which will make it possible to stabilize the climate and protect the health of the populace.

Present-day data indicate that the state services and health protection departments are scarcely prepared for the periods of extreme heat. The heat is not perceived as a state-level problem. Since the measures needed to moderate the aftereffects of heat are for the most part simple, the state services underestimate its threat to people’s health. The periods of extreme heat are often followed by electricity breakdowns and water supply failures. Therefore one needs to take them into account while making the plan of actions in case of emergency on the local and state level.

The US, according to The Guardian, is preparing to carry out an experiment whose aim is to cause manmade microfall of temperatures. The engineers from the Harvard University are planning to scatter light-reflecting particles from a balloon on the height of 80,000 feet. Further they are going to model the effect of volcanic ashes which bring sulphates to a considerable height in stratosphere. These substances will have a mirror effect, reflecting sun energy to space and lowering thus the temperature of warming of underlayer. But these developments need a scientific expertise from the viewpoint of ecology.

Since 2000 the strategies on reducing the affect of heat indoors and outdoors in the cities have been in force in hot countries. It could be worth of bringing these strategies to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and adapt them there, taking into consideration the local specificities. Other important lessons could be drawn out from the experience of unsuccessful city planning. So that in city planning and construction of houses climatic aspects were taken into account on mandatory basis, one needs to include them in the construction norms and site development rules in a more detailed way, like it has been done in Germany. We have singled out other factors of the population’s adaptation to extreme temperatures: build and design the buildings with an account to the future climate, pay attention first and foremost to saving energy, reduce the number of cars and their affect on ecology, create information system on urban climate.

In Ukraine, the environmental impact is associated with such groups of diseases as cardiovascular, respiratory, infectious, cancer-related, problems of the skeletal and muscular system, and injuries of various etiologies. For this reason, WHO experts persistently advise the health care system to play a more active role in combating the direct and remote consequences of the impact of climate change on this country’s public health. According to WHO experts, the annual number of environment-related and preventable deaths in Ukraine is 155,000, or 16 percent of the total mortality rate. The population of the world in general and Ukraine in particular may come across such phenomena in the future as spells of extreme heat or cold, floods, deterioration of the quality and safety of foodstuffs and water, spread of infectious diseases, respiratory, renal, cardiovascular and nervous diseases, mental disorders, etc. Increased precipitations and the overwetting of lands result in a mounting danger of “mosquito-transmitted infections.” The prolongation of high-temperature periods results in the activation of ticks and a rise in infectious disease rate. What usually affects a human body are aggregated, not isolated, factors. Moreover, it is sudden changes, rather than routine fluctuations, of climatic conditions that produce the main effect.

In France, after an abnormal heat wave claimed about 50,000 human lives in the summer of 2005, the government worked out a special plan of actions in a high-temperature period. They established three levels of alert: blue, white, and red. The French heat protection plan justified itself in the nest years.

The European countries have acquired considerable experience of rapid actions during a heat wave, while Ukraine began only now to draw up a national plan of actions in a critical situation. We are convinced that Ukraine needs to work out a national plan of actions to protect the populace from heat and natural anomalies.

With due account of the unfavorable dynamics of global warming in Ukraine, the latter should map out a strategy of protecting the populace from extreme temperatures. It would be also a good idea to pass the law “On Extreme Temperatures and Natural Anomalies.”

Anatolii Stepanenko is professor and Doctor of Sciences (Geography). Hanna Obykhod is Candidate of Sciences (Economics)