Mean temperatures in Nebraska have risen to levels comparable to the Dust Bowl decade of the 1930s, and within the next 30 years are expected to exceed the 1.6°C increase of the last century.
This change has not only led to warming, but like average temperatures, it is also causing heavy rains, floods, droughts, and negative public health impacts that are expected to increase in the coming years.
For example, more than 4,000 Nebraskans have contracted West Nile disease since the virus arrived in 1999, making it the fourth-highest number of reported cases in the state and the most populous states of California, Colorado, and Texas. following.
Why does Nebraska have that ranking? Researchers found that the state’s extreme weather changes, from wet seasons to hot, dry regions, create stagnant puddles that breed West Nile-borne mosquitoes. I’m theorizing that
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Similarly, health officials are discovering more tick-borne diseases, including Lyme disease, as tick populations increase and new species migrate into states.
And chillingly, the natural amoeba, which is harmless when the water temperature is low, transforms into an infectious state when the water temperature reaches the mid-80s. Last year, his 8-year-old boy died of an infection in the Elkhorn River.
The rise in river temperatures is believed to be the result of last summer’s extreme heat, one of the causes of the drought Nebraska experienced its hottest and driest year on record in the past decade (2012). But last year it was the 4th driest.
Scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center say drought may be linked to higher deaths in the state, and national researchers have found a link between drought and suicide.
These effects of drought are more masked than dry fields and reduced agricultural production. So are the mental health problems experienced by people in rural Nebraska, whose livelihoods depend on the weather.
Like the ecological changes that bring invasive new plants to Nebraska, climate change is the single greatest health threat facing humanity, and climate change and its impacts are less severe, according to the World Health Organization. evidence to support the claim. A theoretical problem that will become clear half a century later.
“This is not a future problem,” Scott Holmes, manager of the Lincoln Lancaster County Health Department’s Environmental Public Health Division, said in a news story on Sunday. “This is today’s problem.”
Holmes, his health department, and colleagues in the city government are addressing this issue under the city’s Climate Action Plan, exploring new ways to track the impact of climate change on health.
That effort puts Lincoln ahead of the rest of the state. Omaha has just begun the process of developing a climate action plan. The state has no plan and will develop a plan because many Nebraskans resist efforts to address climate change, which they believe is not man-made and the climate will “return” to “normal.” Efforts to do so have not yet started.
It is a pity. To help the state understand what’s happening with climate change and mitigate its impact, more work than is being done in Lincoln is essential.
That work should include increased surveillance for disease, mosquitoes, toxic algae in lakes and mites. Educate health care providers and those at occupational risk of tick-borne diseases and strengthen the readiness of public health systems and health facilities.
The extent to which we can reverse climate change remains to be seen, but we can be much better equipped to keep ourselves safe.
