Climate change affects health too, says scientist

Deadly heatwaves, hurricanes and spreading malaria infections appear to be just the obvious toll of global warming on people's health, said a scientist leading efforts to unravel how environmental change threatens lives.
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"The thing that excites our governments most, and the public, is the prospect of climate change doing damage to the economic system," Tony McMichael, a professor at Australia's National University, said in Beijing on Friday.

"But much worse, of course, in terms of real sustainability is damage to the life-support system."

Scientists are trying to understand how environmental change may also do more elusive harm to health by spreading less well-known diseases, drying up water, raising sea levels, and displacing people in waves of environmental refugees, McMichael said.

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