Environmental Degradation, Tropical Diseases, and Economic Development

Author(s):  
John Luke Gallup

It’s complicated. Tropical diseases have unusually intricate life cycles because most of them involve not only a human host and a pathogen, but also a vector host. The diseases are predominantly tropical due to their sensitivity to local ecology, usually due to the vector organism. The differences between the tropical diseases mean that they respond to environmental degradation in various ways that depend on local conditions. Urbanization and water pollution tend to limit malaria, but deforestation and dams can exacerbate malaria and schistosomiasis. Global climate change, the largest environmental change, will likely extend the range of tropical climate conditions to higher elevations and near the limits of the tropics, spreading some diseases, but will make other areas too dry or hot for the vectors. Nonetheless, the geographical range of tropical diseases will be primarily determined by public health efforts more than climate. Early predictions that malaria will spread widely because of climate change were flawed, and control efforts will probably cause it to diminish further. The impact of human disease on economic development is hard to pin down with confidence. It may be substantial, or it may be misattributed to other influences. A mechanism by which tropical disease may have large development consequences is its deleterious effects on the cognitive development of infants, which makes them less productive throughout their lives.

Author(s):  
Maria Polozhikhina ◽  

Climate conditions remain one of the main risk factors for domestic agriculture, and the consequences of global climate change are ambiguous in terms of prospects for agricultural production in Russia. This paper analyzes the impact of climate change on the country’s food security from the point of view of its self-sufficiency in grain primarily. Specific conditions prevailing on the Crimean peninsula are also considered.


2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Mahajan ◽  
Janailin S. Papang ◽  
Shivraj Singh ◽  
K. K. Datta

The anticipated climate change will adversely affect the productivity of livestock directly due to increased heat stress, indirectly it will affect the livestock by causing feed and fodder shortages, reducing biodiversity, water availability and increasing the incidences of vector-borne livestock diseases. On the other hand, the livestock keeping farm households mainly small farm households will be affected directly as they rear livestock for their livelihood. Interestingly, over the years, the livestock keeping households have increased at a tremendous rate for the small and marginal, medium and semimedium farm household categories as they reduce the risk arising from extreme climate conditions. So, it becomes imperative to adopt adaptation and mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of climate change on livestock given their importance in smallholder farmers’ livelihood in India. Some of researchers in past have recommended certain adaptation and mitigation strategies for reducing the climate change impact on livestock. But, are these adaptation and mitigation strategies applicable or viable in the context of smallholder farmers in India? This remains an unsolved puzzle. This paper tries to demystify certain myths associated with these strategies as well as explore the ground realities. The present policy of indiscriminate crossbreeding of local cattle with exotic cattle should be reviewed and reoriented for smallholder dairy farmer especially, in dry and rainfed regions where there is scarcity of fodder and water which are required heavily by crossbred cattle. The study clearly reflects that the adaptation research should be country specific as the strategies suitable for one country may not be viable for the others as there is considerable difference in local conditions of different countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 103 ◽  
pp. 02002
Author(s):  
Vladimir Klimenko ◽  
Sergey Krasheninnikov ◽  
Ekaterina Fedotova

Impacts of the climate change on the space heating systems are discussed. We have used the latest global temperature data of the Global Climate Historical Network to demonstrate that the heating and cooling demand combined is decreasing in the world regions with boreal and moderate climate conditions almost everywhere. A simulation approach was developed to assess the impact of the climate change of the efficiency of a modern binary-cycle cogeneration power plant. Both statistical parameters of the air temperature and the thermal circuit of the power plant were modeled in details. It was found that even for a quite optimistic climate scenario the annual efficiency decrease may be as high as 1-2%. This means that careful consideration of the climate-related heating load dynamics is of key importance by implementation and renovation of the district heating systems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-186
Author(s):  
Shamrez Ali ◽  
Hina Ali ◽  
Kashif Raza

Long-lasting discussion regarding global warming still keeps on moving at the national as well as international level. The environmental fabric, weather pattern, and climate conditions have witnessed a considerable change due to some known factors. Deforestation is one of these factors. Formerly, researchers have paid attention to assess the impact of deforestation on the environment and associated threats to human lives. It is worth mentioning that a reasonable amount of stock of forests is primarily required to balance the amount of CO2 and other environmental gasses.  To advance this concept, the current study focuses on the impacts of deforestation on environmental degradation and climate change in Pakistan. Since the dawn of humanity, there is a strong relationship, natural phenomena like forests and the growth of the human population. To explore this relationship, in this research study we use the data set that covers the time span of 1975-2020. In this regard, we apply discreet time-dependent variables such as the amount of stock of forest and events, which poses threats to humans, live in Pakistan.  Our results of the unit root test, the autoregressive distributed lag, ARDL, and Engel and Granger, EG, technique have verified short-term and long-term association and relationship among selected variables. The results show a positive correlation between deforestation and environmental degradation and climate change in the long run and short-run as well. These findings provide the guidelines to policymakers to enhance the forest area in the country to counter the environmental degradation and climate changes that have been occurring for the previous decade.


BUANA SAINS ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-110
Author(s):  
I Made Indra Agastya ◽  
Reza Prakoso Dwi Julianto ◽  
Marwoto Marwoto

Global warming has changed global, regional and local climate conditions. Global climate change is caused, among others, by the increase in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) due to various activities that drive the increase in the earth's temperature. Given that climate is a key element in the metabolic system, plant physiology and crop ecosystems, global climate change will adversely affect the sustainability of agricultural development. The impact of global climate change is the increasing population of pests on agricultural crops. One of the soybean pests whose population is increasing due to the increase in air temperature is the Bemisia tabbaci infestation. Increased pest populations of Bemesia tabbaci infestation in soybean crops cause dwarf leaves of dwarf plants and threatens to increase soybean production. Efforts to overcome the impact of global warming is mainly due to increased pest populations, it is necessary to think and seek breakthroughs to anticipate the explosion of pest populations in soybean crops, among others by: the optimization of natural control, physical and mechanical control and cultivation techniques. The combination of techniques or tactics of the optimal component of soybean pest control technology is established on the basis of appropriate information knowledge about soybean pest, ecosystem and socio-economic based on IPM approach.


Author(s):  
Megha Jain

Climate change does not yet feature conspicuously within the environmental or economic policy agenda of developing countries. Yet evidence shows that some of the most unfavourable effects of climate change will be in developing countries, where populations are most susceptible and least likely to easily adapt to climate change. The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis postulates the existence of an “inverted-U” shape relationship between per capita GDP and measures of environmental degradation. Various studies have addressed the direct relationship between environmental degradation and expanding economic activity so far. However, there is a need to establish the sustainable growth pairing with climate impact. This study examines the impact of economic development factors (Output, Energy usage, Direct Foreign Investment) on carbon emissions across BRIC economies and other developing nations, graphically using EKC hypotheses and empirically using GMM. Panel data over period 1991 to 2011 is used. The results validate that economic growth factors are elements of environmental quality in BRIC and developing economies. The paper indicates the relevance of making climate change policies a mainstream goal for global governance through increased carbon spacing.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 982
Author(s):  
Daegeun Shin ◽  
Young-Suk Oh ◽  
Wonick Seo ◽  
Chu-Yong Chung ◽  
Ja-Ho Koo

The ozone concentration in the atmosphere has been recovering with the reduction in atmospheric ozone-depleting substances (ODS). However, ODS remain in the atmosphere for long periods, slowing recovery. Furthermore, greenhouse gas-induced climate change complicates ozone recovery. East Asia is a significant contributor to global climate change due to the increase in industrialization and the presence of complex climate conditions. We investigated ozone variations in East Asia using total column ozone data based on satellite and ground observations and compared the results and trends derived from a multi-linear regression (MLR) model. We found that the MLR model has relatively poor explanatory power for recent extraterrestrial and dynamical proxies, but the uncertainty can be reduced using monthly data and atmospheric proxies. The ozone trend in East Asia had the greatest increase in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula and Manchuria from 1997 to 2017 (~1% per decade). Similarly, the trend derived from Brewer spectrophotometer data was 1.02 ± 1.45% per decade in Pohang and 1.27 ± 0.85% per decade in Seoul. When the analysis period was extended to 2020, the impact of atmospheric variability was greater, suggesting that recent climate change can increasingly contribute to total ozone variability.


2019 ◽  
pp. 79-95
Author(s):  
N.E. Terentiev

Based on the latest data, paper investigates the dynamics of global climate change and its impact on economic growth in the long-term. The notion of climate risk is considered. The main directions of climate risk management policies are analyzed aimed, first, at reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions through technological innovation and structural economic shifts; secondly, at adaptation of population, territories and economic complexes to the irreparable effects of climate change. The problem of taking into account the phenomenon of climate change in the state economic policy is put in the context of the most urgent tasks of intensification of long-term socio-economic development and parrying strategic challenges to the development of Russia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Zhang ◽  
Lu-yu Liu ◽  
Yi Liu ◽  
Man Zhang ◽  
Cheng-bang An

AbstractWithin the mountain altitudinal vegetation belts, the shift of forest tree lines and subalpine steppe belts to high altitudes constitutes an obvious response to global climate change. However, whether or not similar changes occur in steppe belts (low altitude) and nival belts in different areas within mountain systems remain undetermined. It is also unknown if these, responses to climate change are consistent. Here, using Landsat remote sensing images from 1989 to 2015, we obtained the spatial distribution of altitudinal vegetation belts in different periods of the Tianshan Mountains in Northwestern China. We suggest that the responses from different altitudinal vegetation belts to global climate change are different. The changes in the vegetation belts at low altitudes are spatially different. In high-altitude regions (higher than the forest belts), however, the trend of different altitudinal belts is consistent. Specifically, we focused on analyses of the impact of changes in temperature and precipitation on the nival belts, desert steppe belts, and montane steppe belts. The results demonstrated that the temperature in the study area exhibited an increasing trend, and is the main factor of altitudinal vegetation belts change in the Tianshan Mountains. In the context of a significant increase in temperature, the upper limit of the montane steppe in the eastern and central parts will shift to lower altitudes, which may limit the development of local animal husbandry. The montane steppe in the west, however, exhibits the opposite trend, which may augment the carrying capacity of pastures and promote the development of local animal husbandry. The lower limit of the nival belt will further increase in all studied areas, which may lead to an increase in surface runoff in the central and western regions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián A. Velasco ◽  
Francisco Estrada ◽  
Oscar Calderón-Bustamante ◽  
Didier Swingedouw ◽  
Carolina Ureta ◽  
...  

AbstractImpacts on ecosystems and biodiversity are a prominent area of research in climate change. However, little is known about the effects of abrupt climate change and climate catastrophes on them. The probability of occurrence of such events is largely unknown but the associated risks could be large enough to influence global climate policy. Amphibians are indicators of ecosystems’ health and particularly sensitive to novel climate conditions. Using state-of-the-art climate model simulations, we present a global assessment of the effects of unabated global warming and a collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) on the distribution of 2509 amphibian species across six biogeographical realms and extinction risk categories. Global warming impacts are severe and strongly enhanced by additional and substantial AMOC weakening, showing tipping point behavior for many amphibian species. Further declines in climatically suitable areas are projected across multiple clades, and biogeographical regions. Species loss in regional assemblages is extensive across regions, with Neotropical, Nearctic and Palearctic regions being most affected. Results underline the need to expand existing knowledge about the consequences of climate catastrophes on human and natural systems to properly assess the risks of unabated warming and the benefits of active mitigation strategies.


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