Scientist: Extreme Weather Will Kill Millions

[Guest guest]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=scienceNews & storyID=6168545

 

(This is a very soft write on the issue. Do a search

on global warming where you can see that the likely

results are major global catastrophies.)

 

Scientist: Extreme Weather Will Kill Millions

Tue Sep 7, 2004 09:20 AM ET

 

By Jeremy Lovell

 

EXETER, England (Reuters) - Millions of people across

the globe are set to die early due to extreme weather

events such as floods and heat waves caused by climate

change, a British scientist said Tuesday.

 

Professor Mike Pilling cited the heatwave in Europe

last year that killed thousands of people from a

combination of heat exhaustion and an increase in

atmospheric pollution.

 

" We will experience an increase in extreme weather

events, " he told reporters at the annual meeting of

the British Association for the Advancement of

Science. " There are predictions of a 10-fold increase

in heat waves.

 

" The increasing frequency of these will inevitably

result in a sharp increase in the premature deaths of

people, " he added.

 

Pilling, professor of Physical Chemistry at Leeds

University in northern England, said atmospheric

pollution was like a plague stretching across the

planet -- although far worse in the industrialized

northern hemisphere than the southern -- as pollutants

drifted from Asia to the United States to Europe and

back to Asia.

 

But the sources of pollution were not just static. The

boom in air travel for example was contributing.

 

" The biggest issue is climate change. We have got to

control it, " he said.

 

The problem was not just factories, planes, power

stations and cars pumping out dirt and noxious

chemicals, but also the burning of wood and fossil

fuels -- whether for heat and light or in forest and

subterranean fires.

 

Many industrialized nations have signed up to targets

to cut greenhouse gas emissions sharply by 2010.

 

But Pilling said that Britain -- and London in

particular with its high concentrations of people and

traffic -- for one was going to miss two key targets

covering emissions of nitrogen dioxide and soot

particles.

 

" People will continue to be exposed to levels of

pollution that can cause ill health, " he said.

 

Ozone -- a shield from harmful space radiation in the

stratosphere but a poison to people in the lower

troposphere -- was also on the increase partly due to

global pollution but also to local output.

 

He said governments needed to tackle all causes of

pollution together, not one at a time.

 

" We must continue to look to improvements in

technology to cut these harmful emissions, " Pilling

said. " But we also have to change the way we live. "

 

© Reuters 2004. .