Workers fumigate in New Delhi, India, for mosquitoes,

Why climate change is still the greatest threat to human health

Polluted air and steadily rising temperatures are linked to health effects ranging from increased heart attacks and strokes to the spread of infectious diseases and psychological trauma.

Workers fumigate for mosquitoes on a city street in New Delhi, India, as a preventive measure against the spread of dengue, malaria, and chikungunya. The impact of vector-borne diseases will increase as global temperatures rise. An editorial co-published in hundreds of medical journals called for urgent action to reduce emissions.
Photograph by Raj K Raj, Hindustan Times via Getty Images

People around the world are witnessing firsthand how climate change can wreak havoc on the planet. Steadily rising average temperatures fuel increasingly intense wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters that are now impossible to ignore. And while the world has been plunged into a deadly pandemic, scientists are sounding the alarm once more that climate change is still the greatest threat to human health in recorded history.

As recently as August—when wildfires raged in the United States, Europe, and Siberia—World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement that “the risks posed by climate change could dwarf those of any single disease.”

On September 5, more than 200 medical journals released an unprecedented

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