Women will have the worst of it
Global warming could shorten your life by 6 months – and even more if you're a woman, a climate scientist warns. The scientist says he has created the first composite climate change index of its kind. He says his data shows women's life expectancy could be reduced by 10 months.
A scientist said climate change could reduce life expectancy by six – or even more – months, writes the Daily Mail.
A new study estimates that rising temperatures and rainfall cycles will reduce average life expectancy by six months – due to direct deaths such as natural disasters, floods and heat waves , as well as indirect deaths such as mental health problems.
The study's author used 80 years of temperature and precipitation data from more than 190 countries and concluded that if temperatures rose two degrees Fahrenheit, average life expectancy would decrease by six months.
The study said, that climate change is causing hunger, poor nutrition, disease, mental health and premature mortality worldwide, contributing to shorter life expectancy.
However, the expert also noted that women would suffer the most if 10 months were erased from their lives.
The study's sole author, Amit Roy of Bangladesh's Shahjalal University and the New School for Social Research in the United States, says: "A global threat climate change poses to the well-being of billions of people underscores the urgent need to treat it as a public health crisis.”
Amit Roy, an assistant professor, came to his conclusion by analyzing data on average temperature, rainfall and life expectancy in 191 countries from 1940 to 2020.
The author created what he called " “a first-of-its-kind composite climate change index” that combined temperature and precipitation cycles to assess the overall severity of climate change.
“The results showed that, individually, a two-degree Fahrenheit increase in global temperature is associated with a decrease in average human life expectancy of about 0.44 years, or about five months and one week,” Amit Roy shared in a statement.
"A 10-point increase in the composite climate change index, which takes into account both temperature and precipitation, is expected to reduce life expectancy by six months”, – says the scientist.
The Climate Change Index uses a standardized framework to compare the climate indicators of 63 countries and the EU, which together account for more than 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, writes the Daily Mail.
The study does not indicate when the world will reduce average life expectancy.
Roy noted that “the average life expectancy in the world has increased significantly between 1960 and 2020 from 55 to 72 years.” Life expectancy for men increased from 48 to 70 years, and for women from 52 to 74 years.
The additional years were “due to access to abundant and more nutritious food, clean water, better hygiene and advanced medical care along with with innovations in antibiotics and vaccines,” Amit Roy wrote in his study.
However, data showed that life expectancy has decreased amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Daily Mail notes.
< p>Global average annual temperatures rose sharply between 1940 and 1990, from 59°F to 69°F, during the same 80 years measured for the study. But since 1990, temperatures have dropped by two degrees.
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