Jesus healed the sick, the lame, the handicapped, repeatedly throughout the Gospels. Jesus also gave His followers abilities to heal the sick (Luke 9:1). Clearly, the sick had a place in Jesus’ heart and He wanted them to be well.
Climate change – it is happening. The majority of scientists believe in human contribution to it; if you don’t believe in climate change or the human contribution to it, we still have the problem of all the emissions from our industries. These emissions, such as nitrous oxide, methane, carbon dioxide, ozone, fine particulate matter, etc., cause illness (rising cancer/asthma rates, smog, etc.) and environmental damage (acid rain, water pollution, etc.).
So, mitigating these emissions has a double effect; health benefits immediately, and warding off further climate change. If you do not accept both, the health benefits portion should be enough to convince Christians we should act, given Jesus’ concern for the sick.
Here is the abstract from a report in August, 2001 issue of Science detailing how mitigating climate change emissions will have positive health effects:
“The adoption of readily available measures to lower GHG emissions in Santiago, Mexico City, São Paulo, and New York over the next two decades would also provide major public health benefits from associated reductions in particulate matter and ozone ambient concentrations. Improved technologies to reduce fossil-fuel combustion could reduce these copollutants by about 10%, and thereby avoid some 64,000 premature deaths (including infant deaths), 65,000 chronic bronchitis cases, and 37 million person-days of restricted activity or work loss in these four cities alone through 2020. If the substantial public health benefits we have charted here become more widely recognized, and their full economic and social impact are integrated into discussions of climate policy, this could prompt a major rethinking of the climate debate and help break through the present impasse.” (Cifuentes, Luis; Borja-Aburto, Victor H.; Gouveia, Nelson; Thurston, George; Davis, Lee. “Hidden Health Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation”.
Science 17 August 2001: Vol. 293. no. 5533, pp. 1257 – 1259.)
You might be aware of the breu-ha-ha about the Beijing Olympics. Athletes/countries are debating boycotting it due to human rights violations (Tibet) and also health issues – China’s air pollution is horrible. If you need more proof that many of our air emissions are bad. Here’s a link to a site (furnished from a report by George Thurston) that shows links to hundreds of studies documenting the many and extreme adverse health effects of air pollution in Asia.
Now – some emissions are necessary if we want to remain a modernized society, and obviously, most people do. It’s not cutting all emissions, it’s wisely planning our emissions, taking care of our waste products, and using technology, innovation and conservation to pursue the “least harm” models of energy and goods manufacture. I’ll be doing a series of posts on what I consider to be least harm models, but I’ll tell you now More studies showing health effects of air pollution, below, and you can also find more by searching science databases:
Peters, Annette, et. Al. “Acute Health Effects of Exposure to High Levels of Air Pollution in Eastern Europe.” American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 144, No. 6: 570-581. © 1996 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health
Ando, Mitsuru, et. Al. "Health Effects of Floride Pollution Caused by Coal Burning." The Science of The Total EnvironmentVolume 271, Issues 1-3,April 2001.Pages 107-116
