The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Changed climate will cook elderly people > Comments

Changed climate will cook elderly people : Comments

By Kate Mannix, published 27/9/2006

The 2003 heatwaves were a warning: we need to be prepared to adapt to global warming or elderly and frail people will be the first to suffer.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All
Well, the French were never very tough, and they were ‘caught out’, not by climate change, but by a freak heatwave. Just how many thousands of French people have died in the summers following 2003?

We also must remember that these frail, elderly people are kept alive artificially, anyway – hence the moaning and growing about the problem of an ageing population – and the numbers of most of them would have been well and truly up. Many of the poor souls would probably have been happy to have gone quickly, rather than linger on per favour of state medicine.

As a scare mongering exercise, this one should have little effect.

Heating and cooling costs have undoubtedly increased in aged-care centres, as claimed, but it is not all that long ago that there was no artificial cooling (as there was no artificial preserving of human vegetables). Old people, including my grandmother, lived and worked hard lives in the searing South Australian heat and dropped dead from natural causes without giving a thought to the weather. Aged-care centres are another burden resulting form scientific interference with nature. Just how long do we have to endure a life no longer worth living?

As usual, global warming (they are trying to get off the hook now by calling it ‘climate change’) propagandists go for the easy ‘proof’, the lowest common denominator. But, we are not all wimps, and we can adapt.

Global warming/climate change is by no means a done deal. We should ensure that we don’t allow ourselves to become as paranoid as these people who seem to enjoy dealing out doom and gloom are. Even if they are right, there is very little we can do about it anyway
Posted by Leigh, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 10:16:08 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A worthwhile article that raises one of the many issue of climate change although I think it overblows it some what. Yes we do need to care for the elderly etc in time of heat stress but plenty of water goes a long way but that's another issue. And yes oil supplies and prices will impact.

But when we get to here (the second last para)
"When the human body gets to 42C, it starts to cook. The heat causes the proteins in each cell to change irreversibly, like an egg white as it boils. Even before that, the brain shuts down because of a lack of blood coming from the overworked, overheated heart. Muscles stop working, the stomach cramps and the mind becomes delirious. Death is inevitable." It just gets silly.

Vast numbers of the world population live in areas where peak daily temps regularly exceed 44C. So far I've yet to see any information that the population of Iraq is 'cooking' and I've experienced 50C heat in west NSW for several days and came out unaffected (although others might disagre). Originally from Sydney I acclimatised in one summer. If the next generation have 30-70 years to do the same I think they'll cope okay. It's the lack of food that's the worry.
Posted by PeterJH, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 10:52:41 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Peter,

I think what Kate means is that when a human's core temperature gets to about 42 degrees then things start going wrong. We have lots of ways of getting rid of heat, evaporation from sweat being just one of them. These coping strategies may be diminished in the elderly.

Children locked in cars with no venilation will suffer from heat-stress and death on a 30 degree day being one example that comes to mind (even though the temperature inside the car is 45-50 degrees).
Posted by Narcissist, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 12:47:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This raises the bigger question of 'energy entitlement'. Most would accept that the very young and the aged should get care priority with food, shelter and medicine but they can be can outbid by those more able to pay. Depleting oil reserves may be directed towards jet fuel for recreational travel rather than heating oil for nursing homes. Most of the airconditioners that overload the electrical grid in heatwaves are owned by healthy people. Perhaps 'smart grids' will one day exercise remote control over appliances according to priority. Ultimately it will come down a question of how many people the Earth can support with a minimum standard of energy entitlement. I think that is a fraction of what we have now.
Posted by Taswegian, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 12:58:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Heatwaves, droughts, floods and storms are not the only effects of climate change. Air pollution from the very greenhouse gases we are flooding the atmosphere with also will (or already do) effect persons with lung diseases and of course the elderly on the whole have diminished lung capacity.

Another problem is daily temperature range. This winter some places in Australia have already experienced unusual ranges in temperature from below zero to low twenties where for mid winter is unheard of.
If that were to extend to a greater range it would not be unimaginable for some people to be severely affected by that sort of range.

There is also the prospect of entering a period of climate instability unknown to us. How can we plan for the unknown? We are also staring down the barrel of an energy crisis that may prevent us using technology to guard against the effects of what we have created.

We have opted to keep going as we are and to put our hopes in an adaptation in a future we are not willing to consider may have begun.

If we had the common sense to plan we would have avoided the worst of climate change as we have known about global warming for over 25 years. We have known that Carbon dioxide could create the warming of the earth for over 100 years.

I don’t think anybody is seriously going to do anything about climate change. Instead we will wait for disaster and then clean up what we can and hope it magically goes away or find some excuse other than our activities.

As for the elderly. Obviously and sadly policy makers see them as canaries in the mine. Afterall by the time they are fragile they are not big spenders but rather costs. Sorry for the cynicism but what evidence of the way the elderly are treated is there to the contrary.
Posted by West, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 2:36:54 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Mortality and the "harvesting" effect.

Part of the mortality observed during a heat wave, can be attributed to a so-called "harvesting" effect, a term for a short-term forward mortality displacement. It has been observed that for some heat waves, there is a compensatory decrease in overall mortality during the subsequent weeks after a heat wave. Such compensatory reduction in mortality suggests that heat affects especially those so ill that they "would have died in the short term anyway".

B- Can do better :)
Posted by Steve Madden, Wednesday, 27 September 2006 3:21:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thanks for your article Kate. As a professional working in the field of Geriatric Health, I'm constantly amazed by how little our organisation takes climate change and wasteful practices into account. Upper management is always screaming about the "budget" and how we're wasting too many of 'these' or too many of 'those' and yet they're the same people who have introduced tiny plastic containers for such things as ice cream, sandwiches, custard etc. After every meal, we have two rubbish bins full of discarded plastic waste. That same plastic waste could not be produced without oil. More oil use = more green house emissions. Todays oil is very expensive and yet we're making use of more and more plastics. Land fills are full of the stuff. Overuse of oil and it's products have a direct bearing on climate change and we're all responsible. I'd particularly welcome a regular discussion group in my working environment which could look at ways to reduce our dependance on fossil fuels which would lead in time to a more stable climate.
Just on the matter of older people and heat, we find one of the major causes of heat stress is lack of fluid intake. Old people will not drink. Without onboard fluids, they produce insufficient sweat. Without perspiration, the body can quickly reach that magic 42+ degree mark after which life threatening factors apply. In hot weather, it's important to keep fluid up to those vulnerable to heat stress and get used to living without AC. Our Wordly resources are being stretched to the limit now and will only get much worse into the future.
Posted by Wildcat, Thursday, 28 September 2006 10:07:01 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Narcissist,

I take your point and I'm aware of it but as you say "We have lots of ways of getting rid of heat, evaporation from sweat being just one of them." And this was the point of my comment. Humans are able to tolerate high temperatures for extended periods. Outdoor workers know not to dehydrate.

As you also said "These coping strategies may be diminished in the elderly." They may, but that also begs the qestion as to why Australian elderly in western NSW don't die in heat waves to the extent that the Europeans did. I'd say two reasons: we're used to such temperatures and our buildings are designed for them. The second point was the gist of the article.

Perhaps we also know not to get dehydrated so as well as infrastructure changes we should also concentrate on the human input to the potential problem.
Posted by PeterJH, Thursday, 28 September 2006 10:51:38 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Steve Madden is quite right about the harvesting phenomenon: there has been an academic study of the French death statistics in the months following and they show the downward blip that is usually associated with an adverse environmental situation like a pollution episode or major temperature departures.

On the topic of death rates and temperature, there is an enormous epidemiological literature on this area and it really boils down to the finding that it is cold, not hot, departures from the norm that dominate the mortality statistics.
Posted by Max beran, Thursday, 28 September 2006 9:09:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Elderly pple could just wear wet T-shirts when it gets hot..works a treat and very cost effective:)
Posted by rachel06, Wednesday, 4 October 2006 4:16:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Elderly people could not wear wet 'T' shirts Rachel06 because of water restrictions.
Posted by West, Thursday, 5 October 2006 12:43:00 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy