How Climate Change Is Going to Make Wisconsinites Less Healthy – and Cost More Lives
- Laura Schultz
- Oct 21, 2020
- 4 min read
Last week, I talked about the links between COVID-19 and other infectious disease with climate change. To recap: COVID-19 doesn't have much directly to do with the warming planet but they're still interrelated problems; and climate change has already been shown to cause an increase in the prevalence of diseases spread by vectors like ticks and mosquitoes.
This week, I thought it would be useful to explore some of the other health impacts Wisconsin faces because of climate change. It's not only a natural follow-up to last week's post, but also timely because UW–Madison's Global Health Institute released a report this week titled "MEDICAL ALERT! Climate Change Is Harming Our Health in Wisconsin." Most of the information I'll be reporting comes from there. And though there's a myriad of health threats we face, I'll be talking about the three main ones discussed in the report: extreme heat, flooding, and ticks & mosquitoes.
Extreme Heat
We already know climate change is going to make Wisconsin warmer. In winter, this won't be too awful to experience, but summer will be a different story. Scientists expect that extreme heat events, or heatwaves, will become both more common and longer lasting as the planet continues to warm. And it's not just the heat. Because of Wisconsin's intensifying water cycle, humidity will increase too, which in combination with the temperature brings dangerous heat indexes.
A heat index of 105 degrees Fahrenheit is considered the threshold of danger for human health, but Wisconsin could certainly see heat indexes reach the area of 130 degrees or more as our summers warm. But at "just" 105 degrees or above, anyone who spends too much time outside is in danger of experiencing sunstroke, muscle cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke. I would recommend checking out page nine of the GHI report for a more detailed look at the symptoms of heat and sunstroke at various temperatures.
There's a long list of people that are in particular danger from these temperatures. Just a few: the elderly, young children, outdoor workers, pregnant women, city residents. (Especially those without air conditioning). Already, heat kills more Wisconsinites than any other weather phenomenon, and yet Milwaukee is likely to see three times as many days with a heat index of over 105 by 2050.
Wisconsin's biggest cities will also get even warmer than the communities surrounding them because of something called the heat island effect. Essentially, this means that urban environments trap more heat, largely because of all the pavement. On average, urban areas are 1.8-5.4 degrees warmer than their surroundings. In southern Wisconsin, this could contribute to a doubling of days with temperatures higher than 90 degrees by 2055 — 12 days to 24.
Flooding
The most obvious danger of flooding is death due to drowning. But that's not at all the only one, or even the fate you're most likely to suffer if your home floods in Wisconsin.
In actuality, drinking water contamination from waste runoff is the more acute flooding-related threat. Because two-thirds of Wisconsinites' drinking water is groundwater with limited treatment, we're especially susceptible to diseases caused by legionella and campylobacter bacteria after flooding.
But that's still not all the health risks that intense flooding brings. Here's a list of some more:
Tetanus and other wound infections from hazardous waste
Electrocution
Increase of vector-borne disease in standing water
Respiratory health irritation from mold growth
So how much worse has flooding become because of climate change? Well, the report lists several frightening statistics that reflect how much our water cycle has intensified. First, southern and western Wisconsin now sees seven more inches of rain annually than it did on average between 1950-2006. Second, the massive floods in Dane County in August of 2018 caused damage costing at least $150 million.
Third: what would have been a 100-year flooding event in 1961 now occurs every 40 years. But what a 100-year flooding event is constantly gets worse. After just nine years' time, the 2011 version of such a flood now happens every 83 years.
Increased incidence of flooding combined with warmer air and water creates another threat: algal blooms in Wisconsin lakes and rivers. These conditions allow algae to thrive after flooding events because waterways see an influx of silt, fecal matter, and nitrogen and phosphorus-based fertilizers — all nutritious food sources for algae.
This algae can be toxic to humans, but has been shown to especially harmful for dogs. Everything from drinking from, swimming in, and breathing the air around algae filled water can be dangerous.
Ticks & Mosquitoes
Conveniently enough, both extreme heat and more rain can also deepen the threat of vector-borne disease by increasing the breeding rate of ticks and mosquitoes and the size of their breeding grounds.
West Nile virus might sound like it should be a distant threat to Wisconsin, but in fact it's not. The GHI report cites that the CDC verified 47 cases of the virus in Wisconsin — yet there were probably many more, as about 80% of cases are asymptomatic. The disease is already seeing an increase in cases because of fewer mosquitoes dying in warming winters. It's estimated that Wisconsin's mosquito season has become 14-19 days longer since the 1970s.
Lyme disease, the most famous and prevalent illness spread by ticks, is also an increasing threat in Wisconsin. While most cases occur in the northwestern counties, they have occurred everywhere in the state as well. While West Nile and Lyme might be the most recognized of vector-borne diseases in the state, there's many more that climate change can exacerbate:
(Links included to each disease's CDC page for more information).
Though those that spend a lot of time outside, especially in forested areas, face the biggest risk of contracting one of these diseases, it's important to remember that it can happen to anyone unlucky enough to get bit by the wrong pest.
The health threats of even just these three effects of climate change might understandably feel very scary — and that's not to mention the threats the GHI report didn't cover as deeply, such as air pollution, food insecurity, and mental health. But it's not too late to act. If you want to know more about these threats and what we can do to prevent and protect ourselves from them, please be sure to read "MEDICAL ALERT! Climate Change Is Harming Our Health In Wisconsin" in full.
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