Cabot Institute for the Environment climate scientist Dr Eunice Lo and medical statistics Professor Richard Morris discuss Heatwaves and Health.
The conversation looks at the implications of heat on our health and the links between rising temperatures from climate change, increased occurrence of heatwaves and increased hospitalisations and deaths, and how many lives could be saved through climate change mitigation.
Transcript:
00:00:07 Cabot Institute
Welcome to Cabot conversations produced by the Cabot Institute for the Environment at the University of Bristol.
00:00:13 Cabot Institute
We are a diverse community of 600 experts united by a common cause protecting our environment and identifying ways of living better with our changing planet.
00:00:23 Cabot Institute
This podcast series brings together our experts and collaborators to discuss complex environmental challenges and solutions to climate change.
00:00:31 Cabot Institute
In this episode, Doctor Dr Eunice Lo and Professor Richard Morris discuss heat waves and health.
00:00:38 Cabot Institute
You can find out more about the Cabot Institute for the environment at bristol.ac.uk/cabot.
00:00:52 Dr Eunice Lo
Hi, I’m Eunice. I’m a climate scientist at the University of Bristol and the Cabinet Institute for the.
00:01:00 Dr Eunice Lo
I’m interested in extreme weather events in climate that’s warming in around the world, and I’m particularly interested in heat waves and also looking at how heat waves might change in the future and the climate change, and also what’s the impacts.
00:01:19 Dr Eunice Lo
Of heat waves are on human health include including health outcomes like human mortality and how that that might also change in the future and what it means to be able to adapt to these changes and to become more resilient as a society.
00:01:40 Prof Richard Morris
Funny. Well, I’m Richard. Richard Morris. I’m was until September professor in medical statistics at the University of Bristol, based in the Department of Population Health Sciences.
00:01:54 Prof Richard Morris
00:01:56 Prof Richard Morris
I’ve always been interested in epidemiology during my career and the effect of various exposures in the environment, on human health and in more recent years I’ve looked at the effect of cold weather, especially in the UK.
00:02:14 Prof Richard Morris
And so that’s a little bit of a contrast to unisex’s interest, but I’ve also naturally been drawn to look at some of the things that people like Younis and colleagues have been investigating.
00:02:29 Prof Richard Morris
And in that regard, I I’ve read with some interest you, Mrs. Paper, that was in the science reports in 2019 to do with the impact in 15 American cities of heat waves.
00:02:47 Prof Richard Morris
And if if I understand Yunis, you were trying to compare future scenarios based on modelling you’ve done over data from the past 20 years in those cities and you were thinking of comparing a scenario where the mean temperature rise.
00:03:08 Prof Richard Morris
By 2100 was 3° compared with if it was 2° or 1 1/2° and I was interested to know what what made you focus on those choices and what was your reason?
00:03:20 Prof Richard Morris
Yeah.
00:03:22 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, thanks for reading my paper. Thank you. Yeah, I basically compared the the three different scenarios. So a 1 1/2 degree warming, a two degree warming and a three degrees warming. All of these are warmings above pre industrial levels.
00:03:42 Dr Eunice Lo
And because the 1 1/2 and the two degree scenarios are the temperature targets set in the Paris agreements, so that’s these targets have more they they are setting the Paris agreements and and a lot of nations nearly all of the nations in the world have signed up to the Paris Agreement trying to work towards.
00:04:03 Dr Eunice Lo
Limiting global warming to these levels so it will be.
00:04:08 Dr Eunice Lo
It is particularly useful to compare the extreme weather impacts in terms of heat waves in this paper between these two scenarios. What it means like what these two scenarios mean in term in terms of future heat waves and their impact on human health in the United States? In my paper, and I also looked at the.
00:04:28 Dr Eunice Lo
Three degree scenario because.
00:04:31 Dr Eunice Lo
Especially at the time, so countries need to submit their nationally determined contributions, which basically states what they pledge to do to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and they do to they submit this to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change over five years and the first set of.
00:04:51 Dr Eunice Lo
And this is actually in the case that there’s a likelihood that the the world will warm by three degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels instead.
00:05:01 Dr Eunice Lo
So there’s this gap between what these Paris agreements aim to do and also what are the pledges within the Paris agreements that might lead to and us comparing these 3 levels to look at?
00:05:16 Dr Eunice Lo
Kind of kind of the gap in impacts human health impacts between the the the pledges at the time and also the the goals in the Paris agree.
00:05:26 Dr Eunice Lo
Comments. These have now slightly changed so in 20/20/2021 countries some of them updated or submitted to new targets. So this could have been changed as well. But I think what I see in the latest reports is that there’s still a gap between.
00:05:47 Dr Eunice Lo
What we’re aiming to do and what the policies are.
00:05:51 Dr Eunice Lo
You know, plunging today.
00:05:54 Prof Richard Morris
And you’ve sort.
00:05:55 Prof Richard Morris
Of drawn out the consequences that would have for the number of people who might be expected to die in such events under the different scenarios.
00:06:04
But.
00:06:05 Prof Richard Morris
Am I right in thinking?
00:06:06 Prof Richard Morris
You’ve sort of tried to emphasize the gains because in epidemiology I’m used to as to always being terribly.
00:06:14 Prof Richard Morris
Pessimistic saying such and such a thing in the environment double s or triples the risk of some form of cancer. But but rarely do we think of what we could gain in policy terms, though, did you? Is it was that? Did I read it right that that was you were trying to?
00:06:30 Prof Richard Morris
You.
00:06:32 Prof Richard Morris
Take a different tack, perhaps from.
00:06:34 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, yeah, I think I did. I I think there were two reasons that I so I used a three degree scenario as the baseline and I compared what might be the number of lives that we could be saving from extreme heat waves if we limited.
00:06:51 Dr Eunice Lo
Global warming to to lower levels like 1 1/2.
00:06:53 Dr Eunice Lo
Few degrees and I think 2 there were two reasons I think that one was that you know at the time the the kind of trajectory that we were having toward at the end of the century was 3° as indicated by by the the first NDC’s and secondly.
00:07:14 Dr Eunice Lo
I think.
00:07:15 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, it is always more optimistic and motivating. Maybe if you look at what would be the benefits of doing something of really getting climate change. And indeed I found that you know up to I think 2700 deaths in an extreme heats, yeah, extremely hot year could be saved.
00:07:35 Dr Eunice Lo
In New York City, for example, and that’s the higher end of our estimates because New York City is very populated, but you know, hundreds to thousands of thefts could be avoided if we limited global warming. And I think there’s a there’s a more powerful message than saying, you know, we are.
00:07:52 Dr Eunice Lo
You know, these many people will die if you don’t do anything. I think. I think there’s. Yeah, there’s value in giving them motivational message. It’s exactly the same numbers. It’s. It’s how you look at it. And we still have time to make a change to save those lives.
00:08:09 Prof Richard Morris
So there’s some that difference of 2700, I know you said that was at the upper end of your estimates, but was that by was that according to a two degree if if we managed to achieve 2° or 1 1/2° compared?
00:08:24 Prof Richard Morris
With the three degree.
00:08:25 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, that, that, that was 1 1/2° compared.
00:08:28 Dr Eunice Lo
To three.
00:08:28 Dr Eunice Lo
Degrees so. So at a two degree world we would be saving you know.
00:08:32 Dr Eunice Lo
Real lives. So, so, so. The more we limits global warming, the better in terms of heat waves and the heat related mortality outcome. But obviously there’s also many other things you know associated with with the climate and weather and the environment. And I know that while I look at heat waves.
00:08:52 Dr Eunice Lo
You look at cold weather and how that impacts health.
00:08:56 Dr Eunice Lo
Can you share some of your research?
00:08:58 Prof Richard Morris
Yes, I mean, we’ve looked at the way that.
00:09:05 Prof Richard Morris
On the whole, there’s a graded relationship with cold, and it seems that in most countries in the world, certainly in the United Kingdom, the minimum mortality seems to happen not at your average temperature for the year, but somewhat above that. Perhaps a like a.
00:09:22 Prof Richard Morris
A warmish day in summer, it seems to be the best for us as human beings. And as you go colder than that, gradually as you get colder.
00:09:34 Prof Richard Morris
The increased number of deaths builds up gradually, gradually, gradually and especially at the extreme of of cold weather. Now with heat. My sense is that you you can have minimum mortality at A at a quite a a sort of typical.
00:09:54 Prof Richard Morris
Warm day. But it’s only when it gets really hot that you really see the impact.
00:10:00 Prof Richard Morris
Fact, and in some ways, at the moment I would say in the United Kingdom, cold kills more people than he does by quite a quite a long joke that might change the balance might change.
00:10:16 Prof Richard Morris
But one of the things I’m quite interested in, and I think it’s a gap in the literature so far, is what happens if we adapt? Does that mean it isn’t quite so bad for extreme heat? It isn’t quite so bad for us because we acclimatize, either through societal change or maybe.
00:10:36 Prof Richard Morris
Our human Physiology, but if so, does that mean we’re more vulnerable to cold, even more than we are already, and it it, it’s that that’s the sort of gap that I think needs to be kept an eye on myself, yeah.
00:10:53 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, yeah, I think I I have thoughts.
00:10:56 Dr Eunice Lo
A lot about this. I’m. I’m not an epidemiologist, so I can’t be an expert in this, but.
00:11:02 Dr Eunice Lo
I’ve thought a lot about this because there are papers in the literature that looks at.
00:11:07 Dr Eunice Lo
Climate change and what it means in temperature related to mortality, and some I I think a lot of.
00:11:14 Dr Eunice Lo
Them to be fair.
00:11:16 Dr Eunice Lo
Projects and increase in the heat related labs and for some some places they using the same kind of epidemiological model. But looking at the cold side they project fewer.
00:11:28 Dr Eunice Lo
Code related.
00:11:28 Dr Eunice Lo
Labs on the global warming and and so there’s the there’s kind of a debate I think in in some of the epidemiological cycles. I know circles. I know that’s it’s about whether you can actually look at the net change what is the what is the net change in temperature.
00:11:48 Dr Eunice Lo
Right. That’s like if you have an increase in the heat side and a decrease in the cold side just because of a mean change in in you know climate, right, it doesn’t mean there’s no cold weather or anything in the future, it’s just it’s just that there’s a shift in the in the in the average and there’s a trend that’s trending upwards in temperature.
00:12:08 Dr Eunice Lo
Can you then say the you you know some of the increase in the heat steps compensate for or or there’s there’s a net difference if you know what I mean?
00:12:19 Dr Eunice Lo
In just temperature related.
00:12:20 Dr Eunice Lo
Labs and and I decided not to do labs based on conversations with, with some public health experts because they told me.
00:12:28 Dr Eunice Lo
And and I would like to hear your.
00:12:30 Dr Eunice Lo
On this that some of the winter there’s are not necessarily related to cold weather, there’s a lot more other factors at play such as like respiratory disease or the flu or some seasonal things that are not necessarily so directly related to just cold temperatures.
00:12:50 Dr Eunice Lo
Themselves, whereas in you know hot weather.
00:12:53
Uh.
00:12:54 Dr Eunice Lo
And you know, he stroke and and you know all those stuff. It’s more directly related to just the the high temperature rather than other complications. Is that right?
00:13:04 Prof Richard Morris
Yes, I think the the understanding of why cold causes or why winter there are 24,000 typically at least wind excess winter deaths. It’s said in England and Wales, the four winter months compared with other four month periods of the year and not all that.
00:13:24 Prof Richard Morris
And The thing is that figure goes up and down winter by winter, and it seems remarkably unrelated to whether it’s a particularly cold winter. So there was.
00:13:34 Prof Richard Morris
One went I think it was 2018 to 19 where there was a very high, it was more like 40,000 excess deaths, but it wasn’t particularly cold winter. And that happens a number of times and and people usually say well is it because of the efficacy of the flu vaccine sometimes.
00:13:54 Prof Richard Morris
It’s better targeted some winters than it is others, but that only accounts for parts of the fluctuation. It is tricky and.
00:14:04 Prof Richard Morris
And I think, I mean, I wouldn’t like a a lessening of cold related deaths if if it was even true to be seen as a as an excuse for inaction by policymakers on heat.
00:14:21 Prof Richard Morris
That would be most unfortunate. Apart from anything else, I think maybe other climate scientists than ourselves certainly than.
00:14:31 Prof Richard Morris
Other than me.
00:14:32 Prof Richard Morris
Would be able to predict the extreme colds that comes with climate change. It isn’t just a matter of more heat across the board. There’s also a great deal of other types of extreme events. We’ve talked a little bit about cold and we may be.
00:14:52 Prof Richard Morris
Even less prepared than ever for such extreme cold. If the average temperature is warmer. Plus there’s also sudden storms and precipitation, which also could carry their toll on human health.
00:15:10 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, if the these things.
00:15:13 Dr Eunice Lo
You know, happen at the same time, then. Then the effect is going to be even bigger. And I think I think one of the things we saw from COVID was that, you know, when you’re dealing with one crisis in a country, if something else happened then, you know, you, you’re a lot less prepared your, your healthcare system.
00:15:33 Dr Eunice Lo
Is a lot less prepared for anything else, and so if if.
00:15:37
Team.
00:15:38 Dr Eunice Lo
Kind of hazards happen at the same time. Then there’s a there’s a bigger risk in terms of what impacts it might have on the society.
00:15:47 Prof Richard Morris
Yes, I think that there is possibly some emerging evidence, there’s some that the sum of COVID and extreme hate plus some are possibly added up to the more than some of their parts which were bad enough in themselves. So that there there’s there’s that aspect as well of.
00:16:07 Prof Richard Morris
Extra but one of the things I’m I’m not sure whether you’ve been able to look at this in your own work, but I think your department is interested in vulnerable subgroups, and you just mentioned COVID a minute ago, and I think.
00:16:24 Prof Richard Morris
As the last year has gone by, we’ve become increasingly aware that although COVID does affect everybody, the vulnerable groups get perhaps those in more socioeconomically deprived circumstances are more likely to be affected and get bad episodes of the disease. And perhaps.
00:16:44 Prof Richard Morris
And in many cases die as well, and that could also work with climate change, I think.
00:16:53
00:16:54 Dr Eunice Lo
Well, yeah. Yeah, that’s so, yeah, I can’t. I can’t think of a few things. So these are just numbers on top of my head that that come to my head in 2020 because I’m working with Public Health England now. And I’m looking at. I’m collaborating with them to look at how they monitor.
00:17:15 Dr Eunice Lo
Wave mortality every summer. And so I have these numbers in my head that in 2020 there were, UM, I think more than 2500 excess steps in heat waves only only over heat wave days in 2020 across.
00:17:32 Dr Eunice Lo
And and and I think so. So Public Health England also reports these these numbers by age groups and over 2200 of those 2500 was from the over 65 age group.
00:17:51 Dr Eunice Lo
So you can see like a large proportion.
00:17:55 Dr Eunice Lo
Nearly every year I think of heat wave that’s come from, you know, you know the oldest age group, that public health and can look at. So this is a real concern for climate change for a couple of reasons. First of all, under warming climate is is projected that there will be.
00:18:14 Dr Eunice Lo
You know an increased number and frequency and heat waves, so. So these things might happen more.
00:18:19 Dr Eunice Lo
And and also that you know it’s it’s quite likely that the population is aging and so we you know as a whole that the society might just be more vulnerable if we don’t do more adaptation and and make the society more resilient. But of course, yeah, as you mentioned about COVID and.
00:18:39 Dr Eunice Lo
One of the things that really came out was that, you know, different ethnicities and people, different backgrounds, they are impacted differently. And I would, I would think this would apply also to health impacts of climate change because if they.
00:18:58 Dr Eunice Lo
If there’s health inequality, then you know other these.
00:19:03 Dr Eunice Lo
These one little vulnerable.
00:19:05 Dr Eunice Lo
Groups are likely to be more vulnerable than other groups to other hassles and exposures as well.
00:19:12 Prof Richard Morris
Your work was about 15 American cities, probably.
00:19:15 Prof Richard Morris
With some some.
00:19:17 Prof Richard Morris
Of them, different climates from each other. But how do you think the impact is in less, perhaps lower income countries does? Is there any work to quantify that is it is the toll going to be?
00:19:34 Prof Richard Morris
More relatively speaking, or perhaps I don’t know if there’s any information on that. I know it’s sometimes hard to get as good as good data perhaps.
00:19:44 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, exactly. It’s a lot of the kind of heat and health studies that have been done in the literature, not only by me, but, but a lot more like brilliant scientists.
00:19:57 Dr Eunice Lo
Have looked at developed nations because you can only have robust modeling and numbers if you have enough health and also temperature data that’s that’s long enough, go back, maybe at least more than a decade and and you have to have the daily variation in these numbers.
00:20:16 Dr Eunice Lo
So you have to have a good record and many of the developing nations don’t have these data, so it’s a lot harder to quantify what might happen in.
00:20:28 Dr Eunice Lo
Developing nations in terms of heat health, but what I’ve looked at, even even with so I’ve looked at the United States and I’ve looked at Bristol as well because because we work with the city and and the City Council a little bit. Is this even within the same country?
00:20:47 Dr Eunice Lo
These kind of kind of temperature and mortality relationships vary a lot and and I think that has to come down to, you know, the different population structures and.
00:20:59 Dr Eunice Lo
Whether you you know the the whether the the populations are adapted to their climate and and changes and and the you know the general climates of of the of the city that all has to come into play. And so it is really difficult to.
00:21:18 Dr Eunice Lo
To look at these kind of things, but also I think that’s why we need to focus on local scale.
00:21:26 Dr Eunice Lo
Studies and maybe work with local governments because then they can, you know, provide some. Well, yeah, it’s basically better to work together on a local scale because then you can have projections and policies that are suitable for for that place and for the the population structure of certain.
00:21:45 Dr Eunice Lo
Nice.
00:21:46 Prof Richard Morris
I was just thinking you you mentioned Bristol that you’d done some work in Bristol and you’d consulted with Public Health England based based here.
00:21:55 Prof Richard Morris
What do you find, Bristol?
00:21:57 Prof Richard Morris
Is a good place for you to do your investigations with either the university or the city, yeah.
00:22:05 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, I I do think that.
00:22:07 Dr Eunice Lo
So Bristol as a city I think is is really at the forefront of of climate.
00:22:12 Dr Eunice Lo
Action especially, you know, compared in the UK at least I think if I remember correctly, Bristol City Council was the first to declare a climate emergency as as a local council in the UK and they they are really invested in looking at how they could improve urban planning.
00:22:32 Dr Eunice Lo
And they’re working with the Met Office. They work with me as well, and other colleagues in in the university to really look at how to protect the city from climate impacts. And I think they’re focusing on heat and flooding, which are too many things in the UK and in terms of climate change.
00:22:52 Dr Eunice Lo
Bristol University is done, you know great because we collaborate with the local Council so much and we also have these interdisciplinary institutes that foster research across, you know, different departments in the same university. So I I am at.
00:23:11 Dr Eunice Lo
The Campus Institute for the Environment and it’s basically just enable.
00:23:19 Dr Eunice Lo
You know, environmental researchers from all fields, from social sciences, from engineering, from the sciences to work together, and we have these mingled events and and we collaborate. And I’m also collaborating with engineers on another separate project from Cabot and. And basically, I’m also talking to you through Cabot.
00:23:39 Dr Eunice Lo
So it’s a great place to be high fostering collaborations and at least, you know, chats about what we can develop in terms of research.
00:23:51 Prof Richard Morris
Yes, I also collaborated with a an engineer a few months at someone from the engineering faculty who who gave myself and a colleague access to data from South Africa, and that was looking at the relationship between temperature and rainfall and hospital.
00:24:11 Prof Richard Morris
Admissions for pneumonia. And so that was quite good having that sort of synergy and the my colleague in engineer.
00:24:20 Prof Richard Morris
Wouldn’t necessarily have had the expertise in in modelling the data, but he did have some very good connections which enables that. Yeah, yeah.
00:24:33 Prof Richard Morris
And he was one.
00:24:34 Prof Richard Morris
Thing that occurs to me, I mean both you and I in our different ways, we sort of.
00:24:40 Prof Richard Morris
Major very much on quantitative estimates of numbers of deaths.
00:24:46 Prof Richard Morris
I wonder what I sometimes wonder is whether giving an estimate like, say, New York City that be 2700 deaths avoided by this sort of peak way, the sort of heat wave events if if one the 1 1/2 degree.
00:25:06 Prof Richard Morris
Compared with the three degree scenario.
00:25:08 Prof Richard Morris
Do you think that?
00:25:09 Prof Richard Morris
Is a good way to impact on policymakers. I mean, what do we know about how there is the results of our studies? Can can focus for those thinking about policy in the future and their motivations for putting in place?
00:25:30 Prof Richard Morris
Things that will help us achieve that only 1 1/2 degree rise.
00:25:35 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah. Well, I I think it’s a great, great question, I think.
00:25:40 Dr Eunice Lo
I think personally, and I think it, it probably applies to policymakers, it’s it’s that.
00:25:46 Dr Eunice Lo
When I look at, I think it’s easier to forget what’s you know, half a degree or 1° difference means if we just look at the, the, the general climate and you know the, you know, the number of heat waves every year without actually doing the calculation.
00:26:06 Dr Eunice Lo
All the way to the impacts on our human lives and our daily life.
00:26:10 Dr Eunice Lo
But I think when we talk about climate and health, so we bring the health impacts into into the whole picture. Then it’s easy to relate to because we can all remember, you know, we can all probably remember if we we’re old enough the you know 2003 heat wave being extreme and.
00:26:29 Dr Eunice Lo
And the, you know, a lot of people in, in the whole of Europe were were affected.
00:26:34 Dr Eunice Lo
And so we have personal experience of these kind of things and when we give numbers of well then you know these are the numbers of lives that could be saved if we do something or you know these are the number of lives that unfortunately it might be lost if you don’t do anything, it’s easier to relate to rather than saying.
00:26:54 Dr Eunice Lo
I there are projected to be more heat waves in the future, full stop, and I think one one story I can share is that I presented the paper we were talking about that that United States heads. There’s paper in a conference in Sweden and after the talk there was this academic.
00:27:14 Dr Eunice Lo
Coming up to me saying that ohh, you know, thank you for your talk and all that. And and in the talk I mentioned that if you look at the number of lives that could be saved per 100,000 people, so you know normalising it by population of a place actually Detroit in the United States stands out in terms of.
00:27:35 Dr Eunice Lo
The you know more numbers of thefts are projected to be able to be avoided if we limit global warming, and for Detroit, and this person came to me saying that ohh, that that really.
00:27:51 Dr Eunice Lo
There was more that that was very powerful to him because his grandmother lived in Detroit and she is of old age and that really made him think about her and maybe the people he knew living in those places. So it makes the whole thing more personal and I think.
00:28:11 Dr Eunice Lo
I think this makes us realize that you know, the these extreme weather and the climate really impacts us, not just, you know, of course in the future, but also perhaps now we can all remember somebody or you know some a summer that was particularly warm and somebody who was affected.
00:28:30 Dr Eunice Lo
Or maybe we know of personal experience of these kind of things, and so we can relate more and hopefully these can motivate, you know, climate action which which will benefits us all in.
00:28:42 Dr Eunice Lo
Aspects beyond health, but of course, in health and also beyond health, what are your thoughts on on this, Richard?
00:28:49 Prof Richard Morris
I was thinking the last year will probably teach us quite a lot about how we impact and I’ve been thinking that when we came to having to.
00:29:01 Prof Richard Morris
More or less abolish the Christmas.
00:29:03 Prof Richard Morris
Holidays and going to another lock down and we had Chris Whitty standing up talking about.
00:29:09 Prof Richard Morris
If we don’t do this in a matter of two or three weeks, the health service will become overwhelmed.
00:29:16 Prof Richard Morris
And that’s maybe that, I don’t know if that was a powerful message. It may may be hard to tease apart from all the other messages, but it was something that they, the government, seemed to use quite a bit to justify what was not going to be a particularly popular measure.
00:29:36 Prof Richard Morris
And I wonder if there’s some work also to be done. Maybe there’s some there already about the impact on hospital admissions and how long would heat waves last or have to last before you would see an overwhelming of services due to sudden increased admissions?
00:29:57 Prof Richard Morris
So the we we’ve talked about deaths but there’s but hospital admissions are always quoted in the when we look at the COVID statistics along with deaths as well as the number of cases.
00:30:09 Prof Richard Morris
That’s that’s one possible other way that that maybe have some traction with the with both the public and with the perhaps policymakers, certainly policymakers will not want their own National Health systems seeing them overwhelmed.
00:30:28 Prof Richard Morris
So so that that’s one.
00:30:29 Prof Richard Morris
Thing, but I I think I mean.
00:30:34 Prof Richard Morris
It’s good that in, I think in Cabot, we have people who are behavioral scientists and they will be pretty savvy about the sort of messages that impact on on people. If a government requires a large behaviour change, we’ve seen that.
00:30:53 Prof Richard Morris
Big behaviour changes have happened very quick.
00:30:56 Prof Richard Morris
Really, now we’re talking about something that has to be sustained over a long period to the end of the century. But but at least it we know it is possible for the population to adapt quickly if necessary, and how we do that. What and and thinking that there must be.
00:31:16 Prof Richard Morris
Opportunities in the next year or two to reflect on what has worked and what hasn’t worked in terms of what we’ve been faced with in terms of our changes to our lifestyles nationally or indeed internal.
00:31:30 Prof Richard Morris
Nationally.
00:31:31 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I think COVID is, you know, is is a sad thing that happened, but it’s also an opportunity to to learn, you know, as you said, how to have large scale behavioral change and also how well or not well.
00:31:51 Dr Eunice Lo
The the health system is prepared for crises like this, and this makes me remember that I I think I totally agree with you that I think social scientists are very important behavioural scientists.
00:32:05 Dr Eunice Lo
Psychologists are very important in the role of of looking at the psychology of of people’s behaviour, and I remember going to a conference end of last year, I think virtually because of COVID somebody mentioned that.
00:32:22 Dr Eunice Lo
By changing the menu of a cafe, I think it’s a national National Trust cafe, but I’m not, you know.
00:32:31 Dr Eunice Lo
But but they looked at how by just putting one more option, one more vegetarian option on the menu, but not changing too many things. Just one more option there a lot. There’s a lot more uptake in the vegetarian meals. Just by doing that. So it’s it’s just a small change in something.
00:32:50 Dr Eunice Lo
That people might not even notice. UM, but then that leads to actually quite quite a big change in behaviour, and that could be, you know, also linked to to climate, because of vegetarian, largely plant based diets. It’s also, you know, good for the environment.
00:33:05 Prof Richard Morris
Well, that’s right. I was looking at a paper this morning which was trying to cost and trying to translate the impact of heat waves on probably mortality and morbidity and trying to put it in terms of U.S. dollars that that would cost and.
00:33:26 Prof Richard Morris
Again, I mean the numbers may or may not mean anything to the average person, but they, but they probably would too well, policymakers setting budgets.
00:33:39 Dr Eunice Lo
I think again drawing parallels from COVID. We know that when public health is affected by anything then you know it affects the economy quite directly and you know the the society. Basically you know struggles to function we can say. And so there’s definitely a cost. I mean there’s a human cost.
00:33:59 Dr Eunice Lo
In climate change, doesn’t it? Because we we’ve been looking at the health impacts and that’s the human cost.
00:34:05 Dr Eunice Lo
Is something you can’t put a number on because you know how do you put a value on life? It’s you, you know you. It’s something that you lost and you can’t compensate for. But on top of that talking about you, you know, struggling health systems and maybe loss of labour capacity because of extreme weather and and.
00:34:25 Dr Eunice Lo
Impacts, there is a lot, a lot, a lot of economic costs.
00:34:29 Dr Eunice Lo
I mean associated with climate change as well. And I think that’s another thing that’s we and maybe policymakers need to remind ourselves of because this is a just a system that’s all interconnected. So the natural hazards and it affects our daily lives and affect our health and then also affects the ecosystem.
00:34:51 Dr Eunice Lo
Also affects the economy and everything, and to for the society to function well. We have to build the resilience to to the changing climate. Otherwise I think we’ll lose more than definitely lose more than we.
00:35:06 Dr Eunice Lo
Fine.
00:35:08 Prof Richard Morris
Saying just coming, perhaps full circle to your your paper, you said the ambitions that were being set forward by countries around the time of the Paris Agreement would have meant a a three degree rise in temperature compared with pre industrial levels. But you alluded to the fact that.
00:35:28 Prof Richard Morris
Some are being updated, so I think China has come out and in recent months with more more ambition than before and perhaps.
00:35:39 Prof Richard Morris
Well, other countries too, but would you, do you imagine repeating repeating your analysis after perhaps uh in the future to sort of see how much how much extra needs to be done in and how many lives?
00:35:59 Prof Richard Morris
Will be saved if we still need to do a little bit more to achieve that 2° or 1 1/2 degrees.
00:36:05 Dr Eunice Lo
Yes, yeah, yeah, I’ll be. I’ll be interested in it. And I I’ll also be interested in what you mentioned earlier, which is the hospital, hospital admissions data because.
00:36:19 Dr Eunice Lo
I I think for governments to to prepare, we don’t, we shouldn’t. Only looking at the final outcome of you know mortality we could we should be also looking at you know how it affects hospital admissions and therefore you know the capacity of our NHS.
00:36:39 Dr Eunice Lo
And.
00:36:40 Dr Eunice Lo
And put a number on it, quantify the differences in in in the impacts on on these things for them to better prepare how they might respond, not respond, but prepare for you. You know potential future events. And this doesn’t have to limits to.
00:36:59 Dr Eunice Lo
Heat, as we said, cold temperatures also kill an often in, especially in the United Kingdom overall, killing more people than you know, extremely hot temperatures. So yeah, I think I think a lot remains to be done honestly and.
00:37:17 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah, I I think I think hospital admissions and and cold weather and bringing in all the other behavioral scientists and psychologists and economists also, you know, very important ways to to bring the research forward.
00:37:35 Prof Richard Morris
Well, well. Sounds like we’ve got plenty of things to think about.
00:37:40 Dr Eunice Lo
Yeah. And not not just, not just temperatures, right. You mentioned like precipitation. That was what you looked at it for South Africa and pneumonia. And I I’m actually interested in hearing more about that.
00:37:53 Prof Richard Morris
I mean, I think.
00:37:55 Prof Richard Morris
In some ways, that particular data set was more turned out to be more focused on the effect of drought and the sort of so when precipitation did occur, it actually seemed to be protective relative to relative to drought.
00:38:13 Prof Richard Morris
Doubt is of course, going to be a consequence of generally higher temperatures, and that that’s one of those consequence consequences. There are but extreme precipitation, of course, could cause quite a number of emergencies we know even.
00:38:30 Prof Richard Morris
In America, what happens when a hurricane occurs and and let alone less well resourced locations on the globe?
00:38:43 Prof Richard Morris
And so there’s there’s that aspect as well to to to take into account, I guess.
00:38:51 Dr Eunice Lo
I know. Yeah, so so many different things. So yeah, you mentioned hurricanes and and we actually did some work on hurricanes and looking at storm surge as well.
00:39:04 Dr Eunice Lo
Again, comparing the 1 1/2 and two degrees agreements.
00:39:08 Dr Eunice Lo
Markets and we had the luck to collaborate with universities in Jamaica and we a few of us went there for conference and met you know, the local students and and the university and they’re great. But it’s just a great country. And I remember one principle of.
00:39:28 Dr Eunice Lo
One of the universities there presenting some her own experience or for hurricane season, that happens in the past few.
00:39:39 Dr Eunice Lo
This and she presented pictures that she took the aftermath of the her of of those hurricanes on her campuses and and these campuses spread out in the few islands in the Caribbean. And I remember seeing a picture of computer room completely destroy.
00:40:00 Dr Eunice Lo
Right after the by the hurricane, it’s just the roof is gone. It’s it’s. It’s a mess everywhere. And here’s the pictures not found from the Internet. We’ve seen a lot of these pictures on on the news and the Internet as well. But these are pictures taken by this principle. And I remember her saying that she was in a meeting somewhere in the United States when this happened. And a lot of people.
00:40:20 Dr Eunice Lo
Fleet the islands in the Caribbean because of the Hurricanes, she was one of the few people actually going back to the islands to see what’s happening and what happened to the campuses and her students. And she took a lot of these pictures and I feel so humbled by it because.
00:40:37 Dr Eunice Lo
Of these pictures and also I remember her saying that she personally lost and students and and potentially staff members and some some moved away because they can’t stand you know the the hurricane seasons coming every year and you know the projected increase in impacts in the future.
00:40:57 Dr Eunice Lo
But but someone just you know, I’ll never. She never saw them again. And it’s just so personal and.
00:41:05 Dr Eunice Lo
It’s really, really humbling to see that and and I also remember her saying that they got insurance for their campuses, but the insurance payout took years to payout. So basically, they didn’t have the money to rebuild their campuses before the next hurricane season.
00:41:25 Dr Eunice Lo
So this this is just.
00:41:28 Dr Eunice Lo
An anecdote, but it is, I think, is the most humbling and impressive presentation that I’ve ever seen in my short career so far, because it’s it’s just so real. It’s it’s, it’s very personal. People are being affected by extreme weather now, and if global warming.
00:41:48 Dr Eunice Lo
Means that you know some of these extremes and it is projected in some studies. That’s the most extreme hurricane. So category four and five hurricanes are projected to to increase in the future then.
00:42:03 Dr Eunice Lo
You you know these this needs to be we need to build more resilient places to to be able to survive this. And because people are being affected already.
00:42:14 Dr Eunice Lo
Have you? Have you got any?
00:42:17 Dr Eunice Lo
More per personal stories than you’ve heard from people in your career, because these are just so powerful.
00:42:25 Prof Richard Morris
Yes, I mean, I’ve been aware through literature I’ve read and and and and actually I did visit Ethiopia last year just before the pandemic and that they were pointing out things that did happen that are no longer happened because of climate change, changing the landscape, river drying up and and so on.
00:42:46 Prof Richard Morris
I think they they are. Let us. They are quicker to understand that because they can see the evidence of climate change personally, whereas others maybe in in our relatively comfortable country, our eyes can be a bit blinded sometimes.
00:43:06 Prof Richard Morris
But it’s sometimes a hard sell for probably Western governments to devote resources to vulnerable sections of the world somehow. It’s it’s a difficult thing to do. So we’ve seen during COVID the aid.
00:43:24 Prof Richard Morris
Budget drop. But one thing, another thing that I personally think.
00:43:32 Prof Richard Morris
Could be a driver is if.
00:43:35 Prof Richard Morris
We’re going to see big impacts of the sort that you described in Jamaica. It inevitably will fuel a whole climate refugee movement and.
00:43:51 Prof Richard Morris
I mean, either we have to be prepared for that, we’ll have to be prepared for refugees to arrive or we could invest in, in, in strengthening infrastructures. Now that’s that’s my. Yeah, yeah.
00:44:07 Prof Richard Morris
On the.
00:44:08 Prof Richard Morris
Yeah.
00:44:08 Dr Eunice Lo
And and also helping places that might not be so.
00:44:11 Dr Eunice Lo
Well funded for, you know, building the resilience because yeah, I I think a lot about climate justice as well. And the this whole problem of climate change.
00:44:24 Dr Eunice Lo
Was and it’s basically.
00:44:26 Dr Eunice Lo
You know, driven or or is is here because of you know development and industrialization in the more developed nations. So the least developed nations actually contributed the least to this problem. But they are facing you know the consequences of it and they might not be as prepared.
00:44:48 Dr Eunice Lo
For the future consequences, and I think it’s only.
00:44:52 Dr Eunice Lo
You know, right, in my opinion to to, you know, see this problem as a as a worldwide problem. And we only kind of win if we get through this together are all we are all prepared for it rather than, you know, just just my country helping myself and being prepared because as you said, there will be.
00:45:13 Dr Eunice Lo
A problem of people having to migrate to other places and also it’s only it’s only right because.
00:45:19 Dr Eunice Lo
That’s, you know, a lot of the the greenhouse gasses that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are long lived greenhouse gasses, so they are therefore like a very long time. And and what we’re seeing now was contributed by mainly the the developed nations.
00:45:37 Prof Richard Morris
I mean, we’ve discussed quite a wide range of things just now.
00:45:41 Prof Richard Morris
What do you what would?
00:45:42 Prof Richard Morris
You say is the main message you would give to policymakers from what we’ve discussed in your own work.
00:45:51 Dr Eunice Lo
I think my main message would be that.
00:45:58 Dr Eunice Lo
We need to adapt to a changing climate and build resilience to it, as well as to mitigate climate change. So in addition to trying to meet the Paris agreements goals in, you know, agreed internationally, we also.
00:46:18 Dr Eunice Lo
Need to build resilience to even the 1 1/2° and two degree scenarios.
00:46:25 Dr Eunice Lo
If we look at just heat waves for now, for for England, you know in 2020 there were over 2500 labs excess Staffs in heat waves estimated by Public Health England. And we’re not even, you know, 1 1/2° warmer than preindustrial levels. So at present, there is this we need to adapt.
00:46:46 Dr Eunice Lo
To warm temperatures and extremely high temperatures, and also of variability in temperatures so warm and cold and other.
00:46:55 Dr Eunice Lo
Natural hazards now, and even if we would meet the 1 1/2 degree scenario because because that is already you know, half a degree warmer than now in in terms of global average temperature and that will already have difference or maybe excessive exacerbated.
00:47:15 Dr Eunice Lo
Impacts on health versus now.
00:47:19 Dr Eunice Lo
And of course, mitigation is very important because look at looking at the pledges that governments give. Currently, we are nowhere near 1 1/2 degrees warming, so we do need to bring the global mean temperature down, but also we need to remember that at that station is also very important and we can’t have one or the other we.
00:47:38 Dr Eunice Lo
Need to have both. What do you think which?
00:47:41
It’s.
00:47:42 Prof Richard Morris
So as you said at the beginning, my interest is has been in cold weather. I think that will continue to be a problem. It’s possible there be fewer cold episodes in the future as the planet gets warmer, but there could be more episodes of extreme cold and we shouldn’t forget the impact of that as well as the impact of heat.
00:48:04 Prof Richard Morris
The other issue I’m thinking is.
00:48:08 Prof Richard Morris
We know that the impact of climate change is having in.
00:48:16 Prof Richard Morris
Richer high income countries, but where it’s likely that it’ll be even more marked in in countries closer to the equator, less well resourced, and unless we pay attention to that as well, rather than just our own countries.
00:48:35 Prof Richard Morris
We may be leading to problems for ourselves anyway. Increases in climate refuge.
00:48:40 Prof Richard Morris
Is, to be honest, one of the things is that the that our cities will grow and urban heat islands which we know have had impact on health will be.
00:48:52 Prof Richard Morris
Be a stronger.
00:48:53 Prof Richard Morris
Impact than they are currently so a a wider global view than just one’s own national interest.
00:49:01 Prof Richard Morris
Think is essential.
00:49:05 Cabot Institute
You can find out more about the Cabot Institute for the environment at bristol.ac.uk/cabot.
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