The Lancet’s “Countdown” report concluded
that there is no continent where people do not see their quality of life altered by the climate crisis. Experts expect this issue to be discussed at COP26.
Climate change is beginning to affect the health of people in every corner of the planet. That’s the conclusion The Lancet’s “Countdown 2020 “ report came to.
The research began in 2015 with an international panel of experts charting climate change and the effects it has had on public health — now five years on, the report concluded that the impacts of global warming on people’s well-being are the “most worrying” in history.
In particular, the report highlights extreme heat, food and water shortages, and different infectious diseases that the authors link to climate change.
The report charted the impacts of climate change on public health across 16 different metrics, including exposure to hazardous temperatures, extreme weather events and wildfires, each of the categories has been on the rise and are at the worst level ever recorded.
Climate change is taking lives, damaging health and decreasing quality of life around the world, meaning every continent is being affected,” Ian Hamilton, director of Lancet Countdown, told New Scientist.
Hamilton concluded that UN member countries tend not to take public health into account when planning their strategies to mitigate climate change, so the report made the inquiry for this to become a topic of discussion at COP26.
Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Experts recommend not to play videos in high definition
Scientists from the Royal Society noted that HD transmission or 4K produces about 8 times more emissions than standard. They also detailed that the contribution to global emissions of digital technology varies between 1.4% and 5.9% of the global total.
Scientists from the Royal Society of the United Kingdom released a new report in which they stressed that the way we use electronic devices and digital technology defines our personal carbon footprint.
Climate change experts detailed that small changes can help in the fight to stop or slow the progress of this phenomenon. One of his suggestions includes changes in the quality of video playback, especially that of smart phones.
One of these recommendations is to use standard quality (SD) instead of high definition (HD), or 4K, when playing your favorite program or video. This data is not random, since they stressed that HD transmission produces about 8 times more emissions than SD.
The scientists also urged the different audiovisual platforms and regulatory authorities to limit the resolution. The report noted that the contribution to global emissions from digital technology varies between 1.4% and 5.9% of the global total.
The above is because streaming services need large amounts of energy to transfer the data they allow to reproduce, which is generated mostly from non-renewable energy sources such as gas and coal.
Finally, the report recommended users not to change the smart phone so often, only when it is already strictly necessary. In addition, they invited to buy second-hand equipment and recycle those that are in disuse.
“To be honest, digital technology is a small fraction of its emissions compared to, say, flying even once a year, but every bit of CO2 savings is significant,” Corinne Le Querre, a professor at the University of East Anglia and one of the authors of this paper, told BBC.
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/8983
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/8985
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/8989
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/8993
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/8998
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/9003
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/9005
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/9008
https://unworldoceansday.org/index.php/user/9010
