Climate change damages human health to the tune of billions of dollars every year, researchers said Sept. 18.
That finding is based on a new paper co-authored by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the University of California, San Francisco, that tracked 10 climate-related events in 2012—including Superstorm Sandy, ozone air pollution in Nevada, and a West Nile virus outbreak in Texas.
Those events resulted in more than $10 billion in health costs, some 900 deaths, 21,000 hospitalizations, and 18,000 emergency room visits, said Vijay Limaye, the study’s lead author and a climate and health science fellow at NRDC’s Science ...