Climate Change and Disease

In Chapter 11 of my book, Beyond Blind Faith (which you can read here: https://dondavidson.net/apocalypse-soon/) I noted that climate change will promote the spread of various diseases, and for a variety of reasons. But here’s another scary possibility: climate change may also hurt our ability to fight off disease. In an article from Time’s One.Five, Justin Worland points out that our bodies use our warm body temperature—and spikes in that temperature due to fever—to create a hostile environment for many disease-causing pathogens. But as the climate warms, some of these pathogens may become more resistant to heat. This is a simple matter of survival of the fittest—mutations that cause a pathogen to survive in warmer temperatures will spread and become more prevalent. That means that one of our bodies’ defense mechanisms, fever, will become less effective at protecting us from disease. You can read Mr. Worland’s article here: https://view.newsletters.time.com/?qs=f8345ff2211ab927055d616626e5ff97be7e023feb19dc1b199654753f3d7e0fbd6ce3f6f5807c505e6f24129185f691e3bcb89963fe82175ba91dbd058480e14aa35bfdf60e79ed.