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Death by Degrees Report
This is a Fall 2001 Newsletter Featured Article.
Other Featured Articles:
 Climate change's impacts on public health in the Bay State Health are outlined in Death by Degrees: The Health Threats of Climate Change in Massachusetts, a 54-page report released this past Spring by PSR in conjunction with GBPSR. Board member Dick Clapp served on the Massachusetts Advisory Board for the report and spoke at the press briefing on the steps of the State House in Boston.
Highlights of report findings include:
- More heavy precipitation events in winter could intensify winter storms. In 1999, insured losses from weather-related natural catastrophes in Massachusetts totaled 85 million dollars. This figure is likely to increase.
- With the predicted four- to five-degree rise in temperature over the next century, deaths resulting from heat distress during a typical summer could increase 50 percent.
- Heart disease and death may increase as weather conditions grow more extreme and air quality deteriorates. Massachusetts had 21,326 deaths due to heart disease and 3,410 deaths due to stroke in 1997 alone.
- Ground-level ozone will increase with global warming. From April to October of 1997, there were 4,500 emergency room hospital admissions and 170,000 asthma attacks in Massachusetts related to ozone exposure.
Death by Degrees lays out specific opportunities for personal and political actions needed to combat global warming. Free copies of the report are available to the public through the GBPSR office or on line at http://www.envirohealthaction.org/upload_files/ma-dbyd.pdf
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