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Medical Scribblings - 13 September 2007

All too soon autumn seems to be with us again and I suppose that I should remind anyone who needs a flu jab to book up now. Its most important for those people who have chest or heart problems and elderly people. (details on the web site)

Thinking about the weather, I was pondering the other day on how this global warming will affect us all. Evidently the short term forecast is for another couple of years of rather dreary summers before we are hit by much hotter weather. In the longer term there is the suggestion that it will turn much colder in the UK. (without the gulf stream we would have the same weather as northern Canada) The health implications can be quite significant. Will we all be spending our holidays in the Costa del Clacton instead of Tenerife?

If the weather gets hotter and dryer then there is less cloud cover and we are exposed to more ultraviolet and consequently more skin cancers. If however the extra heat causes more water to evaporate from the sea we end up with violent storms and downpours. Those living in Henham should be OK, apart from the lightning strikes of course, while anyone in the Stort valley will be inundated. The risk in low lying areas besides being flooded is that the sewerage system cannot cope, becomes overwhelmed and rather unpleasant material is washed into your home.

Then there are all those nasty tropical diseases that lurk in hotter countries waiting to invade these isles. I suppose the big threat there are mosquito transmitted diseases such as Malaria. At the moment the winters are cold enough to kill off the mosquitos that carry these diseases but once they can over-winter we are at risk.

Whether it gets hotter or colder you will need to insulate your homes better to prevent heat stroke or hypothermia. Excess heat is actually a bigger threat than the cold. You may remember that a lot of people expired in Paris a couple of years ago during a very hot August.

Very soon I fear we are all going to have to look at how much CO2 we produce. Those gas guzzling cars will be a thing of the past, so please don’t buy one as you will have difficulty selling it. They will have to completely revise their ideas about air flight, in the not too distant future, as flying not only dumps vast amounts of pollutants into the air but also interfers with the sunlight hitting the earth. So all those nice holidays to distant parts will disappear. I’ve been trying to think what new use there will be for Stansted airport when it becomes redundant. Suggestions please.

The answer of course is to take up walking or cycling holidays, travelling to your destination by electrically powered trains. Start growing your own vegetables in the back garden and install a sewerage digester to produce methane for your cooking. Not only will you be saving the planet but at the same time you will be much fitter and healthier. Its not all doom and destruction after all.

John Schofield