By Sascha Cordner
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-980627.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Florida may be especially vulnerable diseases linked to climate change. As Sascha Cordner reports, experts from the Natural Resources Defense Council have just unveiled a new web tool that will show how climate change can affect people's health across the nation, particularly in the Southern region of the U.S.
Kim Knowlton, a senior scientist at the NRDC's Health and Environmental Program, says the web tool called "Climate Change Threatens Health" has five U-S maps. That lets people explore how climate change might make today's health threats even worse.
"Across the South climate change can lead to increased threats of for example, dengue fever and other mosquito-borne diseases, worse in droughts, floods, and air pollution health threats. For example, the web pages show that 47-percent of states mainly in the South and Southeast are vulnerable to the spread of dengue fever."
Of the 24 states most vulnerable to dengue fever, only 12-percent have climate change adaptation plans that specifically address infectious diseases. That includes Florida. Knowlton says all states should be working on having a Climate Change Adaptation Plan.