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Climate impacts like floods, heat waves, damaging storms and diseases like West Nile Virus have recently been shown to have a huge health care cost.
Ottawa (
10 Nov. 2011) - "This reflects more than 760,000 encounters with the health care system. Our analysis provides scientists and policy makers with a methodology to use in estimating future health costs related to climate change and highlights the growing need for public health preparedness" state the authors of the recent study.
Calculating the total bill for delaying action on climate change is becoming increasingly important to society. As we move into our second decade of climate chaos events we have noted that not only are there costs of human life but there are economic impacts to communities as businesses are destroyed, crops are ruined and infrastructure is torn apart.
These impacts will place additional demands on public service workers in health care, highways, transportation, emergency services, among others.
Currently, many jurisdictions in Canada have climate adaptation strategies, but a recognition of expanding health care costs is absent from these strategies.
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The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE