I look forward to the time when I will be sailing or taking the ferry to Nantucket and being able to see the towers up close and admire their grandeur and know that the people of Cape Cod are benefiting from some clean power and that we are leaders in the effort to help our neighbors and our country make the US a cleaner, healthier and a better place to live.
-- Peter Sutherland, Yarmouth resident
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Global Warming May Exceed Infections as Health Threat Thursday, May 14, 2009
May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Global warming is the biggest public health threat of the 21st century, eclipsing infectious diseases, water shortages and poverty, a team of medical and climate-change researchers concluded.
The phenomenon will be felt first in the developing world, further burdening a population already in crisis from food shortages, said the report from University College London that was published today in The Lancet journal. The changing climate will also cause real and lasting damage to the Western world, affecting generations to come, said Anthony Costello, a pediatrician at University College London.
“Climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation,” Costello said during a news conference. “We are setting up a world for our children and grandchildren that may be extremely frightening and turbulent.”