Climate change is hurting our health: 3 stories you may have missed

Stop global warming or face “catastrophic harm” to human health, journal editors warn in an urgent call for action.

The story: In an unprecedented joint editorial, the world’s leading medical journals warned that global warming is increasingly harmful to human health and leading to a variety of ailments – from cardiovascular and pulmonary illness to dermatological disease, Daniel Politi reported for Slate. 

“The greatest threat to global public health is the continued failure of world leaders to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) and to restore nature,” editors of the Lancet, the British Medical Journal and others wrote in their editorial. They added that heat-related deaths among people age 65 and older have risen by more than 50 percent over the past 20 years.

The big picture: While some countries are committing to ambitious climate goals, transformational changes are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to prevent climate catastrophe, scientists say.

“Every fraction of a degree hotter endangers our…