A world undergoing rapid climate change could impact our children's lives in a number of ways.
Health
We can expect climate change to affect our children's health in a number of ways
Increase in storms and flooding presents increased risks and hazards
Mild and wet weather presents ideal conditions for a range of diseases and bugs to thrive.
The intense summer heatwave of 2003 was responsible for at least 30,000 deaths across Europe. Underlying this figure are the countless thousands who suffered heatstroke and other heat related ailments. Such extremes are predicted to become the norm in our children's lifetime.
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Economic
Climate change presents a real threat to the viability of our current economic system. Insurers fear their industry could be bankrupted by the increase in damage claims arising from storm damage.
Storms and flooding are impacting on people's ability to get to work, with serious consequences for the economy.
The changing climate is affecting agriculture and our ability to produce food cheaply.
All these things are knowable. What such scenarios exclude is the unkowable, the freak event, the surprises that nature throws at us ever more frequently as the effects of climate change take hold.
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Wellbeing
The far reaching effects of climate change impact the child/parent relationship in many indefinable ways.
Intergenerational links will be severed, eroding the sense of continuity that derives from shared experience. The change wrought on our environment, the landscape and our social fabric by global warming will mean our children and their children will be entering uncartered territory in terms of human history.
That will leave a huge and unbridgable chasm between the generations, acroos which we can only hope our cries of 'sorry' will be heard.
Climate change will create a less stable world, a world of increased threats and insecurity. These fears will permeate every element of our children's outer and inner lives. How do you put a price on such a loss?
See here for stories about the speed with which climate change is affecting our planet
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