“How many politicians have spoken about the rising heat and climate change, and informed their electorate on how their party plans to address these growing challenges? They seem oblivious to the extreme weather events almost every region of the country has faced in the past years.”
Nidhi Jamwal
Four things happened in a row in the past week. Senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari, who is the heading Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, collapsed during an election rally in Maharashtra. My son’s school in Mumbai shut down with immediate effect for summer vacation, one week in advance. I returned home after field reporting in Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, and fell ill. My househelp’s teenage daughter has kidney stones.
These seemingly unrelated incidents are very much connected. They are the consequence of the rising heat and its growing disease burden in India. But what we are witnessing right now is just a tip of the iceberg with dire outcomes lurking just beneath the surface.
Extreme heat can cause premature deaths, lead to epidemics (we are still figuring out which ones), multiply medical bills, cause low birth weight babies, increase cardiovascular diseases, burden an already stretched public healthcare system, reduce both labour and crop productivity, and eventually derail the economy.
And, this is going to be the story of almost all nations, rich or poor. There will be no escaping the impact of rising heat.
A severe heatwave is sweeping through large parts of the country while the general elections are underway in the world’s largest democracy. It is a political slugfest and politicians are leaving no stone unturned to take potshots at their rivals. But, no one has raised the most important and pressing issue on which hinges our health, our livelihoods, and the future of our children.
A couple of weeks ago, my 12-year-old son asked me something that shocked me. He wondered if he would live beyond the age of 30 or 40 years because by then the planet would be too hot to sustain human lives! I am still finding the right words to give him an answer.
And this isn’t just about my child alone. Eco-anxiety and eco-depression are rising in children globally. There are research studies and surveys that point it out.
A paper published in The Lancet in September 2021, found that of the 10,000 young people (aged 16-25 years) surveyed in ten countries, 59 per cent were very or extremely worried and 84 per cent at least moderately worried about climate change. Over 50 per cent felt sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty. Over 45 per cent said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning, and many reported a high number of negative thoughts about climate change.
In February this year, I attended a meeting on how climate change impacts women and children. One of the participants pointed out how psychologists in India were being referred cases of young children exhibiting eco depression.
But how many politicians have spoken about the rising heat, global warming and climate change, and informed their electorate on how their party plans to address these growing challenges? None that one can think of. It is as if these elections and the political rallies are oblivious to the extreme weather events almost every region and citizen of the country has faced in the past years.
These climate-induced disasters are on the rise and will only get worse. Death By Degrees, is how Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, puts it.
It was exactly a year ago, in April 2023, when at least 13 people collapsed and died due to a heat stroke during a political event in Maharashtra. The event was presided by Union home minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, and other dignitaries.
While mortality due to heat is an extreme event, we don’t need to wait for people to die to take preventive actions. Climate scientists, public health experts and medical doctors have been warning against the rising morbidity due to the rising heat.
My househelp, a widow, lives in a small tin-roofed one-room in a slum in Mumbai’s western suburbs. She shares her dilapidated home with her mother, teenage daughter and a pre-teen son, and many big rats, she says.
The room is so small that when they lie down on the floor to sleep, they fold their legs in order to fit. Heat and no ventilation often keep them awake. Keeping the window or door open invites thieves or other anti-social elements. A common tap in the community is where they get their water from and now, her teenage daughter has developed kidney stones. This is not surprising.
A study in the American Journal of Kidney Disease, found that extreme heat exposure was significantly associated with increased kidney disease-related emergency department visits in New York State.
July 2023 study found high prevalence of kidney diseases among salt pan workers in India due to occupational heat stress. The study concluded that “high-heat stress and limited hydration is a risk factor for kidney dysfunction.” A study that is underway in Andhra Pradesh, a southern Indian state notorious for heatwaves, is trying to find ways to limit the burden of chronic kidney diseases due to heat exposure.
It is the economically weaker sections of the society who mostly work outdoors – farmers, manual labourers, cleaners, etc – who often lack access to safe and sufficient quantities of drinking water. The women or young girls from these communities walk long distances in hot weather to fetch water for their families multiple times in a day.
Not just the kidneys, but according to new research there isn’t any organ in a human body that is unaffected when exposed to high heat. Unborn babies are also affected in the womb by excessive heat.
Garbh-ini (Interdisciplinary Group for Advanced Research on Birth Outcomes—DBT India Initiative) is an interdisciplinary cohort study of pregnant women. One of its aims is to study the link between heat exposure of pregnant women and the birth outcome. The growing evidence points towards preterm births and low-birth weight babies due to heat stress. This was also shared during the meeting held in New Delhi in February.
And since climate change and health is still not an election issue, and because our politicians prefer the language of money, a cost has also been put on the economic losses due to the rising heat.
Nidhi Jamwal is a journalist based in Mumbai. She writes on climate, environment, and rural issues.
Have you liked the news article?