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Environmental Biochemistry - why??

Environmental Biochemistry - why??. Population explosion. A. D. 1 – 100 million 1960 – 3 billion 2008 – 6.3 billion 2040 – 10 billion (!) The earth can afford populations between 2.5 to 40 billion!. An urban world.

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Environmental Biochemistry - why??

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  1. Environmental Biochemistry -why??

  2. Population explosion • A. D. 1 – 100 million • 1960 – 3 billion • 2008 – 6.3 billion • 2040 – 10 billion (!) The earth can afford populations between 2.5 to 40 billion!

  3. An urban world • Rapid growth of human population and changes in technology – we are becoming an urban species • Developed countries: 75% live in urban areas; 25% in rural areas • Developing countries: 45% live in urban areas • By 2025 almost two-thirds of the population – 5b will live in cities • Number of megacities increased from 2 (New York & London) in 1950 to 23 (17 are in developing world) in 1995. By 2015 the world will have 36 megacities, 23 of them in Asia.

  4. Global warming & Climate change • Result of cyclical atmospheric changes, anthropogenic activities, or combinations of both: the earth is warming from a variety of climatic effects, including the cascading effects of greenhouse gas emissions to support human activities. • Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the 100 years ending in 2005. • Climate model projections indicate that global surface temperature will likely rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century. • The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) has predicted an average global rise in temperature of 1.4°C(2.5°F) to 5.8°C (10.4°F) between 1990 and 2100. • The scientific consensus is that the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases due to human activity has caused most of the warming observed since the start of the industrial era. • Greenhouse gas – CO2, methane, tropospheric ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide • The atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and methane have increased by 36% and 148% respectively since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the mid-1700s. • Fossil fuel burning has produced approximately three-quarters of the increase in CO2 from human activity over the past 20 years. Most of the rest is due to land-use change, in particular deforestation.

  5. Effects of Global Warming • Increasing global temperature will cause: a. sea levels to rise b. change in the amount and pattern of precipitation c. arctic shrinkage Effects: i. increases in intensity of extreme weather events ii. changes in agricultural yields iii. modifications of trade routes iv. species extinctions v. changes in the ranges of disease vectors

  6. “We are nature’s laboratory on disasters. We don’t have volcanoes. But any other natural disaster you think of, we have it.” Prof. Ainun Nishat

  7. After being fairly stable for a couple of thousand years, sea levels have crept up about 20 centimetres since the mid-1800s. For the coming century sea level rise 18 to 59 centimetres (IPCC) • By 2100 sea levels are likely to rise by 0.8 metres, and possibly as much as 2 metres. • Considering elevation alone, even a one-metre rise would swallow about 15 to 20 per cent of Bangladesh’s land area, where about 20 million people live today.

  8. By 2050 the icy area on their side of the Himalayas will have shrunk by more than a quarter since 1950. • a 5-10% reduction in agricultural output by 2030 • more droughts, floods, typhoons and sandstorms • Assuming a global temperature increase of 4.4°C by 2080, India's agricultural output is projected to fall by 30-40%. • As sea-levels rise, 35m refugees could flee Bangladesh's flooded delta by 2050 (IPCC )

  9. Health effects of climate change • thermal stress- deaths following heat waves • extreme weather events • drowning deaths in floods and tsunamis • infectious diseases –diarrhea, vector-borne infectious disease –malaria, dengue fever • regional food yields • hunger prevalence - malnutrition • psychological impacts of disaster In general, transmission rates of parasites and pathogens are expected to increase with increasing temperature. Evidence suggests that the virulence of some pathogens and parasites may also increase with global warming. Therefore, there is an urgent need for societies to take both preemptive and adaptive actions to protect human populations from adverse health consequences of climate change. It is time to mainstream health risks and their prevention in relation to the effects of climate change on the medical research and policy agenda.

  10. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change of the past 30 years already claim over 150,000 lives annually. • Many prevalent human diseases are linked to climate fluctuations, from cardiovascular mortality and respiratory illnesses due to heat waves, to altered transmission of infectious diseases and malnutrition from crop failures. • Approximately 1.62 million children younger than 5 years die of diarrhea annually, and most cases are attributable to contaminated water (WHO)

  11. Water Shortage-drought • In Africa by 2020, between 75 and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change.

  12. Species Extinctions • Ecosystems and individual species are being affected in a variety of ways: • Changes in temperature affect the density and range of species; natural history traits such as migration, flowering, and egg laying; morphology such as body size and behavior; and genetic frequency shifts. • In an analysis of 143 studies that span decades of observation,15 more than 80% of 1468 species (mollusks to mammals and grasses to trees) are currently showing significant changes in temperature-sensitive species traits.

  13. Economic Burden • Economic losses attributed to natural disasters have increased from US$75.5 billion in the 1960s to US$659.9 billion in the 1990s. • Losses to insurers from natural disasters nearly doubled in 2007. • From 1980 through 2004, the global economic costs of weather-related events totaled $1.4 trillion of which $340 billion was insured.

  14. What can/should(!) we do?...... Biochemical and molecular (biotechnology) techniques could play important roles: • Pollution(soil, water and air) detection (e.g. sensitive biosensors), monitoring and remediation (e.g. biodegradation, biomining) • Biocontrol of diseases, pests, and weeds • Genetically engineered microbes -biodegradation/biotransformation of xenobiotics -biotreatment of wastes & environmental safety • Recycling of wastes and/or conversion into energy • Restoration of ecology • Development of database and informatics (bioinformatics)

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