McMichael Anthony J
The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
Children (Basel). 2014 Aug 14;1(2):99-106. doi: 10.3390/children1020099.
As human-driven climate change advances, many adults fret about the losses of livelihoods, houses and farms that may result. Children fret about their parents' worries and about information they hear, but do not really understand about the world's climate and perhaps about their own futures. In chronically worried or anxious children, blood cortisol levels rise and adverse changes accrue in various organ systems that prefigure adult-life diseases. Meanwhile, for many millions of children in poor countries who hear little news and live with day-to-day fatalism, climate change threatens the fundamentals of life-food sufficiency, safe drinking water and physical security-and heightens the risks of diarrhoeal disease, malaria and other climate-sensitive infections. Poor and disadvantaged populations, and especially their children, will bear the brunt of climate-related trauma, disease and premature death over the next few decades and, less directly, from social disruption, impoverishment and displacement. The recent droughts in Somalia as the Indian Ocean warmed and monsoonal rains failed, on top of chronic civil war, forced hundreds of thousands of Somali families into north-eastern Kenya's vast Dadaab refugee camps, where, for children, shortages of food, water, hygiene and schooling has endangered physical, emotional and mental health. Children warrant special concern, both as children per se and as the coming generation likely to face ever more extreme climate conditions later this century. As children, they face diverse risks, from violent weather, proliferating aeroallergens, heat extremes and mobilised microbes, through to reduced recreational facilities, chronic anxieties about the future and health hazards of displacement and local resource conflict. Many will come to regard their parents' generation and complacency as culpable.
随着人为导致的气候变化不断加剧，许多成年人担心可能会失去生计、房屋和农场。孩子们则担心父母的忧虑，以及他们听到但并不真正理解的有关世界气候和自身未来的信息。长期焦虑的儿童血液中皮质醇水平会升高，各个器官系统会出现不良变化，这些变化预示着成年后会患上疾病。与此同时，对于贫穷国家数以百万计很少听到新闻、生活中充满日常宿命论的儿童来说，气候变化威胁着生活的基本要素——食物充足、安全饮用水和人身安全——并增加了患腹泻病、疟疾和其他气候敏感型感染的风险。贫困和弱势群体，尤其是他们的孩子，将在未来几十年首当其冲地承受与气候相关的创伤、疾病和过早死亡，间接承受社会动荡、贫困和流离失所带来的影响。最近，随着印度洋变暖、季风降雨失败，索马里发生干旱，再加上长期内战，迫使数十万索马里家庭涌入肯尼亚东北部广阔的达达布难民营。在那里，对儿童来说，食物、水、卫生条件和教育的短缺危及他们的身心健康。儿童值得特别关注，这既是因为他们本身，也是因为他们作为即将到来的一代，可能在本世纪晚些时候面临更加极端的气候条件。作为儿童，他们面临着各种各样的风险，从恶劣天气、不断增多空气过敏原、极端高温和活跃的微生物，到娱乐设施减少、对未来的长期焦虑以及流离失所和当地资源冲突带来的健康危害。许多人会认为他们父母那一代人的自满是有罪的。
