UnDisciplined: Is climate change impacting our health?

By Matthew LaPlante

Published November 7, 2024 at 7:26 PM MST

A map of the world showing the global distribution of heatwaves with sizes and colors that indicate their area and relative intensity. The map has numerous circles all around it, indicating a wide spread of heatwaves. However, the brightest red marks (the most intense heatwaves) are located further away from the poles, meaning that heatwave area and intensity changes with latitude. — Global distribution of heatwaves with sizes and colors that indicate their area and relative intensity. The graph to the right summarizes how their area and intensity changes with latitude.

The most obvious health risk in a warming world is heat — heat stress which can cause heat stroke, which can cause dehydration, which can cause kidney failure, and so on. But that’s not where the intersections between climate change and public health begin or end. And Heidi Honegger Rogers believes that we all need to better understand what’s happening and what is to come.

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Matthew LaPlante

Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something donned on him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be brutally depressing all the time. Today, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects by writing books about the intersection of science, human health and society, including the New York Times best-selling Lifespan with geneticist David Sinclair and the Nautilus Award-winning Longevity Plan with cardiologist John Day. His first solo book, Superlative, looks at what scientists are learning by studying organisms that have evolved in record-setting ways, and his is currently at work on another book about embracing the inevitability of human-caused climate change with an optimistic outlook on the future.

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