Academics push for climate change to be included as an official cause of DEATH for bushfire victims
- Australian researchers say climate change should be listed as a cause of death
- Devastating bushfires saw Australians hospitalised after breathing thick smoke
- Cardiologist Arnagretta Hunter said information should be on death certificates
Cardiologist and member of Doctors for the Environment Australia Dr Arnagretta Hunter wants climate change listed as a cause of death
Researchers are calling for climate change to be listed as an official cause of death for people affected by the bushfires.
Australia endured one of the worst bushfire seasons the country has ever seen this year, with thousands of homes destroyed and 33 people killed.
But medical researchers from the Australian National University and the University of Technology Sydney say the death toll should be far higher.
Cardiologist and member of Doctors for the Environment Australia Dr Arnagretta Hunter said the figures ignored the deaths relating to the hazardous air that clogged towns and cities for months.
However, critics have called the group 'climate alarmists' who are simply pushing for more government funding.
NSW Rural Fire Service crews fight the Gospers Mountain Fire as it impacts a structure at Bilpin, in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, New South Wales in December
Australia endured one of the worst bushfire seasons the country has ever seen this year, with thousands of homes destroyed and 33 people killed (Pictured: A house destroyed by fire in Narbethong, north of Melbourne)
Sydneysiders were forced to wear face masks as they made their morning commute from December 2019 as thick smoke from the bushfires swamped the city.
Dr Hunter said the smoke was just as deadly as the fires as people died of asthma attacks, heart attacks or lung failure as a result.
'Climate change is the greatest health challenge we face in Australia, even after we recover from the coronavirus pandemic,' she told The Guardian.
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'Our last summer has given us a serious lesson in the influence of environmental factors on our health and wellbeing. As temperatures rise in Australia, we predict increasing morbidity and mortality, particularly in the climate-vulnerable parts of northern Australia.'
She said climate change is a killer and should be acknowledged on death certificates.
Wearing hardware masks (pictured, on a man in Sydney) can block even the smallest particles from entering your nose and mouth. PM2.5 particles can enter the lungs of animals or humans.
A woman covers her face (right) as she rides a Sydney ferry as the city struggles under a blanket of dangerously polluted smoke
'We know the summer bushfires were a consequence of extraordinary heat and drought, and people who died during the bushfires were not just those fighting fires – many Australians had early deaths due to smoke exposure,' she told the Daily Telegraph.
However, critics have slammed the researchers as 'climate alarmists'.
Institute of Public Affairs research director Daniel Wild said the group were 'inflating figures to push governments to provide more climate funding to academics like themselves'.
'University researchers should be using their taxpayer funds to help get the more than one million Australians who have lost their job over the past two months back into a job, rather than engaging in more inaccurate climate alarmism.'
He said an Australian study published two years ago found most temperature-related deaths were due to cold rather than excessive heat.
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