Global Unity: Together in Saving Lives, Part 4 of a Multi-part Series

“Those pathogens, bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, and parasites, including malaria, leishmania and kala-azar, the tropical diseases and the parasites still exist. Considering these existing [pathogens], we should know beforehand how to predict the way they’re going to mutate in the future because global warming will cause those viruses to change along with the ecosystem. That’s what we humans fear the most of all diseases because their replication capacity, their reproduction rate, is far greater than that of humans. It takes 20 years for humankind to reproduce a new generation. Many bacteria divide once every one or five minutes. […] They reproduce so fast. How can we cope with them? Luckily, we human beings have our own immunity to rely on. We have various components of the immune system. Therefore, most of the recent research is about the immune system, about how to enhance our own immunity and improve our disease resistance, and about how we should exercise regularly and what should be the regular diet, etc. What we should do is what we in the public health field have been emphasizing. […]”

Global warming also causes changes in weather patterns. For example, the recent Morakot was the deadliest typhoon with resulting catastrophic damage in Taiwan (Formosa). Our next distinguished speaker, Professor Lin Chieh, will explain more in-depth on “Climate Change & Air Pollution – Bubble of Southern Taiwan.” Professor Lin Chieh is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering Science, National Pingtung University of Science & Technology. He is a committee member of the Evaluation Board of Environmental Protection Administration, Executive Yuan; technical committee member of the National Environment Standard Board, Bureau of Standards, Metrology & Inspection, MOEA (Ministry of Economic Affairs), Taiwan (Formosa).

“Global warming actually comes from greenhouse gases. We always think that carbon dioxide is a major part of it, that’s right. The global warming problem comes from carbon dioxide, but just a couple minutes ago, you saw the film – methane also causes global warming problems.

The climate change and warming in Taiwan is so serious. The average temperature increase depends (based) on the data from UNFCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), is around 0.8 degrees Celsius per year. I come from the Southern Taiwan, Kaohsiung City, where the average is 1.4 degrees Celsius difference. So that’s almost two times above the Earth’s average temperature increase. So, we’ve got to do something to avoid (mitigate) climate change and global warming.”