This week I am attending the Dairy Environmental Systems and Climate Adaptation Conference in Ithaca NY.  It has been a great conference so far and I am looking forward to a few more talks before it ends.  A lot of the information presented today has been about the health of dairy cows and how they respond to heat stress.  This as Ithaca has been experiencing one of the hottest and most humid days of the year (although you can’t tell it from the air conditioning inside the conference center).

Projections of changing climate in the Northeast are for a vastly increased number of days with temperatures above the threshold for heat stress in cattle in the coming years, and producers want to know how to adapt to these changes.  Perhaps dairy farmers in the Southeast can help them figure out how to cope while keeping the animals comfortable and safe, since we deal with heat and humidity every summer.

EarthSky also published an article this week on health and climate, this one focused on human health.  The article described an extensive study recently published in The Lancet and describes both direct and indirect stresses that a warmer climate will add to humans and human health in the future.  Many of the responses that society needs to make to deal with these stresses would also have other benefits to us in the future.

One example of a climate-induced change (along with other factors) is the spread of Lyme disease, which you can see in this YouTube video and read about here (Lyme disease can also affect animals).  Mosquito season is also getting longer, leading to potential increases in mosquito-borne diseases.

Source: Climate Central
Source: Climate Central