NASA Chief: In Terms of Insects Carrying Diseases, Climate Change Can Increase Their Geographic Extent

EXCERPT:

CALVIN: "So, there are a lot of effects of climate change on health. So, in terms of mosquitoes and other diseases that are carried by insects, what the climate — what climate change can do is change where the — the geographic extent of those species. So, you know, mosquitoes need hot conditions, they need water to breed, and so what climate change can do is change that extent so that we see, in places where you have malaria, it could shift more northern latitudes or higher altitudes. But there's other effects of climate change. You mentioned pollen. One of the things that we saw here in the northeast of the U.S. recently was about wildfire smoke. So, there were wildfires burning in Canada, and the smoke from that came into the U.S. and led to air quality concerns all across the northeastern U.S. and we will see more of that with climate change."