Bill Nye Explains: How Does Climate Change Impact Our Health?

It started out as a climate crisis. It's become the greatest health crisis we've ever seen. You’ve watched it happening – first, in the headlines. Today, maybe right outside your window.

The world's getting warmer and heatwaves are turning lethal. Storms are getting stronger, putting millions of us in harm’s way. Diseases are spreading farther and faster. If you're a farmer, plant diseases and pests are showing up sooner and hanging around longer every season. Rainfall patterns are changing. Food and clean water are getting harder to come by.

It's all connected, and it all goes back to our burning coal, gas, and oil – fossil fuels. We’re taking ancient carbon and putting it in the air. We’re producing greenhouse gases that are heating up the earth's land and ocean. As temperatures rise, dangerous heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires are happening more and more often.

Things are changing faster than we can deal with them. Lakes and rivers are both drying out and flooding. Crops are withering or drowning. We can't grow them where we've been growing them for centuries. Warmer seasons mean mosquitos can carry diseases like Zika and malaria more quickly. And the extra heat throws the water cycle out of balance, leading to more powerful storms and floods and droughts everywhere from Florida to the Philippines.

Meanwhile, fossil fuels also fill our air, water, and soil with toxic chemicals that make us sick – causing everything from asthma to brain dysfunctions that last a lifetime. And this, by the way, is really bad for our kids.

If you think it adds up to a more dangerous and unhealthy planet for all of us, you're right! But here's the good news: It doesn't have to be this way. Today we can skip the dirty stuff and protect our health by powering our lives with affordable clean energy. Best of all, a clear majority of people around the world want to do just that.

It's time to act. After all our health is in the balance. The choice is clear: Protect our planet, protect ourselves

Learn More and Take Action

• Like the Science Guy said, climate change is making some kinds of diseases spread more quickly. Download our free fact sheet to get the whole picture.
• Wildfires are devastating communities across the globe. And conditions are only expected to become even more favorable for more frequent and intense wildfire seasons in our warming world. Here’s the breakdown of how climate change, wildfires, and our health are all connected.
• Average global sea surface temperatures are rising, and as sea surface temperatures become warmer, hurricanes can become more powerful. Get the scoop on how climate change and hurricanes are related – and how people around the world are impacted.