You are watching Words of Wisdom Rebroadcast of Live Videoconference with Supreme Master Ching Hai “Global Unity: Together in Saving Lives” Hong Kong - October 3, 2009

Host(m): Recently, the outbreak of H1N1 is becoming serious everywhere. What is the relationship between disease and climate change? Today, our second distinguished speaker, Professor Lin Ruey Shiung will share his insight on “Climate Change: Catastrophe, Public Health.”

Sylvia (f): Professor Lin Ruey Shiung is a world famous epidemiologist. He is currently Emeritus Professor at the College of Public Health, National Taiwan University. Professor Lin is also an advisor in Min-Sheng Medical Care System, Taoyuan, Formosa (Taiwan), Board of Editors of Annals of Epidemiology. Let's welcome Professor Lin with a warm applause.

Professor Lin, Ruey Shiung's speech: Thank you very much for the introduction. Good afternoon. I feel very honored today to be invited by the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association to attend this “Global Unity: Together in Saving Lives” conference. I feel very honored. Because I specialize in public health and epidemiology, today I am going to discuss the impact of global warming on public health. Significant progress has been made in public health in the past 50 or 60 years. With the promotion of environmental hygiene, and the widespread adoption of vaccines, many epidemic diseases have been almost eradicated, such as smallpox and polio, which were major threats in the 1950s.

Therefore, the public health sector is very pleased as the infectious diseases are about to become extinct. What is replacing them are chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, which are related to our lifestyle and dietary habit. So we feel very lucky. However, in the past ten plus years, we have witnessed bird flu, SARS, and this year's swine flu.

We experienced many new and some re-emerging infectious diseases. These infectious diseases seem to have a very big impact on humankind. So, today, I would like to discuss how global warming and climate change affects public health and the spread of these infectious diseases. Before the introduction, I would like to talk about the ecological model of some diseases. In between the agent and the host of a disease, there is the ecological environment. Changes in the ecological environment affect both the host and the agent.

Today I particularly want to talk about which type of agents can be affected by the ecological environment, especially by global warming. For individuals, the question is how to improve your immunity, how to enhance your ability to resist diseases. For the entire public health system, the question is how to change the ecological environment, how to cut off the transmission channel, and how to remove the infectious agents. These are what the public health community is concerned about. So next, I will talk about how those infectious diseases are transmitted to humans.

Generally, there are three transmission channels for infectious diseases. The first is through inhalation; the second is through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract; and the third is through direct contact. SARS and smallpox are both transmitted via inhalation. That's why they are very infectious. It is almost impossible for humans to avoid them. I will talk about this subject in more detail later.

Next, the most successful accomplishment of public health is to have reduced GI tract diseases over the years, because once environmental hygiene is improved, the fecal-oral route of transmission will be cut off and GI tract diseases can then be reduced. The greatest achievement of public health in the past is to have reduced GI tract diseases. In today's world, only in some undeveloped countries are GI tract diseases still common, but they are very rare in the developed countries.

However, climate change has caused many disasters such as floods, which might completely destroy the whole public health system, bringing the previous diseases back. Therefore, this is what the public health sector must pay attention to in time of big disasters. The third channel is through direct contact of skin and mucosa. There are roughly three different routes under this category.

The first is direct contamination through direct contact with soil, mud and dirt. These include endemic diseases caused by big floods such as leptospirosis found recently in Formosa (Taiwan), and melioidosis in Southeast Asia, India, and many places in northern Australia. But recently, it seems that melioidosis has been reported in many more places.

The second route is transmission through vectors such as disease-bearing mosquitoes, fleas and ticks. These infectious diseases are definitely affected by global warming since these vectors are themselves living organisms. It's unavoidable that they are affected by the whole ecological environment. As a result, global warming may cause more and more vector-transmitted diseases in the future.

I'll discuss more about this point again later. The third route is sexual transmission. The AIDS virus appeared just 20 some years ago. But it has already infected at least 30 or 40 million people, and killed 10 or 20 million. Fortunately, the AIDS virus is transmitted through bodily fluids. The AIDS pathogen can hardly survive in the outside environment. It requires similar temperature and humidity as our body fluids for its survival and transmission.

Since it is transmitted through bodily fluids, as long as we keep ourselves pure and virtuous, we can avoid it and it is relatively easy to control. Next, I'm going to talk about two transmission routes in detail: transmissions through inhalation and through vectors, because global warming may have the biggest impact on these two routes. And they will have the biggest impact on human health and public health.

Airborne diseases are perhaps the most dangerous and most difficult to prevent in public health. Why airborne diseases? I just said that we cannot stop breathing for more than five minutes, so airborne infection is very difficult to avoid. Although we have adopted certain ways to contain airborne diseases, such as isolation and quarantine, we cannot control their spread. Especially during a pandemic, most people will be infected. That's why when H1N1 virus appeared in April or May, the WHO and all the countries in the world were very nervous. Hong Kong also responded with extreme measures, including quarantining some tourists in a hotel for 10 days.

The Spanish flu in 1918 was very dangerous. The most effective way to prevent these airborne diseases is through developing vaccines. But not every disease can be prevented by vaccines. In public health history, we can say that the smallpox vaccine is the most effective vaccine. Smallpox was the number one killer of infants and toddlers in the past. But since 1969, WHO started to use vaccines and successfully suppressed smallpox.

Now, it has been almost eradicated worldwide. Measles is also one of the most threatening diseases for infants and toddlers. Since some people are measle virus carriers, it's very hard for it to be completely eliminated. We ourselves are carriers for many kinds of diseases, including bacterial infections such as diphtheria and whooping cough. Since many healthy people are carriers, these diseases can break out any time, so we have no choice but to use vaccines. Since they are transmitted through the air, we have to use vaccines. With the concern that many people are still carriers of polio, everyone has to be vaccinated.

Another one is tetanus. We must start receiving tetanus vaccines when we are little, because Clostridium tetani exists everywhere, including the soil. Once we have a wound, it may get into our body, so we have to use toxoid to prevent it. We have to get a tetanus shot about every ten years. Recently, besides the rapid development of vaccines, a surveillance system is another modern approach. Surveillance systems have been developed by many infectious diseases epidemiologists.

I feel that for influenzas, we need to use surveillance systems to monitor the animal farming industry, such as pig, chicken, and duck farms, which can be the source of influenzas. More importantly, we need to monitor those migratory birds which fly back and forth carrying a lot of viruses, particularly those related to influenza. The droppings, feces and saliva of these birds can cause avian and swine infections. Moreover, because of the current large-scale pig and chicken farming, the chance for these viruses to mutate is amplified, so this is a big potential threat.

In the future, we probably need to use surveillance systems to closely monitor these animal farms, such as pig, chicken, and duck farms to check early if there is viral mutation, so we can achieve effective prevention. That's why a surveillance system is very important. In the future, public health systems should not only guard against human infections, but also animal infections as well.

These are emerging and re-emerging diseases we are talking about, which are mostly transmitted though insects, especially the vector of mosquitoes. Mosquitoes alone can be classified into several classes: anopheles, which transmits malaria; aedes aegypti, which transmits dengue fever; and culex quinquefasciatus, which transmits Japanese encephalitis. Each kind of mosquito is different. Mosquitoes are very sensitive to temperature change.

When temperatures rise, subtropical mosquitoes can spread to temperate zones, and tropical mosquitoes can spread to subtropical zones. A lot of viruses can be carried around by these vectors. Vectors such as mosquitoes and ticks are affected by climate change. Malaria is not supposed to be found on mountains higher than 1000 meters in Kenya. Recently, malaria has been reported at altitudes above 1500 meters. Since temperatures have risen, mosquitoes can now fly higher and survive there.

Recently, dengue fever is prevalent in many areas because there are more mosquitoes. Also recently, there is a Chikungunya epidemic in India. This disease was present in Kenya 50 years ago. After 50 years, it has started to spread to Southeast Asian countries and India. From this it's evident that as the mosquitoes move northwards to the temperate areas, these diseases may spread to other places where they were never seen before, and these endemic diseases will thus become epidemic. In the field of public health, we've been emphasizing prevention and knowing the spread of these vectors ahead of time. Entomologists should also join the research so we can have a better prediction for the future.

Among all the pathogens, the human body is the most vulnerable to bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, and parasite-borne diseases, including tropical diseases such as malaria, Leishmaniasis and Kala-azar. These parasites still exist. With them in existence, we should learn how to predict their mutations in the future, because global warming will affect these viruses which mutate with changes in ecology. These are probably the pathogens that most concern humans due to their reproductive ability.

Their rate of reproduction is much faster than that of humans. It takes about 20 years for humans to produce the next generation. Many kinds of bacteria can divide every minute or every five minutes. You see how fast they divide. They multiply geometrically. Human reproduction is very slow. These bacteria are living organisms, so are humans. Living organisms may compete with each other. The reproduction rate of bacteria is so fast. How can we deal with them? Fortunately, humans have immunity, and the many mechanisms of the immune system.

Recent research all focuses on the immune system, how to increase our immunity, and how to improve our resistance to diseases. To improve our resistance to diseases, we should have regular exercise and eat a regular diet. What we should do in these aspects is what public health emphasizes. So in the public health sector, if we can predict the migrating route of insects as a result of climate change, we will be able to prevent the diseases from spreading.

However, climate change is very difficult to predict. This is reflected by the well-known “butterfly effect.” Since there are many unknown factors, it's very difficult to predict. Since it's very difficult to predict, we must take precautions and respond quickly. If we predict that diseases will appear, then we have to be well-prepared to deal with them, including organizing a response team which is always ready to take quick rescue actions and enter the disaster area in the event of a catastrophe. This is something for which we need to be well-prepared.

To adapt to climate change, and global warming, we need to train more epidemiologists and increase our investment in tropical medicine because many tropical diseases will spread to subtropical regions. Also, we hope to have more biologists, entomologists studying mosquito vectors, veterinarians with a focus on public diseases, as well as ornithologists specialized in migratory birds. The most important thing within the field of bio-ecology is biodiversity. We should study how to restore the balance when a new species enters a niche and causes ecological changes. We have to try our best to reverse the effect of global warming, then we can reduce the threats from these infectious diseases to us humans. Thank you for your attention.

Sylvia (f): Very clear, and in-depth explanation. Thank you. So, if we don't take actions now, more new emerging influenza and diseases will come one after the other. Thank you from our heart for Professor Lin's thought-provoking speech. Thank you. Global warming also causes changes in weather patterns. For example, the recent Morakot was the deadliest typhoon with resulting catastrophic damage in Formosa (Taiwan). Our next distinguished speaker, Professor Lin Chieh, will explain more in-depth on “Climate Change & Air Pollution-Bubble of Southern Taiwan.”

Ben(m): Professor Lin Chieh is Associate Professor of 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 National Environment Standard Board, Bureau of Standards, Metrology & Inspection, M.O.E.A, Formosa (Taiwan). Let's welcome Professor Lin Chieh.

Professor Lin Chieh (m): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's my pleasure to be here to present some information about climate change and air pollution control relationship. Once in 200 years rainfalls just come into Formosa (Taiwan), south of Formosa (Taiwan), and make thousands of peoples lose their home, and hundreds of people lose their lives. The people ask, this is a natural disaster or not? Actually, I always say “yes,” that's a natural disaster, but also the manmade disaster. Later in Copenhagen, they say we must move the world from an era of talk to an era of change.

I think that starts right now, take action, do something good for Earth and decrease climate change, decrease the temperature change in our planet Earth. Global warming actually comes from greenhouse gas. 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 Formosa (Taiwan) is so serious. The average temperature increase depends on the data from the UNFCC. They say it's around 0.8 degrees Celsius per year. I come from the southern of Formosa (Taiwan), Kaoshiung City. The average is 1.4 degrees difference. So that's almost two times above the Earth's average temperature increase.

In the past three years, I've represented the Kaoshiung City government to participate in science international activity, for example, like last year in Poland and then the following will be Copenhagen. Kaoshiung City is a very special city. We produce 28.6 tons carbon dioxide per capita per year. That's the worst number - only less than Qatar. So that's the warning, telling us we've got to take some action immediately. The 6 degrees difference tells us that in the following years, you happen to have one degree Celsius temperature difference on Earth… the percentage is real.

So, we will lose all of the ice cap and that's over heated increase global warming. If that happens we don't have any chance… zero percent chance to bring back the Earth's health. So, if that happens, that equals to something like 1.08 billion tons of TNT, more than ten thousand times all of the nuclear power in the world combined together, brought from the Earth's subsurface. So, what we should do, what we can do?

Meat consumption is the primary cause of global warming, especially from methane gas. I do believe that the methane gas is a strong global warming potential. That means that one methane gas molecule will equal to something like 20 to 70 carbon dioxide molecules. So, if we avoid eating the meat, we will get less methane. If all of the Earth's people be vegetarian, then we can save 70% of the Amazon forest's destruction. According the count - we counted the livestock industries - if we produce one kilogram of beef, we'll make something like 800 to 1000 liters of methane emitted to the atmosphere.

Also of concern, 100 million liters of water and the livestock's waste go to pollute our environment. Most of people will say vehicles make pollution and carbon dioxide; actually, if we count the livestock industry, even more than transportation, causes the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. What makes carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the world?

Everywhere uses fossil fuel. When you drive a car, you use gasoline. When you use plastic products, you need the fossil fuel industry to supply that product for you. Since Kaohsiung city is the number 2 serious carbon dioxide emission's city in the world, we take more serious action and a more real plan to avoid the condition getting worse and worse. We built one solar energy arena for the World Games.

That's the action plan. And we try to build a mass transportation system in the city combined with biking. We try to push the industrial sector emission reduction in a stabilized process; don't make more air pollution and the greenhouse gases. We try to expand and reorganize some industrial park energy resources. We push for more green mass transportation system. I just mentioned. And continue adjustments to contributing green, more energy efficient building for solar energy and nature, the pace of the wind.

The proposed R&D project was to suit the Kaohsiung greenhouse gas countries strategy in climate, biological habit, water, and the environment protection education. So, the global warming is a serious problem already. What we should do next? I will share 16 words that maybe we can do. We all did destroy the nature, so next step we need to respect nature. We need to feed back to the environment. We already waste a lot of resources so we need to appreciate what resources we have and don't waste resources. Thank you.

Ben (m): Thank you. Sylvia (f): Thank you, thank you.

Ben (m): Thank you very much, Professor Lin. It is really a time of urgency, right? And also it's clear now that meat consumption is the primary cause of the greenhouse effect. We are really grateful to have Professor Lin today to share his scientific analysis on global warming, and the recent control and reduction strategies from Kaohsiung. Thank you very much for your time.

Sylvia (f): Thank you. It would be fantastic if every one of us would lead a sustainable life. But how to go green in terms of science and technology?

Ben (m): Well, I think that our next speaker, Dr. Wu Enboa, will give us some recommendations on “Sustainability and Green Technology.”

Sylvia (f): Dr. Wu Enboa is the founding Group Director of the Material and Packaging Technologies Group and Vice President of Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), the largest research institute sponsored by the Hong Kong government. He is also a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and former Deputy General Director of ERSO/ITRI, Formosa (Taiwan). Under his lead, much research into innovative green technologies is underway, for example LED, the next generation of sustainable lighting industry in the world. Now, let's give a warm round of applause to welcome Dr. Wu.

Dr. Wu (m): Thank you. It is my pleasure to be invited and on behalf of the Science and Technology Society of Hong Kong to make this presentation. So the first question I'd like to ask is: Sustainability, how is it created? And before I do that I'd like to put a definition because scientists and engineers always like to put a definition on it. So, the definition is: the capacity to endure, or the capacity or the capability or the ability for a society, for a community, for a country or for the world to sustain. So that's the definition of sustainability.

So, once we know the definition, then we can just look back for 100 years. We see human economic activity actually increases 40 times, and this is a simple calculation from annual or GDP increase per year, which is 3.7%. On the other hand, if we look forward another 100 years, if the trend remains the same, that means we didn't do anything, then we're going to have another 40 times of the human economic activity expansion.

And if we look at the total 200 years time span, we're going to see 1600 times the economic expansion activity from year 1900. So then, we ask the question whether Mother Earth can sustain? And that's why it is so important to talk about sustainability. You see, actually from this curve if we didn't do anything the curve will just go straight, and the vertical axis of this curve is actually the carbon dioxide emission in terms of gigatons per year.

For sustainable energy, you can actually see that wind power and the solar power are two that majorly contribute to sustainable energy, and then followed by carbon capture and storage, which is probably more scientific, and then our nuclear power. And this is actually a different aspect of the sustainability and a different aspect of the energy conservation and a different aspect of the greenhouse efforts that we can do.

And I just use one example, which is actually from the United Nations report in 2006. Right now, we have about 1.3 billion population which is exactly the same as China's population. And then it contributes about 40% of the GDP of the total agriculture in the world, and 30% of the planet's surface, 70% of the agriculture land, of the grain produced in the world, is actually for farmed animals. And it generates 18% of the carbon dioxide and, at the same time, the output is that, it is the largest sector source for water pollution.

So, if we read all these numbers from official reports, then maybe instead of just scientists and engineers, we need to help the human beings. Everybody here can do it together to help the human being, to help us and to help our offspring. And so that's what I say here - low meat diet and promoting vegetarian, we can do now. That means now, not tomorrow so that we not only enhance energy efficiency but also to reduce the greenhouse gas effect, and that will benefit eventually to all Mother Earth and everyone here. Thank you.

Sylvia: Thank you, Dr. Wu. Thank you. We thank Dr. Wu wholeheartedly for his clear explanation on green technology and also his suggestion on a simple way to go green - a low-meat diet. Thank you very much.

Yan Kai Wing District Councilor Shamshuipo, Hong Kong (m): I am a District Councilor of Shamshuipo, Hong Kong. Our organization has been very concerned about the affairs of the local community.

Supreme Master TV (m): Could you please tell us how you feel after knowing that livestock raising is the major cause of global warming from the seminar?

(m): The amount of information that I've received really opened my eyes. I know so much more now. I will consider expressing more concerns about the livestock impact and environmental protection. After the conference, I am more determined than I was before. I brought my husband and son along with me, hoping that they could hear the message themselves and take action to save the planet. I will cut down my meat consumption. I've been eating less meat than the average Hong Kong citizen. I think I can make more veggie friends and go online to read their recipes. Slowly I will learn how to cook vegetarian food and make the change step-by-step.