Excerpt from Boiling Point by Ross Gelbspan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'What is most surprising is the fact that climate-sensitive outbreaks are happening with so many different types of pathogens-viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites-as well as in such a wide range of hosts including corals, oysters, terrestrial plants, birds and humans,' wrote lead author Drew Harvell, a Cornell University biologist.

Added Dobson: 'Climate change is disrupting natural ecosystems in a way that is making life better for infectious diseases. The accumulation of evidence has us extremely worried. We share diseases with some of these species. The risk for humans is going up.'

'This isn't just a question of coral bleaching for a few marine ecologists, nor just a question of malaria for a few health officials--the number of similar increases in disease incidence is astonishing,' added another member of the research team, Richard Ostfeld. 'We don't want to be alarmist, but we are alarmed.'

The risk, of course, is not confined to humans. In Canada, an explosion in the population of tree-killing bark beetles is spreading rapidly through the forests. As of late 2002, the deadly bark beetles had spread throughout an area of British Columbia nearly three-fourths the size of Sweden--about 9 million acres. Officials attributed the spread of the insects to unusually warm winters.

The massive wildfires that devastated southern California in the summer of 2003 were also made more intense by a rapid increase in the population of bark beetles that had killed large numbers of trees, turning them into tinder for the fires that blanketed the area around Los Angeles.

But the impact of the warming-driven population boom of insects on humans is likely to be at least--if not more--severe than the impact on the world's forests.

About 160,000 people currently die each year from the impacts of warming, but the World Health Organization calculates that that figure will rise into the millions in the near future-from the spread of various infectious diseases, increased heat stress, and the warming-driven proliferation of allergens.

'There is growing evidence that changes in the global climate will have profound effects on the health and well-being of citizens in countries around the world,' said Kerstin Leitner, assistant director-general of the World Health Organization.

Start with the bugs. Mosquitoes, which historically could survive no higher than 1,000 meters, are now spreading malaria, dengue, and yellow fever at elevations of 3,200 meters-to populations that have never before been infected and carry no immunity to those diseases.

Mosquitoes are spreading West Nile virus--and not only throughout expanding geographical areas (as of June 2003, West Nile had surfaced in twenty-four states within the U.S.). They have also spread the disease to more than 230 species of birds, animals, humans, and other insects.

Although West Nile virus has gotten far more attention in the American press, a more familiar disease, malaria, quadrupled worldwide between 1995 and 2000. Today, mosquito-borne malaria kills at least 1 million people and causes more than 300 million acute illnesses each year. In Africa alone, malaria is killing about 3,000 children each day. 'Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds, and remains one of the most important threats to the health of pregnant women and their newborns,' according to Carol Bellamy, executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund.

According to an article in Scientific American, 'Diseases relayed by mosquitoes--such as malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever and several kinds of encephalitis--are among those eliciting the greatest concern as the world warms. Mosquitoes acquire disease-causing microorganisms when they take a blood meal from an infected animal or person. Then the pathogen reproduces inside the insects, which may deliver disease-causing doses to the next individuals they bite.'

From Boiling Point by Ross Gelbspan, pages 93-126 of the hardcover edition.  Reprinted with Permission from Basic Books – Copyright 2004.