Will global warming make world's poor wealthier, healthier, and live longer by 2030?

According to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, extreme temperatures lead to several serious diseases in certain areas. It can also increase air and water pollution, which in turn harm human health.

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But, experts say that the most direct effect of climate change would be the impacts of hotter temperatures themselves, as for example, heart patients become more vulnerable then as one's cardiovascular system must work harder to keep the body cool during hot weather. Some respiratory problems also increase with heat exhaustion.

* Disastrous consequences of global warming!

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Similarly, though it is predicted that over the next 25 years -

• Annual AIDS deaths will soar from 2.8 million deaths in 2002 to 6.5 million worldwide in 2030!

• Depression will be second only to AIDS as a cause of debilitating illness!

• Tobacco-related deaths will increase from 5.4 million in 2005 to 8.3 million in 2030!

• Smoking will kill 50% more people by 2030, than it currently does!

• Pneumonia and pulmonary diseases like emphysema makes up the rest of the top five both then and now!

* Here are some good effects of global warming!

The good news has come from the World Health Organization, which says -

• With rising temperatures, the world's poor will become wealthier, live longer and stop dying of infectious diseases, by around 2030!

• The risk of dying before the age of five could be halved across the world by then.

Though, the World Bank has predicted that the economic growth in Africa is bright with a growth of 2% per year (as opposed to the 0.5% per year achieved in the 1990s), the team factored in this; predicting of a 'dramatic' shift in dying from infancy to old age may not materialize in Africa, if the economic growth is much slower - perhaps due to a large economic impact of AIDS!

* But how good is the prediction?

In 1996, the WHO made its first long-range prediction of global health.

-- It turned out to be wrong in several key respects - for example, most notably, there were more AIDS and less tuberculosis than predicted!

Colin Mathers of the WHO in Geneva, who led the study admits,

We're not saying this is definitely what will happen at all... But health officials should have the best idea we can arrive at now of what seems likely to happen, so they can prepare.