CANBERRA, Australia — Aborigines in the harsh Outback will be among the Australians hardest hit by climate change, with higher rates of disease and even spiritual suffering when forced to see their ancestral lands ravaged, according to a medical journal report.
As one of the world’s hottest and driest continents, most experts agree Australia is particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
The continent’s remote Outback region is home to many Aborigines, an impoverished minority who on average die 17 years younger than their fellow Australians.
The report in the most recent Medical Journal of Australia urges governments to act immediately to mitigate some of the worst impacts of climate change in the Outback, including higher rates of mosquito-spread dengue fever and communicable diseases such as bacterial diarrhea.
