CFE Agenda 02082021 - Laserfiche WebLink

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depending on vector-host interaction, host immunity, and pathogen evolution. Whether a changing climate in the U.S. will increase the chances of domestically acquiring diseases such as dengue fever is uncertain due to vector-control efforts and lifestyle factors, such as time spent indoors, that reduce human-insect contact; and WHEREAS climate change is expected to globally threaten food production and certain aspects of food quality, as well as food prices and distribution systems. While the U.S. will be less affected than some countries, the nation will not be immune. Many crop yields are predicted to decline because of the combined effects of changes in rainfall, severe weather events, and increasing competition from weeds and pests on crop plants. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, heavy spring rains across the nation in 2019 caused nearly 20 million acres of farmland to not be planted. Farmers incurred, collectively, billions of dollars in losses, disrupting rural economies across the country as well as the communities they support. In August, 2020 a derecho crossed Iowa flattening about 850,000 crop acres and damaging or destroying an estimated 57 million bushels of Iowa grain storage capacity; and WHEREAS climate change induces extreme weather events that can have deleterious effects on mental health. High levels of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder affected victims of Hurricane Katrina, and similar observations have followed floods, heat waves, and wildfires. Following disasters, mental health problems increase,both among people with no history of mental illness, and those at risk —a phenomenon known as "common reactions to abnormal events"; and WHEREAS the health of friends and family of Orange County residents has already been compromised. If climate change is allowed to grow unabated, Orange County residents will soon directly suffer from the devastating impacts to public health of climate change. THEREFORE,BE IT RESOLVED that the Orange County Board of County Commissioners will exercise their full statutory authority to protect the residents of Orange County from the threat to public health posed by climate change.