"The thing that excites our governments most, and the public, is the prospect of climate change doing damage to the economic system," Tony McMichael, a professor at Australia's National University, said in Beijing on Friday.
"But much worse, of course, in terms of real sustainability is damage to the life-support system."
Scientists are trying to understand how environmental change may also do more elusive harm to health by spreading less well-known diseases, drying up water, raising sea levels, and displacing people in waves of environmental refugees, McMichael said.
see full story