Risks include more heat-related deaths, more heart and lung diseases due to increased ozone and health problems related to hurricanes, extreme precipitation and wildfires, the agency said in a new report.

"Climate change poses real risk to human health and the human systems that support our way of life in the United States," the agency's Joel Scheraga said in a telephone briefing.

The report does not specify how many people in the United States could die due to climate change, because that number can be changed by taking action, Scheraga said.

"We are not saying in this report that more people will die in the future due to climate change," he said. "What we are saying is that there's an increased risk of deaths due to heat waves in the future as the climate changes.

"We have an opportunity to anticipate these increased risks ... and to due to prepare for the future in order to mitigate these risks."

Limited to climate change impacts in the United States, the report found a likely increase in food and water-borne germs as the world warms and habitat ranges expand for some disease-causing organisms.

Also, the inequities now found in the U.S. health care system are likely to be exacerbated by global warming: "Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured."

Global warming is expected to affect water supplies across the country, with reduced water flow in rivers, lower groundwater levels and more salt creeping into coastal rivers and groundwater, the report said.

People who live along the coasts will face the consequences of rising sea levels and severe weather events while city dwellers can expect higher energy demand to cool buildings -- though the demand for heat will probably decline.

Photo Copyright Getty Images

Copyright 2008 Reuters. click for restrictions

LONDON (Reuters) - If you have ever dreamed about what it's like to be a butterfly, then flutter over to the "Amazing Butterflies" exhibition at London's Natural History museum before August 17.

The exhibition gives visitors the chance to "shrink to the size of a caterpillar", find their way through a maze dotted with dangerous sticky plants and spiders, forage for food before emerging from your chrysalis to take flight on a zip slide aerial runway.

The exhibition's star attraction is the butterfly house, where visitors can walk among hundreds of live moths and butterflies of every size, shape and color as they flit from one exotic plant to the next. You can even see butterflies emerge from their pupa in the exhibition's very own hatchery.

"There are about 40 or 50 sorts of butterflies, they are from Africa mainly, South America, Southeast Asia as well," Exhibition Developer Alex Gaffikin told Reuters on Friday.

There is also a butterfly garden, where visitors can get tips on which plants to nurture at home if they would like to attract butterflies native to Britain and seasonal visitors.

The exhibition is aimed at families with school children, but has also proven a hit with older visitors as well.

"Our target audiences in the museum, people we're trying to attract are families with children from five to 11," Gaffikin said. "We're also getting grannies coming and loving the butterflies."

Gaffikin said Amazing Butterflies was organized partly to attract busy parents looking for ways to entertain their children over the school holidays and has seen some 90,000 visitors since it opened in April.

"We did a sort of evaluation with the museum's visitors on what would interest them the most and butterflies scored really highly," she said. "The kids fell in love with the butterflies."

Alongside the slide, the maze, the house and the garden, the museum has also put together a lively, educational Internet package on the subject.

Keen lepidopterists can search the site for pictures of their favorite creatures, read about conservation issues and be kept up to date on all the hatching, matching and dispatching going on at the museum.

Photo Copyright William Thomas Cain

Copyright 2008 Reuters. click for restrictions

Denver (KOA) - A part-albino Golden Eagle has been found in Southern Colorado. The bird was photographed just before he was transferred to the Nature and Raptor Center of Pueblo.

The male eagle is thin and is being treated for parasites. The eagle's feathers are in such poor condition that it cannot fly. However, Raptor Center Director Diana Miller believes the rare eagle will recover and will be released in the Hoehne area in about three months.

The eagle was found in the Pinon Canyon area of Southeastern Colorado by Rancher Tony Hass. His wife, Connie, took the photos as they waited for Division of Wildlife District Manager Jeremy Gallegos to capture the eagle and take it to the Raptor Center in Pueblo.

Photo Copyright Connie Hass