Climate change is threatening our health
TheStar.com – Opinion/Commentary – Physicians all over the world are concluding that a healthier planet will mean a healthier population.
Oct 01 2014. By: Courtney Howard
In 2009, the Lancet called climate change the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” Many physicians, myself included, were surprised by this diagnosis. Bigger than cancer? Heart disease? Really?
Since then floods have flattened crops and swamped cities, putting more people at risk of trauma, food insecurity, displacement and mental health issues. Heat waves have exhausted our elderly, Lyme disease is marching across our country and wildfires tore through forests near my home in Yellowknife, filling our skies with gloomy smoke and our ER with wheezy, breathless people. Climate change is shifting health problems that we already struggle with the wrong way on the probability curve.
Internationally, physicians are mobilizing to improve climate health. Following last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the British Medical Journal deemed climate change an “emergency” and called for physicians to do their utmost to translate the science for society, and to make clear the benefits to health and society of a transition to a low-carbon world. This past summer, the British Medical Association and the Canadian Medical Association pledged to do just that, with the BMA additionally voting to divest itself of fossil fuels and power its operations with 100-per-cent renewable energy.
Last week, after more than 300,000 people took to the streets in New York to demand climate action, the Journal of the American Medical Association forecast significant climate-related health problems in the U.S. before 2050 and said “the cost of greenhouse gas emission policies may yield net economic benefit, with health benefits from air quality improvements potentially offsetting the cost of U.S. carbon policies.” As Richard Horton, the Lancet’s current editor, said in the wake of the march, the very future of civilization is at stake.
The good news is there’s absolutely no reason to see what “business-as-usual” will bring. A recent report from Clean Energy Canada highlighted that in the past five years the price of solar modules has dropped a whopping 83 per cent. The IPCC says we must decrease emissions 40-70 per cent by 2050 to stay within 2 degrees C of worldwide warming. Multiple studies show that target is achievable, with currently available technology, at economically viable prices, and with better health outcomes.
The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory says renewable energy can supply 80 per cent of American electricity needs by 2050. The same has been shown for China by a WWF-funded study. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that Canada will decrease deaths from air pollution by 25 per cent if we increase taxation on fossil fuels. A UN study says Canada can reduce emissions by nearly 90 per cent by 2050 through energy efficiency, decarbonizing our electricity supply and replacing fossil fuels with electricity for heat and transport — all while growing our GDP by 200 per cent. Combine that with cardio-commuting and you have a recipe for a healthier population — and a healthier planet.
If our options are to transition to a green economy now and be healthier, or to wait, pollute the water and send the planet into an unlivable spiral — and transition anyhow when scarce fossil fuels become too expensive to burn — I don’t think it takes going to medical school to see that option A is the one we’ll be most proud to explain to our children when they come of age.
How fast do we need to work? Well, I learned a searing truth at the bedside of the first child who died during my six months of work at a pediatric malnutrition centre in the Horn of Africa: a last breath is only the last one in retrospect. Only our best, most time-efficient, team-based efforts are acceptable.
The emergency of climate change is one of the only diagnoses shared by doctors and their patients. Every person I love and every patient I will treat for the rest of my life depends on this planet for their survival. The minute we start moving toward a livable, low-carbon future, we begin to win: action simply feels better than anxiety.
Do we wish this were happening on someone else’s watch? Probably. But every generation has its challenge and its chance for greatness. Unlike Canadians who were forced to surmount the difficulties of the two great wars, we don’t have to sacrifice our lives — we just have to decarbonize.
It’s not too much to ask. Take to the streets. Learn the skill-sets of advocacy and political action. Roar for your tax dollars being spent in service of survival. Share your talents. Build our new world.
It will feel good. And feeling good is great for your health.
Courtney Howard is an emergency physician in Yellowknife, a mother and a board member for the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. @courtghoward
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Tags: economy, globalization, Health, ideology, standard of living
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2014 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Health Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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