By Gary Cohen, HCWH President and Co-Founder.
Chronic illness, disease, and famine may not be the first issues that come to mind when one thinks of carbon pollution, but the health impacts of climate change are serious and deserving of our attention and resources.
Climate change is a public health issue. The World Health Organization estimates that 150,000 deaths per year can be linked to climate change, excluding deaths resulting from extreme weather conditions, such as hurricanes. Other estimates that include fatalities resulting from extreme weather go as high as 400,000 per year.
How could this happen? Heat waves can kill and drought can cause food insecurity. As the weather changes, the range that disease-carrying mosquitoes can cover increases, putting more and more people at risk of diseases such as malaria or Dengue fever.
Public health issues resulting from climate change are not insulated to vulnerable developing nations. Just this week, Reuters reported that California’s drought has put 10 communities at risk of running out of drinking water in 60 days. And the drop off in groundwater supplies used by rural communities means there is less water to dilute preexisting contaminants, leading to drinking water that has high levels of pollutants that, if consumed, could cause a variety of health problems.
Perhaps more common are the impacts climate change is having on people with asthma. Longer growing seasons for plants mean more pollen. This combined with more, hotter days (along with with increased ozone pollution caused by other environmental degradation issues) means more asthma attacks for our nation’s children and vulnerable adults. That means higher medical bills and more missed school or work days.
In other words, we cannot afford to ignore this problem or merely put it off until tomorrow. We must begin taking the public health impacts of climate change seriously, acting swiftly to prevent further unnecessary harm.
One industry that has traditionally stayed out of the climate change debate that should be taking a leadership role is the healthcare industry. Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare product manufacturers are massive fossil energy consumers and are presently contributing to climate change in no small amount. As a result of this behavior, they are exacerbating some of the very illnesses that they aim to prevent.
Clinicians and other leaders in the health community also have a moral imperative to better understand the link between climate change and the epidemic of chronic disease that fill hospitals with sick patients.
The good news is that hospitals can play a leading role in the battle against climate change and the battle to better protect our health. First, as powerful entities in their respective communities, they can wield their influence to promote policies and initiatives that help combat climate change. Second, as major users of energy, hospitals can lead by example both by increasing energy efficiency in their own buildings and by using an increasing amount of renewable energy to meet their generation demands. Third, as major employers, hospital leadership should encourage their staff – there are an estimated five million healthcare employees in the nation – to become grassroots climate champions.
And there is something we can all do. Right now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a groundbreaking rule that could significantly limit the amount of carbon pollution new power plants are allowed to dump into our air. This would go a long way to healing our climate and the public health. You can help by telling the EPA you support this rule and, as a result, a healthier future for us all.
The public health problems that have arisen along with climate change are grave: hundreds of thousands of deaths per year, increased malaria abroad and asthma at home, just to name a few. We share the potential for climate-related suffering. But we also share the power to fight back. Hospitals, health care providers and public health advocates must put their feet down and say, “enough is enough” and join the growing ranks of business, advocacy and elected leaders working to protect our environment and ultimately our health.