Climate Health Now & the Courageous Medicine Podcast, Climate Awakening, The Climate Mobilization, ClimateEmergencyDeclaration.Org

CLIMATE HEALTH NOW.ORG

You know Canada’s not the only C-letter sovereign nation that’s got climate concerned doctors doing big things. California spawned Climate Health Now.

(You know California isn’t a sovereign nation, right? 

Isn’t it?…psych. Yes I know that, but it thinks it is.

Anyway, Climate Health Now is a group of doctors and health professionals in California who recognize climate change as the public health and equity emergency of our lifetimes. It mobilizes the trusted voice of health professionals to advocate for a rapid, just transition off harmful fossil fuels toward a healthy, equitable society sustained by renewable energy.

As Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, says, “The evidence is overwhelming: climate change endangers human health. Solutions exist and we need to act decisively to change this trajectory.”

In an effort to educate health care professionals and to get them to act decisively, Climate Health Now offers them (and fans of them) resources to understand the impact of climate change on health outcomes; to identify the causality between environmental degradation and poor patient health; and to communicate that information to their patients, their families, and even to other health care pros.

Perhaps Climate Health Now’s most effective tool is its Courageous Medicine podcast, hosted by Dr. Ashley McClure. Dr. McClure recently told The Climate that it was her newborn daughter that motivated her to make noise and act boldly in this space. Courageous Medicine is a series of candid conversations between Dr. McClure and physicians who share their personal climate awakenings and their shared sense of professionally responsibility to advocate for climate solutions to protect health, and more.

Check out links to Courageous Medicine in the Deeper Dive section of this episode. Just surf on over to TheClimate.org/episodes, and click on the link at the bottom of the transcript. 

DEEPER DIVE: Letter to the Editor, CHN, CHN Presser, Courageous Medicine Podcast

CLIMATE AWAKENING

When we started The Climate and The Climate Daily podcast, it was from a sense of need. We were actively doing things to stave off climate change on a micro level, but few of our hundreds of friends, neighbors and colleagues were doing the same. So out of that desperate need to feel connected to a community of people who get it, who are actively fighting climate change despite its enormity, we started this podcast.

After all, climate change is huge. It does and will forevermore affect every aspect of our lives. How do you deal first with that reality, and then second, adjust your life accordingly?

Precisely the question Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon had in mind when she founded Climate Awakening. She recognizes that most folks realize a climate emergency exists and yet they’re not acting on that recognition. As a psychologist, Dr. Klein Salamon understands that inaction may stem from people’s inability or unwillingness to accept climate change emotionally or socially.

Climate Awakening uses what it calls Climate Emotions Conversations, as a tool to join the climate-aware with those who are in pain about the climate emergency. They can connect, share, and learn how to have better climate conversations, and ultimately lead better lives in this era of climate change.

Why does this matter? Well as Dr. Klein Salamon says, “We need to learn to be scared together, to agree on what we’re terrified about.” Once we understand, ultimately we can direct that energy to force governments to act. 

DEEPER DIVE: The Guardian

THE CLIMATE MOBILIZATION

Speaking of Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon, prior to forming Climate Awakening, she became so obsessed with climate change that she considered dropping out of her psychology PhD program at Adelphi to mobilize people. Fortunately, she says, she stuck to it, because her PhD gave her more clout in the climate space.

Dr. Klein Salamon went on to serve as a therapist. And though she loved doing the work, she felt called to apply her psychological and anthropological knowledge to solving climate change. And thus was born The Climate Mobilization and the Climate Mobilization Project in 2014.

The climate mobilization has a clear mission, but I think why TCM matters to us are its Core Demands, as articulated on its website:

• Declare a National Climate Emergency
• Launch a WW-II scale effort to transform the US economy on an emergency basis
• Restore a safe climate and return to zero degrees warming (by any means necessary)
• Rapidly and justly transform our society towards a regenerative future for all.
• Break the silence: Tell the truth about the threat we face
• Reverse the global ecological crisis and restore critical ecosystems

According to the TCM website, with its guidance, over 150 local and state governments in the US have adopted Climate Emergency Declarations. 

This is the other reason TCM matters to us. 10% of all Americans live where a climate emergency has been declared. Climate emergency declarations allow municipalities to do things like ban gas appliances in new construction, prohibit the construction of new gas stations in their city limits, mandate the electrification of city vehicles.

How we react to the climate emergency will shape human society for centuries. That’s why it’s important to support groups like The Climate Mobilization. Their great work will help us amplify how well we respond to this moment.

DEEPER DIVE: TCM, TCM Resources, 2019 Word of the Year

CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARATION

Did you know 34 countries have declared a Climate Emergency? That’s almost 2,000 towns, cities, counties, provinces and states representing more than 84 MILLION people which have passed written, binding motions, regulations or laws declaring that we are in the midst of a climate emergency.

The very first national declaration of a climate emergency occurred in April 2019. The first minister of Scotland did so on behalf of her government April 28th, followed the next day by parliament of Wales on April 29th.  Not to be outdone by its UK brethren, Britain’s Labor Party made a unanimous, non-binding  emergency declaration in its House of Commons on May 1st.

So how exactly does one declare a climate emergency? Good question. There’s actually an app for that. You can find it at ClimateEmergencyDeclaration.org.

So, now you know where to go, but what does declaring a climate emergency mean, and why does it matter to us?

According to the CACEonline.org/blog, there is consensus that people using the term understand the following:

• We are already too hot now. Our inaction over decades has set off positive feedback loops that speed up global warming. This means that targets decades out are suicidal; we need to start now and we need to do it as fast as is humanly possible.

• Ecological collapse across numerous systems; too many to name here. Credible news sites and scientific sources cover the seriousness of the issue.

A climate emergency is serious stuff, and we’ll need all the help we can get. That’s why resources on the site include an article on What a Climate Emergency Act Could Look Like,” and even a business guide on how to declare a climate emergency can help us all cope.

DEEPER DIVE: ClimateEmergencyDeclaration.org, How to Declare a Climate Emergency