At the recent ecoAmerica National Health and Climate Forum, I was invited to present some thoughts about self-care for those of us engaged in the climate fight.  I believe we must continuously invest in ourselves to do our best work now and to maintain this commitment over time.

For everyone involved in stopping climate change, it’s challenging not only because of the enormous complexity of the problem, but also because the rest of life doesn’t stop, with work, family, personal or health issues demanding our attention and energy at the same time.

But for those of us in health care, we get both the benefit and the burden of that added perspective. Although we’re not climate scientists, our health background allows us to understand and communicate climate change better than many.  But in addition, we truly get the extreme risks we’re running with the worsening dis-ease of nature, which

Extreme weather takes many forms: massive hurricanes, overwhelming floods, prolonged and severe droughts- but few are as harmful to as many as extreme heat. We know that high temperatures hurt some more than others: outdoor workers, those in urban heat islands, people without access to air conditioning, or those with medical conditions like asthma and cardiopulmonary disease; recent evidence also suggests heat is linked to bad birth outcomes. 

In this episode of Let’s Talk Climate, we hear from Dr. Sergio Rimola of the National Hispanic Medical Association, which represents 50,000 latino physicians across the US. Join us and hear his perspective on dealing with the heat, from how to counsel patients at risk to how to advocate effectively in our communities for policies to address climate change, turn down these temperatures, and make life better for all.

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Additional Resources

Heat Wave- Posters & Handouts

Severe Weather Drives

Last week marked the 17th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the failure of levees in New Orleans, and the flooding of much of the city.

I was a college student in New Orleans in 2005 and when I think about Katrina it brings intense memories. I remember the rushed decision to evacuate, joking with friends that it would be another close miss like Hurricane Ivan the year before. Later I numbly watched CNN in a motel as a friend tried to reach his family members to confirm they were safe. I remember the mud that caked the city when I returned several weeks later to sort through the musty belongings of our second floor apartment. A year later, I sat in front-yard FEMA trailers talking with people about mold blooms keeping them out of their homes, later learning that the trailers had unsafe levels of formaldehyde. And several years after

September is National Preparedness Month and we are all aware of the growing risks. We are in the peak of hurricane season for the East Coast & Gulf South, a long wildfire season for much of the West, and deadly heat waves all over the country. These extreme weather events, along with the disruption they bring, will be increasingly frequent. This creates new challenges for us both as individuals and as healthcare workers seeking to care for our communities.

In this episode of Let’s Talk Climate, we discuss how public health can respond to these risks from Dr. Diana Hamer, the Director of Climate and Crisis Preparedness at the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI). We learn about new programs, challenges of coordination and planning, and best practices to start preparing, as individuals, as a community, and through institutional and policy action.

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Additional Resources

National Preparedness