As an emergency physician, Chris is attuned to the need to take action. Noting the impacts of climate change—extreme heat, weather, drought, flooding, and disease—Chris contends that all these complicated situations boil down to the fact that Humanity is a part of this planet and that we will all be affected, “If you care about yourself, if you care about the health of your family and your loved ones, you need to act now because there is no question everyone is going to be impacted by climate change.”
Citing The 2023 Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, he describes troubling trends such as heat-related deaths of adults over 65 rising by over 80% percent since the 1990s; increased frequency of heat waves and droughts in recent decades, associated with roughly 127 million more people experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity; and new locations now suitable for the transmission of deadly infections. “These impacts could be an early sign of the future that we have in store. I think we’re facing a scenario where things could be potentially catastrophic, and that also means to our health.”
Much of Chris’s efforts in this area is through his association with the PHA, a consortium of more than 450 universities, nongovernment organizations, research institutes, and government entities from more than 75 countries around the world. Launched in 2015, Chris defines Planetary health as “a solutions-oriented transdisciplinary field and social movement focused on analyzing and addressing the impacts of human disruptions on Earth’s natural systems and how that will eventually impact human health, as well as all life on Earth.” Essential to planetary health is the understanding that it’s not just climate change, it’s ‘everything change,’ encompassing the other ways our natural systems are destabilizing due to human influence, such as biodiversity loss, pollution, land use change, water scarcity, nutrient overloading, and marine degradation.
Looking to the future, Chris is excited about the growing movement toward planetary health. His call to action is for listeners go to the PHA website and become a part of the growing community. “This is not a website where you join and it’s just an email that comes out every so often. This alliance is a decentralized community for all stakeholders. We would love to interact and engage with you where you stand. I bet you have a superpower and an expertise that we need in the global community right now.”
For more information and resource links, please visit the EWN Podcast page on the EWN website at https://www.engineeringwithnature.org/
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