By Dr. Tim K. Takaro

Climate change is in the news a lot in the past few weeks. There was Pope Francis’s Encyclical on the moral dimensions of this threat to planetary health and the world-renowned medical journal, the Lancet Commission, expounding on the profound health impacts of climate change. There's also another serious fire and heat season threatening public health in much of Canada.

As a public health physician in British Columbia, I share these concerns for the health of our province and the country. 

Climate change is happening now and will accelerate in the coming decades. B.C.’s agricultural, fresh water, coastal and forest resources in particular are all under threat from drought and other extreme weather, forest fires, floods, loss of snow pack and glaciers, sea-level rise or acidification of the ocean. Other parts of the world will be even more dramatically impacted.

Even today (most recently in 2009) British Columbians die or are hospitalized due to heat waves. These threats are on the rise.

As Pope Francis writes, those without the wealth required to adapt to these threats and future generations will bear the brunt of these changes. While some efforts are underway in B.C. to begin mitigating our greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the related changes, much more needs to be done.

As noted by the Lancet authors, “achieving a decarbonized global economy and securing the public health benefits it offers is no longer primarily a technical or economic question, it is now a political one.”  Those looking to a "higher calling" for direction view these next steps a little differently.

Following the Pope’s Encyclical, Nathanial P. Hitt, a fisheries scientist engaged in climate-related work and the Presbyterian Church, pointed out, “Science is like a compass. It can tell us where north is, but it can’t tell us if we want to go north. That’s where our morality comes in.”

Very few of our politicians are leading on these important issues. We need to help them break their inertia and help us kick our addiction to fossil energy sources.

Addressing climate change requires immediate actions that offer many societal benefits beyond those directly linked to greenhouse-gas mitigation or adaptation to their impacts. There are many “no regret” options or cobenefits to changing our climate and health policy. These are spelled out in both documents and include: reduced air pollution with significant cardio-respiratory disease reductions, more livable cities with improved quality of life, a sustainable economy based upon renewable energy sources, and sustainable transportation systems that encourage active transportation and accompanying improvements in cardiovascular health.

Addressing adaptive capacity in vulnerable populations would contribute to poverty reduction, which could potentially reduce national health budgets and inequities across the global economy.  

The health and well-being of our communities, families, and nations are much closer to our common understandings about climate change than the stark numbers, such as the number of tons of greenhouse gases emitted or the square metres of glacier- and snowpack-surface-area loss in B.C. mountains. We believe the challenges facing public health because of climate change create a great opportunity to improve health across the globe.

For public health in B.C. this means:

• investing in climate change and public health research with monitoring so we can best meet the adaptation needs and maximize the co-benefits to health in the province while showing the savings from these investments;

• building more resilience into the health system, particularly for our more vulnerable populations while reducing the large climate impacts of the current system. (Health is the fourth largest sector of the economy for greenhouse-gas emissions);

• working to transition from fossil energy sources to renewables as soon as possible;

• and continuing the trend of cities promoting healthy lifestyles and energy efficiency in the built environment with active transportation and increases in green and blue space (vegetation and water).

As our grandchildren face record breaking heatwaves, floods, and forest fires or observe increasing conflicts over food and water supplies, they will look back on this period in history and judge us based upon our actions. Did we take full advantage of the opportunities posed by climate change to rapidly change our energy production, address the inequities in adaptive capacity, and protect ecological resources for their future, or did we dilly-dally and wait for the next generation to do the hard work this will require?

We need to take heed of the experts and spiritual leaders on climate change.  We must seize the opportunities precipitated by this most significant public health threat of our time.

Preparing our population for future heat waves is important but it is not enough. Our health system is not ready for many of the other impacts emerging from global climate change.