Issue: Climate & Health

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including new polling on oil and gas companies’ price gouging; clean energy investment as part of potential new economic legislation in Washington; the links between climate change and public health, pollution, and extreme weather; and Americans’ emotional responses to climate change.

Spurred by smoke-filled skies and fiery rivers, the first Earth Day mobilization in 1970 helped people understand the connection between environmental pollution and public health. As we commemorate 50+ years of Earth Day this week, a growing body of research documents how climate change harms our health – from heat stroke to wildfire smoke inhalation to insect-borne diseases. Indeed, last fall the World Health Organized released a new report calling climate change “the biggest health threat facing humanity,” and highlighting that, “While no one is safe from these risks, the people whose health is being harmed first and worst by the climate crisis are the people who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it – people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities.”
When the Lab last explored climate and health in a newsletter* back in 2019, we shared that public awareness of health impacts from climate change was relatively low. Advocacy efforts at the climate/health intersection have gained a lot of traction in recent years, however, organizations (like our friends at the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health) have helped connect the dots for communities, policymakers, and the media.