Climate Change as a Public Health Issue

0:00 hello I'm Trish Coleman and I am a 0:02 research investigator at the school 0:04 public health here at the University of 0:05 Michigan and I also am a lecturer in the 0:08 residential college and I teach a class 0:11 on climate change in health and my 0:13 background is that I worked for the US 0:16 Environmental Protection Agency as an 0:18 environmental scientists and policy 0:20 analyst for many years mainly working on 0:23 air pollution issues so I think that 0:26 climate change is our most important 0:28 issue right now and it's absolutely a 0:31 public health issue 0:32 many people think about it in other 0:34 terms but really health frames so many 0:37 things in our environment and thinking 0:40 about making a healthier environment for 0:42 the future is really important because 0:45 it allows us to think about how do we 0:48 want our populations to be thriving and 0:52 vibrant and as healthy as they can be 0:55 and climate change is going to cause 0:58 opportunities for many things to change 1:00 in our society our transportation 1:04 systems our energy systems all these 1:06 things that are kind of in the 1:07 background but absolutely affect our 1:09 health and this is going to give us a 1:11 key opportunity to make changes that 1:13 will allow us to create more justice and 1:16 more equitable situations and in the 1:20 public health world we know that certain 1:22 populations are more vulnerable we think 1:24 about our children the elderly workers 1:28 we need to be creating new systems that 1:31 foster health for all of these groups 1:34 including the most vulnerable among us 1:35 and I think that's really the the value 1:38 of Public Health is it allows us to 1:40 think about preventing the worst 1:42 outcomes and promoting a strong and 1:44 healthy community for the future so we 1:47 know that from a public health 1:48 perspective that climate change is going 1:51 to create opportunities and situations 1:54 in which new new health effects are 1:57 going to be emerging so in the Midwest 2:01 area we think about changes in 2:03 precipitation and changes in temperature 2:05 as being strongly associated with health 2:09 outcomes we know from the 1995 Chicago 2:12 heatwave 2:13 where many people unfortunately died 2:16 that those kinds of heat waves are going 2:18 to become more frequent in our area and 2:21 will become a real challenge for 2:22 communities whether they're an urban 2:24 community or a rural community that 2:26 increases in heat are going to change 2:29 our health outcomes and we need to be 2:32 prepared for that from a public health 2:34 perspective we can think about planning 2:36 for this in two ways we can think about 2:38 adapting to the the new realities of a 2:41 changing climate and we can also think 2:43 about preventing the worst outcomes and 2:45 we can prevent them in two ways we can 2:48 reduce emissions which is urgently 2:50 needed and the University of Michigan is 2:52 working on its own emissions as well as 2:55 a number of scientists are working to 2:57 help the United States and globally us 3:00 to think about better ways to deploy 3:03 technologies and to have better 3:05 practices that will help us decarbonize 3:08 our economy which is urgently needed we 3:11 can also think about ways to adapt and 3:14 prepare and what we need to be doing is 3:17 educating the public educating our 3:19 community leaders getting our public 3:22 health infrastructure prepared for new 3:24 types of health outcomes that we need to 3:27 be monitoring for and preparing for and 3:31 preventing so one example is we know 3:33 infectious diseases will be changing 3:35 with a changing climate vector borne 3:38 diseases things like ticks and 3:40 mosquitoes are changing where their 3:43 habitat is and that's especially 3:44 occurring right now in Michigan and so 3:47 we know that we need better systems to 3:49 be on the lookout for these sorts of 3:51 changes in patterns in the natural 3:55 system that affect human health we also 3:57 know that our built environment can be a 3:59 key determinant of health so if we think 4:02 about our cities we are well adapted in 4:05 the Upper Midwest for the cold we think 4:07 about the cold a lot but in the future 4:10 we're going to have to be thinking more 4:11 and more about being ready for heat and 4:14 our cities can do a lot of things now to 4:18 prepare for that thinking about tree 4:20 canopy the colors of our buildings the 4:23 insulation profiles of our 4:26 buildings all of these things can help 4:28 but one of the most important things 4:31 from a health perspective that we've 4:32 learned from situations in the past is 4:35 that you can have communities that may 4:38 not have many resources but if they have 4:41 social connection if they're a place 4:43 where we look out for our elders we are 4:46 connected to each other we take care of 4:48 each other those are the communities 4:50 that have the best health outcomes and 4:52 those are things that we can do 4:53 something about right away so one of the 4:56 things I did in my career at the US 4:59 Environmental Protection Agency was that 5:01 I led the team that established the 5:03 first fine particle standard so these 5:06 are small particles in the atmosphere 5:09 that come from combustion of fossil fuel 5:11 and we know that they are very damaging 5:14 to human health and cause a range of 5:16 health problems including exacerbating 5:19 asthma premature mortality and a whole 5:23 variety of different health effects 5:25 setting that standard in 1994 was really 5:29 important because it protects all people 5:31 across the United States and it set in 5:34 motion a series of things including 5:38 monitoring for for air pollution levels 5:41 and asking cities and states to make 5:45 reductions that would protect all people 5:47 so there's a justice component of air 5:49 pollution standards because it protects 5:51 the most vulnerable among us and that's 5:53 a really important thing to do to 5:55 protect children the elderly people who 5:59 like to work and recreative those 6:03 individuals can be more vulnerable to 6:06 the effects of air pollution and the 6:08 standards are designed to protect them 6:10 when we think about new challenges for 6:13 the future climate change is a challenge 6:16 similar to air pollution we know we're 6:19 going to have to make changes to many 6:21 different systems to our energy systems 6:24 to our transportation systems 6:26 our housing systems our Commerce in 6:29 order to be able to have a more healthy 6:32 future for our public and but we learned 6:36 from the air pollution lesson was that 6:39 we can make these 6:40 reductions and introduce new 6:41 technologies and new ways of creating 6:44 opportunities that will help us to not 6:48 only have the most healthy lifestyles 6:51 and healthy situations but also to grow 6:55 our economy at the same time what we 6:57 know is that we've made huge reductions 7:00 in air pollution emissions over many 7:03 years and at the same time our economy 7:06 has grown and become even more powerful 7:08 and that's what we can do there's a real 7:11 opportunity right now with decarbonizing 7:13 our economy to do the same thing and 7:16 many people often think well you know 7:18 this is going to be hard this is going 7:20 to be challenging I'm gonna have to give 7:22 something up but what we found from air 7:25 pollution I think the real lesson there 7:27 is we know how to make these reductions 7:29 we know how to work together we know how 7:32 to talk to people who can invent new 7:34 technologies who are working in 7:36 communities on the frontlines and have 7:39 solutions and what we need to do is 7:41 harness those solutions to be able to to 7:44 make the reductions that we know are 7:46 necessary for public health