By Paddi Hurley
At a recent expert panel Allison hosted as part of Climate Week NYC 2024, the harrowing accounts of how climate change has emerged as a catastrophic public health emergency left a sobering impression (see full video panel here). The panel was moderated by Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, who is a professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York and a senior contributor to Forbes.
Defining The Connection Between Climate Change and Health
Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and executive director of The Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, shared multiple examples of how climate change directly impacts physical health.
“We, in the pediatrics world, are now framing climate change as the single greatest driver of health for a child born today,” Patel said.
The reasons are multi-faceted. Worsening heat waves can cause heat stroke, dehydration and hospitalization among people with chronic conditions. The Environmental Science and Technology journal found that if a heat wave coincided with a power outage in Phoenix, nearly half the population would require emergency department care and nearly 13,000 people would die.
Climate change can also impact the length and type of allergy seasons, and some experts estimate allergy seasons have almost doubled in length and gotten more intense because of climate change. And air pollution particles have been found in developing fetuses’ brains and livers, which could impact their development.
“Climate change is even more devastating to the health of vulnerable populations: our youth, our elderly, people who live in poverty, people with chronic conditions, incarcerated individuals and people who live in historically red-lined neighborhoods,” Patel said. “Children, for example, are more vulnerable because they’re more sensitive to these types of environmental threats, they spend more time outdoors. Pound for pound, they can breathe in more air pollution.”
Climate Trauma
Natural disasters, which have increased in frequency and magnitude, have both physical and mental health consequences and often lead to “climate trauma,” a term used to describe the adverse mental health effects caused by extreme weather events linked to climate change.
Wildfires happen more frequently and at a greater scale due to hotter conditions, earlier snowmelt, and increased risk of drought. There are traumatic consequences to people’s mental and physical well-being: the stress from the life-threatening experience and the potential of being displaced combined with the physical consequences from inhalation of the wildfire smoke, which is 10 times more toxic than normal air pollution and can significantly exacerbate lung and heart conditions.
A UC San Diego study found campers who experienced a deadly fire had a lasting change in cognition and brain function. Other data point to the inter-generational impact of climate disasters. For example, a study of mothers who experienced stress from Hurricane Katrina found their stress could affect the mental health of their children for many years, even those children who were very young or not even born at the time.
Climate Mental Health
Sarah Newman, founder and executive director of the Climate Mental Health Network, shared heartbreaking statistics – 75%of youth worldwide find the future frightening due to climate change, more than 50% believe humanity is doomed and 40% don’t want children because of the crisis. A staggering 68% of Gen Z youth in the U.S. report climate change affects their mental health. A troubling report from The Lancet warned record levels of anxiety and depression among youth are linked to a handful of “megatrends,” one of which is climate change.
Climate psychologist Renee Lertzman, founder of Project InsideOut, emphasized we have the tools to build resilience by re-framing how we manage this threat, which can feel daunting and overwhelming. Project InsideOut provides guiding principles grounded in psychology research to help shift behaviors and mindsets.
What Can We Do?
“This is about how we can support our health and others’ health as we work on these charged issues,” Lertzman said. “We have to approach climate work and climate change through the lens of trauma. There’s such a sense of urgency and high stakes with climate change that we may end up burning ourselves out and also alienating and turning off a lot of other people with whom we need to partner. And so the approach that I’ve been creating over a number of years in partnership with clinicians and people in the health sector is precisely how we communicate and work with people on these issues in such a way that creates support mechanisms, but also supports those with whom we want to work. And from my experience and the research, it’s actually far more effective when we are more transparent and open and vulnerable about our lived experience versus putting on some sort of a hope optimism that I call cheerleading. The way I talk about doing it is guiding. How do we show up as compassionate, grounded, and self-regulated people who take care of ourselves?”
Newman said a climate emotions wheel is a critical tool that educators, parents and community members can use to express their feelings about climate change. It’s available in 30 languages, including an emoji version for youth who cannot read, along with a variety of tools.
“The climate crisis puts an undue burden on young people. It creates a lot of stress, anxiety, anger, just a range of issues. We cannot expect ‘the youth’ to fix a problem that we created. It has to be an inter-generational approach that is emotionally healthy.”
Since addressing climate change and its consequences is challenging, Lertzman cautions against using the term solution and instead encourages people to reframe the approach.
“We must compassionately equip ourselves with tools and resources,” she said. “We can convene in small groups because we need to sustain this work for the long haul, not burn ourselves out.”
Patel also emphasized the value of community.
“Let’s flip this from a problem to an opportunity,” she said. “You know, the surgeon general says that social isolation is like the equivalent of smoking five cigarettes per day, and that we need to do more for connectedness. Climate solutions are solutions for better connectedness with each other, with what’s going around us, with our natural world. And so, this is a way to really reframe the world towards positive interactions with each other and with our external environment.”
What Can Companies Do?
For corporate leaders, that means going beyond just acknowledging the problem. It means using their influence to drive systemic solutions – demanding climate action from policymakers, investing in mental health resources and even taking a stand by refusing to do business with the fossil fuel industry.
Allison is committed to doing its part to address the climate crisis, not only through our work alongside leading clients in this space, but also through the commitments we make as an agency.
This is why, in 2023, Allison became the largest agency to sign the clean creatives pledge. We committed to refuse work from oil, coal and gas companies, which are the largest contributors to the climate crisis and account for more than 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90% of all carbon dioxide emissions.
Prioritizing environmental sustainability is quite literally an investment in safeguarding human health and well-being for this generation and those to come. All three panelists emphasized the time to lead is now.
Paddi Hurley, managing director, Health, specializes in product and corporate health marketing and communications. She is interested in exploring the intersection of health and climate and health and technology, as well as developing programming that addresses the unmet needs among underserved populations.
