While global warming continues to be one of the world’s most pressing and acute challenges, attendees at “Climate Change & Health 2022: A Roadmap for Grassroots Advocacy” heard glimmers of hope that the negative effects of climate change can still be reversed in time to head off a looming disaster.

Co-hosted by the MGH Institute of Health Profession’s Center for Climate Change, Climate Justice and Health and the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for the Environment and Health, the April 9 symposium brought together advocates and experts from across the climate change spectrum. Nearly 200 people from 85 different organizations across 22 states and six countries, including Australia, China, Finland, and the United Arab Emirates, registered for the third annual climate symposium.

The event featured an all-star lineup moderated by Dr. Patrice Nicholas, director of the MGH Institute’s climate center. Renowned activist and author Bill McKibben gave the keynote talk. Also presenting remarks were Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D-IL), all of whom addressed the audience via pre-recorded videos. 

McKibben, who has been raising the specter of climate disaster for decades, detailed a long list of reasons why the world is faced with such a crisis, all of it aimed at the fossil fuel industry: its efforts to fight green initiatives with consistent disinformation, its influencing of many politicians, and the banking industry’s continued funding of oil and gas companies. 

“They hired veterans of the tobacco industry which public health professionals here today surely remember,” he told the audience. “They spread the same kind of lies about climate science. We wasted 30 years locked in a sterile debate about whether or not global warming was real.”

However, McKibben said he’s encouraged by actions such as Harvard University’s recent decision to divest its endowment from fossil fuels, just the latest in a series of actions in higher education. “The divestiture movement has made a dent, thanks to thousands of college students taking the fight to their schools’ administrations,” he said, “but we need to push much harder to defund fossil fuels.”

McKibben also said he is encouraged by the surge in producing renewable energy sources. “Sun and wind are now the cheapest ways to generate power on planet Earth, and there’s an endless supply of it,” he said, noting the United States now has the green technologies and strategies that can render fossil fuels obsolete. Plus, he noted, the price of renewable energy and the batteries to store that energy has dropped about 90%.

Good steps, he said, but just a start. “We cannot stop global warming one Tesla at a time, or by eating vegan food four times a week,” he said, pointing to record temperatures at North Pole and the Antarctic that scientists say are indications that the world’s ice caps are melting much faster than anticipated. “We need dramatic shifts in how we power our society.”  

He called the effects of global warming on human health a “public health scourge of the highest order” and cited a recent major study revealing that nine million people each year die from breathing the byproducts produced by fossil fuels. “That’s more people than COVID, AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, war, and terrorism combined,” he said. “No one dies from breathing the byproducts of a solar panel or windmill.”

Panelist Dr. Ann-Christine Duhaime from Massachusetts General Hospital talks with symposium keynote speaker Bill McKibben.
Panelist Dr. Ann-Christine Duhaime from Massachusetts General Hospital talks with symposium keynote speaker Bill McKibben.

Political Leaders Give Their Views

The four politicians offered their own observations and warnings to the audience. Wu told the story of how her oldest son was born during what was then the hottest year in Boston history. It’s a record that has been broken every year since then. “My son’s first seven years on this planet have all been the hottest years on record,” she said. “If we’re going to ensure that our planet is livable for our children, we must address the ways climate change impacts public health.” 

Markey, who spoke at last year’s symposium and was the lead Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal, described climate change as the environmental, economic, public health, national security, and moral issue of our time. “In 2021 alone, 40 percent of Americans—nearly 132 million people all across our country—were impacted by extreme weather events,” he said. “As climate change makes our planet sick, so will a sick planet erode the health of its people. It’s why this symposium and the work of the health care professionals here today are so important.”
    
Pressley talked about how long-term policy decisions have negatively impacted marginalized communities for decades. “Black, brown, and lower-income communities are disproportionately burdened by the converging crises of climate change, public health, economic inequality, and systemic racism—all of which have been exacerbated by the pandemic,” she said. “I’m a believer that if we can legislate inequity, if we can legislate hurt and harm, I do believe we can legislate equity, we can legislate justice, we can legislate healing. Addressing this intersectional crisis requires intentional policies.”
    
Underwood, the only registered nurse in Congress, filed what is called the “Momnibus Package” that includes a series of legislative initiatives aimed to protect mothers and their children from the health dangers of climate change. “We don't have any time to waste,” she said. “Our moms and babies are worth it. The health of our communities depends on it. And this moment demands it.”

Panelists Discuss Their Efforts

Dr. Gaurab Basu, co-director of the Center for Health Equity Education and Advocacy at Cambridge Health Alliance and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, shared how the center had developed a fellowship program where teams of fellows worked directly with communities, not only educating about climate change but teaching organizing and advocacy skills. “We also pushed our fellows to be change makers and do the needed advocacy work with city councils or state or federal legislatures,” he said.

Dr. Suellen Breakey, associate director of the MGH Institute’s climate center, spoke about the climate health organizing fellowship in which she is participating with fellow School of Nursing faculty Dr. Kathy Simmonds and Dr. Tomisin Olayinka. Their campaign, Hands Across the Tobin, will address climate impacts of air pollution on pregnant people, mothers, and babies in Charlestown by developing community education and engaging community stakeholders to engage in policy and advocacy efforts related to Underwood’s bill (which Markey co-sponsored in the Senate) and ways to address air pollution specifically.

Dr. Ann-Christine Duhaime, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Mass General and associate director of its environment and health center, which co-sponsored the event, spoke about the importance of sharing climate-focused initiatives with employees. “Our goals were to provide our care with less pollution, with less greenhouse gases, with less anesthetic gas escape, with less toxins, with less solid waste, with less incineration,” she said. “By couching it in economic terms, we were able to make real progress on these sustainability issues.”

Dr. Gregg Furie, medical director for climate and sustainability at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, also spoke on the importance of sharing with employees what it’s done on limiting the use of chemicals, reducing waste, and purchasing renewable energy. Once the hospital began to focus more on ensuring sustainability successes were publicized, he said, it created important momentum for the program.

Nicholas, the event’s emcee, said that because nurses have been ranked as the most trusted profession in the country for 19 out of the last 20 years, they can play a major role in the battle to reverse climate change. “We have an excellent opportunity to combat the disinformation campaign that Bill McKibben talked about today,” she said. “Through our discussions with patients and colleagues, with people both inside and outside the healthcare sector, we can share what we see when climate change directly impacts someone’s health. Maybe we can help depoliticize climate change and help people see it for the dangerous threat it truly is.”

As the symposium wrapped up, attendees were pointed to a valuable list of research abstracts and takeaways. After a morning of inspiration and ideas, the hope is that they can use these tools to make a difference at home and work.