Climate Action in the time of Omicron 2
Two weeks ago, I opined on the challenge of sustaining action directed at the 21st century’s greatest health threat (climate change and other environmental issues) while mired in a dreary, endless pandemic that has sickened and killed people we know and love. It’s rather like forgetting about chemotherapy while seeking help for acute chest pain. Or neglecting to take the insulin one’s life depends on, while fleeing a grizzly bear.
Such lapses of attention are understandable, in the short term. But what happens when the acute threat drags on for months or years, stealing our mental and physical energy? If we can’t learn to deal with both threats at once, we’ll end up dying of the cancer or diabetes we sidelined while trying to survive the heart or bear attack.
COVID-19 has been both an acute threat and a global tragedy. In 2020, the virus killed some 15,000 Canadians. A similar number died in 2021.[1] The toll on our physical and mental health has been incalculable, and it’s not at all clear if or when the danger will be over.
Meanwhile, in the backdrop, the climate crisis escalates like a nasty case of neglected diabetes or cancer, rearing its ugly head in the form of unprecedented and lethal heat waves, droughts, wildfires and smoke, tornados, rainfall, landslides, and floods. Air pollution brings the lives of some 15,000 Canadians to a premature end each year,[2] and has been doing so since long before we’d ever heard of COVID-19.
So how do we deal with a chronic and looming climate-health emergency, while simultaneously enduring yet another wave of lockdowns, exhausted nurses, and over-run ICUs? It’s tough. But almost two years have passed since the novel coronavirus entered our lives, and global emissions are not coming down. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to rise; the glaciers, polar ice sheets, and Arctic permafrost keep melting; and the weather gets more unpredictable and life-threatening with each passing year.
I’ve been writing this climate-health column for a year now, to help keep the climate crisis in the minds of readers, especially health professionals. So it’s discouraging to observe that in 2021, what got people riled up and out protesting was not government inaction on the climate crisis. Instead, it was anger at the legitimate public health precautions and vaccine mandates put in place to keep us safe from the virus that’s still holding us hostage.
The 2020s are a critical decade. Either we re-engineer the way we live on this planet, or we blunder into climate-health catastrophe. There is no time left for incremental change. We need mega-activism and action at all levels. So, to stimulate your imagination, here are some things I’ll be doing in 2022:
Personal: Stay vaccinated and wear a mask. Eat a plant-rich diet; use my feet and my electric bike whenever possible for transportation; enjoy the beauty of the lakes and forests and trails of Northeastern Ontario.
Professional: teach every medical learner and health professional colleague I meet about the climate-health emergency; publish articles at every possible opportunity; write this column; continue work on my book; strategize with health professionals around the world; foment a massive uprising! Supporting the work of CAPE: The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.
Political: lobby (with Citizens Climate Lobby) before, during, and after the provincial election, for vigorous climate action in Ontario; work to ensure that every MP and MPP in every riding in Canada is hearing regularly from their health professionals about the climate health emergency. Support our Fridays for Future Youth climate activists. Sign petitions. Write Op-Eds. Protest. Give speeches. VOTE!
Climate action is the very best diversion from this boring pandemic, and it’s also the best antidote to climate anxiety. So please, do your own mental health a favour and take audacious climate action in 2022.
Sources:
[1] https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/?stat=num&measure=total#a2
[2] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/healthy-living/2021-health-effects-indoor-air-pollution.html#a1
Originally published in the Sudbury Star on Jan. 22, 2022