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CLIMATE HEALTH NOW
December 2021 Community Newsletter
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Climate Health Now is a group of doctors, nurses, and health professionals in California who recognize climate change as the public health and equity emergency of our lifetimes.
We organize and mobilize the trusted voice of health professionals to advocate for a rapid, just transition off harmful fossil fuels toward a healthy, equitable society sustained by renewable energy.
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Dear Climate Health Now Community,
We hope you are all doing well and staying healthy. It's hard to believe 2021 is drawing to a close. In case you missed our December monthly meeting, you may find a recording here.
This opening note is much longer than usual -- we hope you'll stay with us.
When we started Climate Health Now in 2019 we were coming from a place of fear. Between us we had 3 kids under the age of 5. Ashley had just spent a portion of her maternity leave monitoring outdoor air quality in the throes of that year's catastrophic wildfires. Amanda was still making sense of her parent's near-miss with wildfire the year prior and, as a new pediatrician in Richmond, was just starting to see the ways in which the Chevron refinery was impacting the health of her patients. We came together -- literally in Ashley's exam room where Amanda was her patient! -- under the premise that climate change is a health emergency and as health providers, we needed to spread that message, united in our conviction that action is the antidote to fear.
In the last two years we have come along a very steep learning curve. We have gained a deep appreciation for the ways in which racial injustice, White supremacy, racism, and structural inequity are inextricably related to the climate crisis. We have learned about the movement for environmental justice in California and the groundswell of community and local groups who have been leading in this work for decades. And there is still so much we do not know.
Over the last two years we have become a group of over 500 health professionals across California. We have had some positive impacts and we've also made missteps. Now, two years in, we are stepping back and assessing where we are and where we'd like to go. We are rooting CHN’s values—and our leadership—not in fear but in fierce love: for our families, our patients, for all California communities, and for the exquisite web of life of which we are a part.
Here is our proposed vision for CHN moving forward.
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Climate Health Now is grounded in community organizing -- using the theories and practices of Marshall Ganz and the Leading Change Network for building people power for social change. We work to organize and mobilize the voices of California health professionals and clinicians across the state to become part of the larger climate justice movement.
- We focus on 3 primary areas:
- Where we practice:
- Decarbonizing the healthcare sector through our own institutions, which contribute 8-10% of GHG emissions in the U.S.
- Organizing within organized medicine (e.g., CMA, AAP, regional medical societies) to advance climate change as institutional priorities through introducing resolutions and compelling our organized medicine groups to lobby for climate legislation and regulations in California
- In our communities:
- Leveraging our professional influence as allies in community partnerships -- using our trusted health voices to work with and lift up environmental justice and community-based organization partners around their climate justice campaigns to realize health equity for all.
We are starting with building an external Advisory Council of people with experience in a range of areas, including community organizing, environmental justice, legislative advocacy, communications, racial justice, health, and climate policy. We will continue to work with the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health as the California state affiliate. We are looking to expand our leadership team to include a greater diversity of voices across race, class, gender, and health professions. We are planning to work with a professional coaching team starting in early 2022 to build a stronger foundation and structure for CHN so that we can be more goal-oriented, inclusive, transparent, connected and effective moving forward. We also want to make sure we are working in respectful, intentional partnership with community groups who are on the frontlines of facing the consequences of environmental injustice -- whose leadership we have much to learn from.
We are eager to get feedback on these ideas in the weeks and months ahead and know this will be an iterative process. If you are called to learn more, or to get involved, please reach out -- we would love to talk.
Thank you to each and every one of you for sharing your expertise, your fears, your hopes, and your time with us. We are honored to be walking this path with you all and believe, more than ever, that together we can play a role in building a better tomorrow.
In solidarity and with hope,
Amanda Millstein and Ashley McClure
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Climate Health Now: Our Year in Review
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Here are (some) highlights of the work in which we participated this past year!
- SB467
- Invited to give a presentation to Senator Weiner's office on the health harms of fracking and to speak at the press conference announcing the bill, which would have banned fracking and extreme oil extraction in California, planned for a Just Transition for oil and gas workers, and enacted setbacks from oil and gas drilling for health and safety. Sadly, the bill did not pass out of the State Senate.
- AB713
- CHN helped to draft legislation to mandate that the California Air Resources Board include a health analysis in its Scoping Plan, which is the state’s master plan for achieving GHG reduction goals. Unfortunately the bill did not make it out of the Senate Appropriations committee.
- BAAQMD Rule 6-5
- Working with a broad coalition of community and environmental justice groups throughout the Bay Area, CHN members advocated for stricter emission controls at Chevron and PBF refineries. We wrote op-eds, held our first-ever press conference, and spoke with nearly all 24 members of the BAAQMD Board. The stronger rule passed 19-4!
- The Health of Humanity Depends on Healing Democracy
- With the understanding that voting is a social determinant of health and democracy is a health issue, the Voting4Climate&Health Action Team wrote and delivered a letter to U.S. Senators signed by over 500 health professionals in all 50 states calling for the passage of legislation to protect the right to vote and, if necessary, to abolish the filibuster. The letter was accompanied by a video compilation!
- California Medical Association's Grassroots President-Elect Candidate Forum on the Climate Crisis
- A group of CHN members and others organized and hosted the first-ever grassroots forum on the climate crisis for candidates for CMA's Presidency!
- The Catalyst Collective
- 17 CHN members successfully completed our inaugural course in community organizing. We created and shared our stories of self, now, and us, learned about team building and one-on-one meetings, and laid the groundwork for thinking through how CHN can work in better and more effective partnership to uplift and voices of community and environmental justice groups.
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Support the VISION coalition --
Demand 1 Km Setbacks from Oil and Gas Drilling
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Save The Dates and Other Opportunities!
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Climate-Smart Health Care Grand Rounds
Health Care Without Harm and the Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education are offering this 5-part virtual grand rounds series to explore strategies to reduce health care emissions and featuring the leadership of climate-smart clinicians and researchers. During the sessions participants will learn about:
- Strategies to achieve net-zero health care emissions
- Opportunities to bring climate-smart healthcare to the bedside
- Emerging research that supports healthcare decarbonization
Climate, health care and the Race to Zero: A call to action
During our inaugural session on Jan. 27, 11 am ET, Gary Cohen, president and founder of Health Care Without Harm, will issue a call for the health care sector to decarbonize, and will be joined by two clinical leaders who will discuss how their institutions are taking action to achieve net-zero emissions. Sign up today.
Clinical leaders as drivers of sustainability: a physician-researcher perspective
On Mar. 16, 11 am ET, in a session presented with the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for the Environment and Health, Dr. Jonathan Slutzman will explore the climate impact of clinical care, and why clinician leadership and research are critical in reducing health care emissions. Sign up today.
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NorCal Mini Symposium on Climate, Health and Equity
The second annual NorCal Mini Symposium on Climate, Health, and Equity will be held on February 16th from noon-1PM PST with guest speakers Ms. Margaret Gordon from the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project and Dr. Gaurab Basu from Harvard. Register here or to learn more, see below.
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Climate Health and Equity Fellows Program
The CHEF program was developed to empower physicians from racial/ethnic groups that are underrepresented in medicine (URiM)*, to become leaders in climate and health equity policy solutions through education, advocacy, and policy.
Earlier this year, the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health in cooperation with the National Medical Association launched the Climate and Health Equity Fellowship (CHEF) program with six fellows. Due to the success of the fellowship, there is an opportunity to increase the number of fellows from six (6) to sixteen (16) in 2022, including a western region cohort.
The application can be found HERE . Applications are open now through December 31st.
The CHEF fellows engage part-time over 10 months in intensive semi-monthly training. The training focuses on the health consequences of climate change in marginalized communities, the history of environmental injustice, and climate policies that can reduce health disparities. It includes skills training in op-ed writing, media interviews, social media and legislative testimony. Each fellow completes a capstone project. More about the CHEF program.
If you have questions about the climate & health equity fellowship (CHEF), please contact Dr. Kimberly Williams at kimberlywilliamsphd@gmail.com.
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Link up with other CHN members in your local area! If you haven’t already completed it, please fill out this demographic form to get connected. Any member can join one or more Action Teams, which help decide on campaigns, provide educational content to Hub Teams, and guide actions. Here are our Hubs:
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Capitol Corridor North State
(Sacramento, Sonoma, Napa, Solano,
El Dorado and north)
Golden Gate
(San Francisco and Marin)
East Bay
(Contra Costa and Alameda Counties)
Peninsula/South Bay
(Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz)
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Central
(Monterey, San Benito, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Mono, Tuolomne, Calavaras, Amador, Alpine, Inyo Counties)
MidSoCal
(SLO, Kern, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino)
ORISD
(Orange, Riverside, Irvine, San Diego)
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CHN's January Monthly Community Call
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Starting in January, all CHN monthly calls will be 1 hour, from 12-1 pm PT! Thank you to everyone who provided feedback and helped determine this. All calls will be recorded and shared.
Wednesday, January 12, 12-1pm PT
Zoom info:
Meeting ID: 845 4432 6299
Passcode: 576547
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Thank Yous and Shoutouts!
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- To the 17 CHN Catalyst Collective graduates and to Ashley McClure for leading us through the last 4 months!
- To all the people who called and/or wrote in to CalGEM in support of 3,200 foot setbacks - Vanessa Forsythe, Bonnie Hamilton, Bill Pevec, Amanda Millstein, Ashley McClure, Cynthia Mahoney, Margie Chen, Karina Maher, Megan Shumway, Meghana Pagadala - and I'm sure others who we missed!
- To Jeff Mann and Amanda Millstein for recording Grand Rounds on climate change and health for all of Sutter Northern California -- to be aired in April!
- To Kobi Naseck for joining our December monthly call to talk about VISION and how we can help achieve setbacks in California
- To Susan Penner for always keeping CHN in the loop on various actions and activities
- To Lawrence Huang for continuing to help think through new membership requests, member databases, and more!
- To Melinda Chen for continuing to help with CHN's website
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