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CLIMATE HEALTH NOW
March 2022 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,
Welcome and we hope you are all staying healthy. In just the short amount of time since our last newsletter the world has yet again shifted with the war in Ukraine. Our hearts are with you all.
Thank you to everyone who joined our February Monthly Community Meeting. In the interest of digging deep into our personal motivations for engaging in the climate movement as health professionals we had a special guest and CHN member join us to reflect on this together: Dr. Anu Gorukanti, a pediatrician and a founder of Introspective Spaces. Anu led us through several exercises in identifying our values and centering and returning to those values as we advocate for change. If you're interested, Introspective Spaces is an awesome resource whose mission is to build reflective spaces for women in healthcare (though men are welcome)! You can check out their upcoming Community Circles here.
We are feeling excited for all that is happening with Climate Health Now -- though it may not seem like it, we have been hard at work as we embark on an internal structure/goal-setting process -- and it's almost your turn! Earlier this month we held our first Advisory Council meeting and got excellent feedback from our Advisory Council mentors. Our Listening Team - 10 CHN members from across California, many of whom graduated from CHN’s Catalyst Collective - are about to embark on a quest to connect 1 on 1 with as many of you as possible -- to learn more about you, what motivates you to take climate action, and more. We'll specifically be asking for your feedback on CHN's vision, theory of change, and proposed areas of work.
We are still working hard to resource our vision of all health professionals in California being involved in the climate movement as a part of our professional duty. We’ve never done it before, but this year we are going to fundraise! We know our impact will be exponentially greater with some staff to enable our members to act effectively together. Our aspiration is to fundraise $370,000 by September 1st to support our own continued work on CHN in an intentional and sustainable way as well as to fund a full-time Membership Coordinator and Fundraising Manager. If you know of foundations or organizations interested in funding groups like ours, please let us know! And we are learning that many funders ask about member contribution amounts as a way to evaluate the value of our work- so if you’re inspired and able, please consider donating to show your support.
We could not be more honored to be leading this amazing community of health professionals who are ready to use their voices to call for healing our communities with a Just Transition from dirty oil and gas to clean, renewable energy in California. This is going to be an incredible year and we can’t wait to collaborate in bending the arc of history towards climate justice with you.
In solidarity,
Ashley McClure & Amanda Millstein
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Amicus Brief:
In Support of Ending New Gas Hookups in Berkeley
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CHN is thrilled to announce that, with
SF-Physicians for Social Responsibility and with great guidance from the Rocky Mountain Institute, we are an author of an amicus brief submitted in the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit -- which was submitted on our behalf by Earth Justice.
You can read the full amicus here. A huge thanks to Lisa Patel, Juan Aguilera Mendoza, and Ann Harvey for making this happen, as well as to SF-PSR and Earthjustice for your partnership.
Stay tuned for a joint webinar on the health benefits of building electrification hosted by SF-PSR and co-sponsored by CHN, RMI, and others coming up on April 27 from 6-8 pm -- details to follow soon.
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Med Society Consortium on Climate and Health - Annual Survey and Annual Meeting -
It's Not Too Late To Register!
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As many of you know, Climate Health Now is the California state affiliate for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, which brings together over 600,000 health practitioners from across the U.S. and has state affiliate groups currently in 25 states (and counting)!
If you haven't done so already, please consider registering! The theme is "Accelerating Climate Solutions: From Urgency to Impact for Health and Equity" and the agenda is filled with highly relevant and educational sessions. You can read more and register here!
On Monday, March 7th the Consortium will be facilitating Congressional visits and will provide training in advance of these meetings. (Note: this day is optional, and you can attend over the weekend separately or choose only to attend the legislative visits). Whether you are seasoned in legislative advocacy or just starting out, these meetings are an awesome opportunity to connect with California Congresspeople and each other and work to advance climate, health, and equity using our trusted health voices.
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Calling all Bay Area Health Professionals:
No Oil and Gas Drilling in Contra Costa County!
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As many of you know, the pressure is mounting to resume oil and gas drilling in Contra Costa County -- and our health voices are a vital part of ensuring that this doesn't happen.
Bay Area residents: please join CHN in supporting a youth-led march and rally on March 12th from 1-3 pm in Antioch!
Please fill out this form to let us know if you can attend and/or help prepare - please also spread the word to colleagues!
We'd absolutely love to have as many health professionals as possible at the event -- wearing white coats, scrubs, stethoscopes, and other symbols of our health professions! It would be especially powerful to have a large turnout of providers from Kaiser Antioch, as the drill site is so close to it -- if you know people who work at Kaiser Antioch, please let us know!
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Save The Dates and Other Climate Health Opportunities! |
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Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education -
Earth Day 2022 Campaign
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Calling All Pediatricians!
Are you a pediatrician, pediatric nurse practitioner, or pediatric physician assistant or do you work with one? Complete and share this survey from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine to learn more about the opinions and practices of pediatricians and pediatric providers regarding discussing climate change within pediatric clinical settings.
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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
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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Because we know that terms like ‘megatons of carbon’ and ‘2C of warming’ don’t always motivate the emotions needed to activate people to join us in bringing about climate action, one of Climate Health Now’s priorities is to help you, our members, to tell your own personal compelling climate story. This story framework is sometimes called ‘Public Narrative’ or ‘Storytelling for Change' and is based on three elements:
- Why you personally care about the climate crisis,
- Why as a health professional you feel a duty to advocate for climate action, and
- Inspiring more colleagues to join us in leveraging our trusted voices in calling for climate action in very clear, actionable ways.
Ashley recently had the great honor and privilege of being interviewed by an NPR reporter about her personal climate story and her work as a co-founder of CHN. She says: "My story - like all of ours - is a work in progress. I want to share it with you as a humble example of the kind of story we want and need to hear from so many more health professionals in California. These types of stories can help leverage our social trust to make climate personal - for our families, our patients and our policy-makers - in the interest of building the political support we urgently need."
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CHN's March Monthly Community Call |
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All CHN monthly calls will be 1 hour, from 12:30-1:30 pm PT!
Next up: Wednesday, March 16, 12:30-1:30 pm PT
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82914918571?pwd=UUJYdTgxdXA3d2tCOUdvM04wRGlFdz09
Meeting ID: 829 1491 8571
Passcode: 938067
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Thank Yous and Shoutouts! |
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To our 10 CHN Listening Team members - Angelina Crans-Yoon, Teresa Munoz, Margie Chen, Aude Bouagnon, Cecilia Mogal, Mackensie Yore, Belma Sadikovic, Nightingale Wakigera, Nathan Uchtmann and Vanessa Forsythe - for getting started on our Listening journey!
- To Alice Aguilar from Progressive Technology Project for all of her help getting CHN onboarded to Powerbase and strategizing around the Listening Campaign
- To Regina Hsu and Tim Oberleiton at Earthjustice for your incredible guidance and work drafting the amicus brief
- To Chelsea Young for her help with fundraising and the newsletter!
- To Margie Chen for all of her help getting the Listening Team launched
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To Cynthia Mahoney for her presentation to Michigan Clinicians for Climate Action on voting for climate and health! Check out the recording here!
- To the 7 members of our inaugural Advisory Council for a wonderful first meeting
- To Pedja Stojicic for continuing to provide helpful, thoughtful feedback and coaching around community organizing!
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