Climate Change




The thing I find most troubling about climate change is the vastness of it and how little time we have to stop or reverse the trends. There also seems to be a lack of urgency or denial about it from some people in power that can be negatively halting progress. It's hard to say what the biggest priority for public health professionals to focus on would be, since climate change will and has impacted so many areas of health. But I think one key area is to help build awareness and education around the consequences and solutions of it. With that though, I think as public health professionals the primary goal is to contribute to healing people in ways that most serve them. It is more of an upstream approach, but how will people care about the planet if they cannot even care for themselves? It almost feels like there is not enough time, and that it is up to the government to change things. But the government has not done enough, so more people will need to stand up and fight for the environment in order for better policies and regulations to be implemented. And people need to be healthy and aware in order to care enough to do that.


If I were to explain climate change to someone who had never heard of it, I'd say it is the biggest threat to our planet and way of life. The creation of it is in caused by us humans through the production of gases that are heating up our atmosphere to unnaturally high levels. The rise in temperature melts the glaciers and thereby contributes to rising sea levels, threatening coastal cities. The imbalance also disrupts nature's processes, creating changing environments and natural disasters that are larger and occur more often. With this, comes the threat of disease, traumatic stress and other long-term health issues.

Comments

  1. Jordan DemosNovember 19, 2018 at 11:21 AM

    Hi Stacey,

    I believe that within out lifetime, we will experience the fullest effects of climate change due to our neglect. I agree with you, not nearly enough is being done to reverse this downward spiral we have been going on for many years. What is even more bothersome is that we know what causes climate change and yet we continue to do nothing about it. Caitlin believes that money is a huge driving force behind this and that politicians and companies would lose tons of money, therefore nothing gets done because of all of these special interests between big corporations and politics.

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  2. Caitlin WintonNovember 20, 2018 at 8:13 AM

    Hi Stacey,

    I agree with Jordan, we will most certainly see the effects of climate change in our lifetime. It really makes you think about the world we are leaving for future generations and how there might be a finite life to the human race if we continue to destroy the world that we live in. Hopefully the more knowledge that is brought forth and made accessible will help to stop some of the causing factors of climate change.

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