William Gagnon

“We are at a moment of overlapping planetary health emergencies: COVID-19 and climate change. Both have their origins at the intersection of humanity and the rest of the natural world, both exacerbate pre-existing health inequities and both have the ability to bring health systems and economies to their knees.”

“By Courtney Howard and Kinari Webb
, Opinion Contributor”

“Dr. Courtney Howard, a physician, professor, and the president of the Canadian Association of the Environment, told Scary Mommy that a range of climate change factors are impacting our children, including wildfires and tick-borne diseases. These have both made the news many times over the past several years, including wildfires in California and the scary truths about living with Lyme disease.”

“This month we are featuring in our eco-maven section an inspiring and fearless ER doctor from Canada, Dr. Courtney Howard, who is not only at the frontline attending patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and took the time to answer our questions, but she has also found time in her life to advocate for planetary health, and even lead the Lancet Countdown report – in the Canadian Policy brief- with recommendations for a healthy response to climate change. “

“Plus de 175 médecins, experts et professionnels de la santé demandent au gouvernement fédéral de rejeter le projet de mine de sables bitumineux Teck Frontier en Alberta.”

“There’s a moment when the diagnosis of climate change and what it means for health really lands. For me, it happened in 2012 as I read an article that made clear that we need to leave the vast majority of economic fossil fuel reserves in the ground or risk an unlivable world within the lifetime of today’s children. I finished the article curled up in the fetal position around my eight-month-old daughter. For months afterwards my first thought upon awakening was of how her prospects for the future had changed. I had trouble concentrating, and every new data point in terms of temperature predictions was a punch to the gut.”

“Increasing awareness of the urgency of climate change, led by the youth climate movement, and growing felt impacts of the health effects of climate change, including the devastating bushfires in Australia, are fuelling a global increase in interest in the concepts of “eco-anxiety” and “ecological grief.” How to cope with these emotions personally, and how to help our patients? “

“Heat waves, forest fires, flooding and major storms are causing more deaths, says a new report.”

“Dr. Courtney Howard – an Emergency Room Physician in Yellowknife, NT and primary author on the Lancet Countdown 2017 Report: Briefing for Canadian Policymakers– joined the Women’s Health Institute to present at the Third Annual Women’s Health Research Symposium on May 9th, 2018. Her talk, Climate change and women’s health in the North, and breakout session on climate change were focused on opportunities to improve women’s health outcomes while fighting climate change.”

“Perhaps because we mostly work inside boxes—hospitals, clinics, universities, and office buildings—it has taken the world’s health community far too long to realize that human health belongs in the same box as what we call “the environment.”

“In 2009, the Lancet called climate change the “biggest global health threat of the 21st century.”