Howard encourages towns and cities to consider things like smoke shelters and to plan for indoor recreational activities and medical needs in advance, rather than just reacting to an emergency. “We need to take a more proactive approach and identify vulnerable people, like elderly people, ahead of time,” she says, “and have a way of getting to them.”
The next 10 years are a crucial decade for the world. Ecological grief and anxiety over current losses or anticipated future change are a sign of relationship with, or connection to, the natural world. What is needed are accessible and safe spaces to explore these difficult emotional reactions and the political will to ensure that important strategies and supports are funded.
UPSTREAM CONFERENCE “Dr. Courtney G. Howard of CAPE runs us through the distressing realities of climate change, and the amazing opportunities it gives us to improve our health, at Closing the Gap: Better health for all in Ottawa on April 8th, 2017.”
“Climate change expert Dr. Courtney Howard and Nature Climate Change scientists say we can sustain the cleaner environment we’re seeing by going greener right now.
All the social distancing, working from home and Netflix binging we’ve been doing to stay healthy and keep COVID-19 from overloading our hospitals add up to make the world cleaner.”
LA PRESSE “Dans les dernières semaines, nous avons souligné, célébré, et reconnu le travail exceptionnel des travailleurs de la santé de première ligne. D’un océan à l’autre, et à travers le monde, nous avons chanté, allumé nos lumières, frappé sur nos casseroles et dansé de la maison pour souligner les efforts et le courage de nos voisins et amis qui sont partis œuvrer dans nos centres de santé et qui ont maintenu nos services essentiels, jour comme nuit.”
LE DEVOIR “Dans les dernières semaines, nous avons souligné, célébré et reconnu le travail exceptionnel des travailleurs de la santé de première ligne.”
THE NATIONAL OBSERVER “When I first read about the possibility of a multibillion-dollar bailout of the oil and gas sector by the federal and Alberta governments, I was exhausted.”
Yellowknife doctor Courtney Howard is president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and is one of over 170 doctors who signed the letter.
THE TORONTO STAR “During Yellowknife’s first Fridays For Future climate change march last fall, Dr. Courtney Howard spoke about her experience with a condition called eco-anxiety to “the most Yellowknifers I’ve seen in one spot.””
Interview with CBC Toronto’s Metro Morning about a national survey in Greenland, and how her community of Yellowknife has responded to its own climate worries.
Dr Danielle Martin “phones a friend” to consult Dr Howard about the health impacts of climate change, including Lyme Disease, hay fever, wildfires and more.
CTV NEWS “VANCOUVER — Canadian medical schools have not adequately addressed the urgent need for training related to planetary health and climate change, and members of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students say that must change.”
As part of the newly launched Clinicians for Planetary Health initiative, which galvanizes health professionals across the globe to take action on environmental challenges, Planetary Health Alliance is excited to showcase profiles of visionary and impactful leaders from the healthcare community dedicated to planetary health. We hope these interviews and stories provide insight, inspiration, and ideas for ways to incorporate planetary health principles into your own work.
MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE “What will it take for popular opinion to catch up with the terrifying science? We talk to Canada’s top climate change experts.”
Doctors and economists may seem like strange partners. We spend our days working on very different problems in very different settings. But climate change has injected a common and urgent vocabulary into our work. We find ourselves agreeing both about the nature of the problem and the best solution. It’s essential that we put a price on carbon pollution.
CHATELAINE MAGAZINE “This Yellowknife ER doctor is raising the alarm about the mental health impact of climate change.”
THE HILL “As humans, we like to think in categories, but the truth is we’ve never lived in a world where the health of humans, ecosystems and the planet could be effectively addressed in silos.”
“There is a sense of a diagnosis being made, en masse. The children of the world have shunned the system created by adults—the schools, as being inadequate to the moment. They are looking into each other’s eyes, confirming that climate change is an existential threat to their health and well-being, and that their elders have failed to protect them.”
On my way home from COP24 in Poland I stopped by the Agenda studio to talk LancetCountdown 2018 and about how discussing climate change as what it is—a health issue, can help to get us all pulling in the same direction towards a healthy response.
“When I called Courtney Howard, one of the authors of the recent Lancet Countdown 2018 Report on health and climate change, she was Christmas shopping during a pit stop in London on her way to the 24th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland.”