Rebuilding Climate Health

November 14, 2021

(Blog 2: Prompt 5, Metaphors and Analogies)

My only brother died young. He was a vibrant man and a strong athlete. He also had a terrible diet. He was warned that his diet was impacting his health but like many overconfident young men, he believed he was somehow an exception to health science. The words “I’m not changing my diet” echo in my mind. He was wrong. He lost his life at 38 leaving behind his very young family and more than half of his life.

In many ways the climate crisis is like a personal health crisis. Just as the over consumption of high fat foods leads to a build-up of plaque in our arteries so too does the overproduction of greenhouse gas emissions lead to a build-up of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. In my lifetime, greenhouse gas emission concentrations have risen over 30%. We now have a climate health crisis.

Greenhouse gas emissions come from various sources, and they earned this moniker because their presence in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse effect. They form an insulating blanket in the atmosphere that traps heat in. This results in a warming world. Like in a greenhouse, this warmth leads to increased water vapour in the air. When we walk into a greenhouse, we experience warmth and humidity. Moisture evaporates from the soil, the water sources, and from the evapotranspiration of plants. Unlike a greenhouse where we can simply open a window or vent to release heat and humidity, we cannot do this with the atmosphere. Instead heat and humidity accumulates resulting in wicked storms and hurricane events. Our Earth’s temperature will continue to rise until we remove the blanket, and this is not easy task.

Much of the developed world is in a health crisis from the overconsumption of high fat foods and a sedentary lifestyle. Just as this human health crisis is putting livelihoods and lives at risk, so too is our climate health crisis putting livelihoods and lives at risk. In people, an unhealthy diet leads to multiple elevated health risks like diabetes, stroke, cancer, heart attack and even dementia. Similarly, releasing an unhealthy level of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere leads to multiple elevated health risks. These include loss of food production systems due to drought and floods, heat related deaths, increased frequency and intensity of floods and hurricanes that devastate communities, loss of ecosystems that sustain life and our economy, increased vector borne diseases, and more. Like human health risks, multiple planetary health risks can also occur at the same time.

Just as we cannot simply open a port to release cholesterol and plaque from our arterial systems, we cannot open a port to release greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. Instead, we need a sustained focus on lifestyle change to progress our way back to health. The path to heart health requires dietary changes to remove disease causing food and increase health generating foods in concert with exercise. Planetary health requires similar changes. We need to eliminate actions that produce greenhouse gas emissions such as the combustion of fossil fuels, changes in land use, and unnecessary energy use. We also need to remove greenhouse gasses from our atmosphere by preserving and restoring our forest and grassland ecosystems. These ecosystems are the primary planetary systems that can do this job.

When faced with a human health crisis such as heart disease, focusing on diet alone does not provide an effective motivation for change or an enduring solution. Instead, health care professionals are shifting to more holistic approaches that promote healthy lifestyles. This approach centers on the things we gain from moving to an active lifestyle and good food choices. Active time with children and friends, the ability to do things on our bucket lists, longevity, and more. These benefits provide the motivation for holistic change, particularly for changes that are hard. Similar motivations are needed to rebuild climate health.

We often hear the climate crisis framed in war metaphors such as “the war on climate”. War metaphors comes with experiences of command and control, fear, destruction, and militarization. Reframing climate action to the rebuilding climate health offers a far more inspiring metaphor. Our climate is an amazing and life sustaining gift. Our words matter and are powerful in meaning making. This small change of words moves us from acts of fear and control to acts of care and creation.