This past Earth Day (April 22nd) PCC Director Becky Alexander and Dr. Jeremy Hess of UW Medicine were interviewed for “3 Ways Climate Change Affects Your Health” produced by the UW Medicine digital publication, Right As Rain.

The article touches on the three things climate is changing; more frequent and extreme weather events, snow and ice melt, ocean acidification and higher sea level, but primarily focuses on how climate change affects our health. When speaking about the issue of climate change on public health, Alexander explains how intertwined the effects of climate change are on our health as a whole, but also how climate change disproportionally effects minority groups.

“We can’t separate environmental justice and social justice from efforts to mitigate climate change,” Alexander says. “To really have a positive effect on climate and society, we have to do it in a way that helps everybody and doesn’t help some people at the expense of others. Only in that way are we going to create lasting change.”

Dr. Hess also speaks about this issue, in addition to the unpredictability of climate change based issues, and how that unpredictability can lead to a cascade of issues down the line.

“People are already seeing that there are more surprise extremes and importantly more connected extremes, some created by our responses to rapidly changing circumstances,” Hess says. “We are seeing drought connected with wildfire connected with a heat wave connected with population displacement connected with power outages.”

This article comes after the PCC and CHanGe’s joint seminar series through ATM S/ESS/OCN 586/475 Current Climate Research Seminar class, the recordings of which can be viewed on our website.

Read more on Right As Rain!