Many experts have called for integrating climate policy with health policy. We investigated U.S. federal policy stakeholders’ views on these
I keep reading about climate issues and I widen my research parameters beyond the U.S. borders but sometimes the articles hit a little closer to home.
I find that I am trying to find the intersection between climate and environmental justice while I read more about conservation efforts around the world. I am particularly interested in coastal resilience since I live on the Gulf Coast. The U.S. could do more to unlock climate policies and protect peoples' health if they considered both climate and health as different sides of the same policy coin. We're not there yet but the article does talk about how things are slowly moving in that direction. As it stands right now, the funding isn't there to bridge the gap between the two.
Talking and thinking about climate in health terms is something I hadn't considered until more recently as I read more about environmental justice. I think about the recent 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I lived just across the border in Texas when it happened and we weren't unscathed but nothing to the extent the world saw in New Orleans. Katrina didn't create environmental injustice but it sure did expose it.
Even a bite size move in the right direction could be as simple as creating more third spaces for people. A place to relax, socialize, play, gather information, celebrate, worship, maybe garden or cool off, or even exercise together. We could have services included in those third spaces. We could have evacuation plans and information delivery systems for elderly and disabled that are built into city emergency management plans (that don't rely on where your property is located). Including local groups in the planning of such ideas, or better yet, have those groups lead the planning with cities and counties to make sure cleanup policies and health clinics are quickly established after a major disaster is what needs to take place so targeted resources are funded and distributed to all citizens, especially those most vulnerable.
