SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Leading Doctor Calls Climate Change Gravest Health Threat of 21st Century
'When you cannot feed your children, you will do anything, even if it means going to war. This is the reality of climate change'
Aug 23, 2016
Climate change is the greatest threat to public health worldwide and doctors must step up to help mitigate it, according to a leading advocate speaking at the annual Canadian Medical Association (CMA) meeting in Vancouver on Monday.
Dr. James Orbinski, a former top official with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), who is now an an associate professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, urged physicians to "step up and step out" in the fight against climate change as part of their duties to create "health-in-all" policies.
"We're not separate from our biosphere, or our planet," Orbinski told the audience of 600. "We can't possibly live, survive, and thrive without our biosphere. It affects us and we affect it."
"Climate change is very much of our own making...but as doctors, we have a vital responsibility to urge the development of a health-in-all-policies approach," he said.
The summit is taking place following extreme weather events and other environmental catastrophes throughout Canada, from wildfires in Fort McMurray to a massive oil spill in Saskatchewan.
The Vancouver Sun reports on Orbinski's comments:
Droughts, fires like the one in Fort McMurray in May, floods, food security and infectious diseases are all linked to climate change.
Mental health problems and respiratory ailments from air pollution as well as rising rates of infectious diseases like West Nile virus and Lyme disease are also some of the consequences of climate change.
He also noted that Canada's yearly rate of warming is twice the global pace, which means the effects of climate change will increase as time goes on, absent a concerted effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
"The implications are utterly profound," Orbinski said.
"People go to war over water, food and territory, and when you cannot feed your children, you will do anything, even if it means going to war. This is the reality of climate change."
CMA president Dr. Cindy Forbes said the organization would attempt to create an action plan. "I appreciated greatly Dr. Orbinski's call to action, and I agree as a nation and as a planet we cannot ignore climate change," she said.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Climate change is the greatest threat to public health worldwide and doctors must step up to help mitigate it, according to a leading advocate speaking at the annual Canadian Medical Association (CMA) meeting in Vancouver on Monday.
Dr. James Orbinski, a former top official with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), who is now an an associate professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, urged physicians to "step up and step out" in the fight against climate change as part of their duties to create "health-in-all" policies.
"We're not separate from our biosphere, or our planet," Orbinski told the audience of 600. "We can't possibly live, survive, and thrive without our biosphere. It affects us and we affect it."
"Climate change is very much of our own making...but as doctors, we have a vital responsibility to urge the development of a health-in-all-policies approach," he said.
The summit is taking place following extreme weather events and other environmental catastrophes throughout Canada, from wildfires in Fort McMurray to a massive oil spill in Saskatchewan.
The Vancouver Sun reports on Orbinski's comments:
Droughts, fires like the one in Fort McMurray in May, floods, food security and infectious diseases are all linked to climate change.
Mental health problems and respiratory ailments from air pollution as well as rising rates of infectious diseases like West Nile virus and Lyme disease are also some of the consequences of climate change.
He also noted that Canada's yearly rate of warming is twice the global pace, which means the effects of climate change will increase as time goes on, absent a concerted effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
"The implications are utterly profound," Orbinski said.
"People go to war over water, food and territory, and when you cannot feed your children, you will do anything, even if it means going to war. This is the reality of climate change."
CMA president Dr. Cindy Forbes said the organization would attempt to create an action plan. "I appreciated greatly Dr. Orbinski's call to action, and I agree as a nation and as a planet we cannot ignore climate change," she said.
From Your Site Articles
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Climate change is the greatest threat to public health worldwide and doctors must step up to help mitigate it, according to a leading advocate speaking at the annual Canadian Medical Association (CMA) meeting in Vancouver on Monday.
Dr. James Orbinski, a former top official with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), who is now an an associate professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, urged physicians to "step up and step out" in the fight against climate change as part of their duties to create "health-in-all" policies.
"We're not separate from our biosphere, or our planet," Orbinski told the audience of 600. "We can't possibly live, survive, and thrive without our biosphere. It affects us and we affect it."
"Climate change is very much of our own making...but as doctors, we have a vital responsibility to urge the development of a health-in-all-policies approach," he said.
The summit is taking place following extreme weather events and other environmental catastrophes throughout Canada, from wildfires in Fort McMurray to a massive oil spill in Saskatchewan.
The Vancouver Sun reports on Orbinski's comments:
Droughts, fires like the one in Fort McMurray in May, floods, food security and infectious diseases are all linked to climate change.
Mental health problems and respiratory ailments from air pollution as well as rising rates of infectious diseases like West Nile virus and Lyme disease are also some of the consequences of climate change.
He also noted that Canada's yearly rate of warming is twice the global pace, which means the effects of climate change will increase as time goes on, absent a concerted effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
"The implications are utterly profound," Orbinski said.
"People go to war over water, food and territory, and when you cannot feed your children, you will do anything, even if it means going to war. This is the reality of climate change."
CMA president Dr. Cindy Forbes said the organization would attempt to create an action plan. "I appreciated greatly Dr. Orbinski's call to action, and I agree as a nation and as a planet we cannot ignore climate change," she said.
From Your Site Articles
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.