Climate change and public health

As legislators get bogged down in a bitter debate over healthcare reform, climate change legislation has taken a back seat. The deadline for a bill has been pushed back in both the House and Senate, and the ambitions have been scaled back considerably. It appears that politicians are expending so much political capital on health reform that they have little time, energy, or resources to fight a potentially equally-contested battle over climate change.

This is a huge mistake because, by all measures, climate legislation may do more for public health and cost-savings than any of the healthcare reform proposals under consideration.

Recent articles and research teams have made this clear. One distinguished group of scientists declare climate change 'the biggest global health threat of the 21^st century" because of its projected impacts on disease patterns, water and food insecurity, human migration and population trends, and extreme climatic events. The direct costs of the climate change are staggering in both financial terms and lives lost. Research suggests that the cost of heat-related illness alone will increase between five and nine-fold over the next 90 years as a result of climate change. And the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Environment Sustainability now states that "protection of the environment is an essential prerequisite and component of human health and wellbeing".

So, if climate change is the biggest health threat of the century, surely climate change legislation is an important, if not integral, element of healthcare reform. The political reality of the having two separate bills for climate change and healthcare must not blur the intimate connection between the two. Healthcare and climate change are equally important elements of creating a healthy and competitive society.