Chronic kidney disease, Zika, and premature births. What do they have in common? The answer is simple but not widely discussed: each is being exacerbated by climate change.

Doctors are keenly aware of the threat, however.  Recently,  200 medical journals recently issued a joint statement declaring climate change as the leading public health emergency. Yes, even more pressing than COVID-19.  They urged world leaders to cut greenhouse gas emissions to protect the health of our planet and its people. 

The science is clear: an increase in the globe’s average temperature has led to a drastic rise in premature deaths and hospitalizations. The effects are far-reaching, including everything from worsening allergies to more cardiovascular disease. In fact, according to the World Health Organization, air pollution alone causes 7 million premature deaths a year.

In short, climate change isn’t just affecting the health of our planet, it’s affecting the health of our people as well. When we think of climate change, however, often the images are of melting glaciers and stranded polar bears. We should also be thinking about urban mothers miscarrying at higher rates due to their exposure to air pollution, patients being rushed to the hospital for a stroke triggered by fossil fuel pollution, or people losing their lives to kidney failure during a heatwave. 

Climate change is no longer a distant and far removed problem. Climate change is a public health emergency and it’s time we treated it as such. 

Medical professionals– physicians, nurses, and public health researchers — are leading the way and the consensus is clear. The single most important tool we have to protect the health of our communities is the protection of our planet. 

The problem? Our climate-changed induced health crisis.

The solution? Climate action.

Although the dangers of climate change are immense, our abilities to take action are equally so. By understanding the many and often invisible effects that climate change has on our health we can grow our collective understanding of how to fix them. We owe it to ourselves, our friends, family, neighbors, patients, and classmates, to begin this important work.