Healthy Climate Wisconsin is a new group dedicated to leveraging the trusted voice of health professionals to shift policy toward creating a healthier climate. Healthy Climate Wisconsin is part of the Medical Consortium on Climate and Health as one of the state chapters. It is comprised of health professionals from across the spectrum united in our passion for sustainable medicine and a desire to decarbonize the industry, one responsible for a significant portion of carbon emissions worldwide.
Healthy Climate Wisconsin is in the early stages of development and the short term goals are recruitment and preparing for a kick off Climate and Health Conference on November 16th. This conference will bring together health professionals from across the state along with others working in the area of climate mitigation and adaptation. The purpose of the conference is primarily educational but it will also include interactive sessions allowing the audience to ask questions about various topics related to the climate crisis from experts in those areas. There will be a media training session teaching the audience how to effectively communicate climate and health science to patients and the lay public, and a brainstorming session where attendees can figure out ways to address this massive and urgent problem in a multi-disciplinary manner.
There is a reason dozens of medical organizations have called the climate crisis an ongoing, global public health emergency. Health professionals are bound by their training to safeguard the health and well-being of our patients and the climate crisis will be the biggest challenge our public health infrastructure has ever faced. As such, the mission of decarbonizing the healthcare industry and society at large matches perfectly with our mission as health professionals.
Healthy Climate Wisconsin believes that amplifying the message that the climate crisis as an ongoing public health emergency, one already supported by dozens of medical organizations, is the most effective way to steer public discourse to a healthier, more sustainable future for our patients and all of humankind.