Patricia Edwards, MD FAAP of Bow is a pediatrician at Concord Pediatrics, PA
Soon we will be going to the polls again to vote in the midterms and it’s time to look at what really matters as we choose our representatives.
As a physician, my focus is naturally on health and one of the driving forces in many areas of healthcare is actually climate change. In fact, one interesting area where they intersected this summer was when the computers in the UK shut down in a major hospital system due to overheating in the unusually hot summer they had in 2022.
Usually, there are 20 hot days per summer in the UK but this period had 18 hot days in a single month leading to the issue. Since most medical practices store all their data on patients and their treatments on computers, you can imagine what an issue this was especially for patients who were currently hospitalized.
Most voters are looking at the economy, especially at the cost of energy in our nation. But if you really analyze it, this too is affected by climate change. The world is heating up due to our use of fossil fuels as everyone is aware and we need to look towards renewable energy for the solution. However, many of our politicians look to the stock market instead. If we focused on clean energy, we could clean up our environment and create new jobs through training for people now working in nonrenewable energy sectors.
As to health, clean air means less asthma and other lung issues as well as decreased cancer rates. The decrease in these health conditions will lead to decreases in some healthcare expenses and better financial health in the long run. This may be the place we can make the biggest difference in climate change.
Next, we look at the climate as the driver of natural disasters. A warming world leads to melting ice, more moisture in the air, and more severe hurricanes and floods. On the other side, areas inland are more prone to drought due to the warming of their climates. This leads to all types of health issues, from infectious diseases that thrive in flooded conditions with sewage getting into the flood waters, to drownings and mental health issues secondary to the trauma of surviving these disasters.
And, as always, those who are poor and marginalized bear the greatest effect of these events. If you’re more interested in finances, think of the billions of dollars that have to go into clean-up and rebuilding as well as insurance payments. Never in many of our lifetimes have we seen insurance companies go bankrupt because of insurance settlements as we’re seeing now with large payouts due to floods. That certainly doesn’t help the bottom line of our economy
So, when you vote in the midterms take all of this into account in choosing your candidate. We need to see some climate change action in order to help many of the current issues in society. No change will certainly make things worse.