Healthcare urged to address climate change issues

When you consider  the direct and indirect consequences of a hotter planet—air pollution, reduced food production the spread of diarrheal diseases—it becomes apparent that climate change is not an imperceptible environmental process, but a bona fide public health crisis in the making, according to an article on the Health Affairs website.

The U.S. healthcare system must take proactive measures to deal with this growing crisis, the article urged.

Healthcare facilities are some of the biggest culprits in climate change. The US healthcare sector produces 10 percent of the nation’s total annual carbon emissions.

The good news is that some systems are taking action. Kaiser Permanente, for instance, has announced an initiative to go carbon neutral by 2020

Read the article.