Please join us on 24 September for a Twitter festival focused on the climate crisis and its implications for public health, healthcare and wellbeing.
This event will be held as new commitments to climate action are announced at a United Nations summit in New York (Australia has not been invited to speak as only countries with concrete new commitments to announce are speaking).
The Twitter festival is part of Croakey’s partnership with Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 300 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story.
The program follows below (and may be updated). All times are Australian Eastern Standard Time.
Please join the discussions – by retweeting and engaging. We will post a rolling summary at Croakey as the discussions unfold.
Summer May Finlay (@SummerMayFinlay) and El Gibbs (@bluntshovels) will moderate the discussions. Paul Dutton (@pauldutton1968) will be a roving commentator throughout the event.
The program
8am-8.15am
Launch and introductions, with a focus on Indigenous knowledges
Janine Mohamed, CEO of the Lowitja Institute and Chair of Croakey Health Media
@JanineMilera, CEO of the @LowitjaInstitut
8.15am-8.45am
Introducing #CoveringClimateNow and the moderators
Summer May Finlay and El Gibbs
@SummerMayFinlay and @bluntshovels
8.45am-9am
Australian Parents for Climate Action, Illawarra
Gabi Martinez
@Alexkollon
Concurrent session (9am-9.15am)
9am-9.15am
In a medical emergency, how should we respond?
Dr Arnagretta Hunter, cardiologist
@cbr_heartdoc from @DocsEnvAus
9am-9.15am
Global healthcare perspectives
Jeni Miller, Global Climate and Health Alliance
@JeniMiller from @GCHAlliance
Read the Alliance’s press release calling on leaders meeting at the UN Climate Summit to strengthen their countries’ climate action commitments.
9.15am-9.30am
Focus on air pollution and health
Adam Pulford from the Climate and Health Alliance
@healthy_climate
9.30am-9.45am
On media, expert voices and the climate crisis
Molly Glassey, Ditigal Editor at The Conversation, one of the Australian media outlets involved in #CoveringClimateNow
@GlasseyMolly from @ConversationEDU
9.45am-10am
Housing matters
Kellie Caught, Senior Advisor, Climate and Energy, Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS)
@kelliecaught from @ACOSS
10am-10.15am
Climate Justice: A brighter, healthier future for all
Oxfam Australia
@OxfamAustralia
10.15am-10.30am
Driving despair: global warming and mental illness
John Mendoza, director of ConNetica
@johno0910
10.30am-10.45am
Focus on social and emotional wellbeing
Professor Pat Dudgeon, Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention
@cbpatsisp
10.45am-11am
Generating healthier healthcare
Healthy Futures
@HealthyFuturez
Concurrent sessions (11am-12 noon)
11am-11.15am
Our remote NT communities’ health is at increasing risk from this climate change emergency
AMSANT, the peak body for Aboriginal community-controlled health services in the Northern Territory
@AMSANTAus
11am-11.20am
Community health – our role in the global response to the threat of climate change
Nicole Bartholomeusz, CEO of cohealth
@nbartholomeusz of @cohealth_au
11.20am-12 noon
Our world has awakened: change is now
Professor Melissa Haswell
@im4empowerment from @DocsEnvAus
11.45am-12 noon
Tackling healthcare waste
Professor Linda Shields
@lshields50
12 noon-12.30pm
Wrapping up
Summer May Finlay and El Gibbs
@SummerMayFinlay @bluntshovels
12.30pm-1pm
What we’ve learnt from #CoveringClimateNow
Marie McInerney and Melissa Sweet
@mariemcinerney and @MelissaSweetDr
This article is published as part of the Covering Climate Now initiative, an unprecedented collaboration involving more than 300 media outlets around the world that is putting the spotlight on the climate crisis in the leadup to a Climate Action Summit at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 September. It is co-founded by The Nation and the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), in partnership with The Guardian. Croakey invites our readers, contributors and social media followers to engage with these critical discussions, using the hashtag #CoveringClimateNow. See Croakey’s archive of climate and health coverage.If you value our coverage of climate and health, please consider supporting our Patreon fundraising campaign, so we can provide regular, in-depth coverage of the health impacts of the climate crisis, taking a local, national and global approach. All funds raised will go to a dedicated fund to pay writers and editors to put a sustained focus on the health impacts of climate change. Please help us to produce stories that will inform the health sector, policy makers, communities, families and others about how best to respond to this public health crisis.