Introduction by Croakey: The Victorian Health Department issued a heat health alert for the state’s Central and North Central districts today, including Melbourne, tweeting that “extreme heat kills more Australians than any other natural disaster”.
Meantime, Perth has smashed its previous heatwave records, after sweltering through six days in a row over 40℃ – and 11 days over 40℃ this summer so far – as well as widespread power outages and a bushfire in the city’s north, reports climate scientist Jatin Kala.
Writing in The Conversation, Kala says the inevitability of future heatwaves means that Australia must urgently implement a national policy on housing and urban greening so we can better manage the heat.
Extreme heat and other manifestations of the climate crisis were on the mind of physician Dr Arnagretta Hunter when she took the reins of Croakey’s rotated Twitter account, @WePublicHealth, last week, with the theme of #ValueCaring.
She also tweeted from a Sydney Festival event, ‘Enough Talk: A climate change soapbox’, where she joined others delivering short speeches that “exhort, provoke and inspire climate action”.
Arnagretta Hunter tweets:
I’m a physician and cardiologist who thinks, learns and talks about the big challenges and opportunities for our health and wellbeing – our human future. Relevant hashtags include #ClimateChange #BiodiversityLoss #Pandemics #SocialDeterminants #AI #War.
The remarkable, often awful, experience of COVID-19 offers us valuable perspectives on changes we can make to improve our future. Could #ValueCaring help us as a guiding principle for our best #humanfuture?
Such an honour to have this @WePublicHealth account for the next week. I’ll tweet about health, climate change, COVID and our future – and test whether #ValueCaring helps us contend with the challenges now and ahead. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts and ideas too!
On heat and health
So how would #ValueCaring help with a #heatwave?
Communities caring for each other, caring for the place they live in, these are things we can do to improve our survival during extreme weather. Imagine if we prioritised #Caring across government policies? What happens next?
We make decisions that prioritise our health and wellbeing, Individually and collectively. And to be well people we need a well planet: air, food, water, where and how we live.
From art to action
Powerful start to #enoughTALK with Zali Steggall offering her road map for political action on climate change.
Economist Nicki Hutley: climate change is very expensive and this is a serious motivator for change.
Lauren Gatt offers a beautiful piece of advice for all of us who are working on climate change: ‘thinking small’ is good. Small changes help. Turning up is powerful.
In focus
Now Danielle Celermajer asks us why we struggle to confront the magnitude of what we see in the reality of climate change? Our embodied minds struggle with life post-Holocene.
Danielle Celermajer: This land on which we live sustains us, cares for us and we thrive. This is changing. This is real. This deserves all our attention. 10 seconds contemplating each of the three billion biological lives that were lost in Black Summer. Lives that matter.
Let this grief affect you. Let this change our behaviour. Let this focus our attention toward our best human future.
Tim Collings tells powerful of the powerful stories from extreme weather that guide our actions on climate change. It’s time to come together to share stories again.
@ThatGreenSheep speaks about the importance of faith in climate change for #enoughTALK It takes heart to move and achieve change. #faith and #science toward solutions.
Faith communities can be powerful advocates for climate change. Work with Faith Groups: Partnerships on projects, Sharing spaces, Reach and Influence, Sharing stories of hope. Thank you to @ThatGreenSheep for sharing at #enoughTALK.
Dr Kim Loo: The environment in which we live impacts our health and wellbeing.
50 degree summers are extraordinarily hard for human health and wellbeing and our natural environment too. Western Sydney is a melting pot of biological, social and environmental challenges for health.
Let’s get more active transport, less car travel and lower emissions in our cities ! Lots of great people working on this in Australia. How much change can we achieve in #2022?
And also…
See Croakey’s archive of stories on #HeatwaveHealth.
