Transcript of The Nation’s Health Podcast: Everyday ways to curb climate change
Interview conducted by Julia Haskins, reporter for The Nation’s Health newspaper.
Listen to this interview as a recording on our podcast page.
This is The Nation's Health Podcast. I'm Julia Haskins, and on this episode we talk about everyday ways to curb climate change.
Climate change is a public health crisis that can't be ignored. It's not some far-off concept that we have to worry about one day. We're already experiencing the effects of a warming planet from an increase in extreme weather to impacts on our health and wellness.
As we wrap up APHA's year of climate change and health, now is a good time to take stock of the ways that we contribute to climate change and think about how we can do better.
It's not as hard as you might think. In fact, research shows that simple actions such as eating a plant-based diet and cutting down on driving and air travel are some of the most important steps you can take to decrease your carbon footprint.
I spoke with Natasha DeJarnett, PhD, MPH, environmental health policy analyst at APHA, about what people can do every day to curb climate change.
We see this big disconnect it seems when we talk about climate change even though it's driven by humans and the little things we do every day that add up. So can you tell me a little bit about some of those ways that we contribute to increasing our carbon footprints every day even though we might not think about it?
Well, there are some small seeming steps that we can take that could have an overall impact if we all jump on board and do what we can. So in our homes, we tend to leave appliances plugged up. Sometimes we even leave things plugged up with nothing actually connected to it. We might leave our phone charger to a wall. All of those things that we do, they actually continue to drain power, and that continues to contribute to our carbon footprint.
So I suggest people turn off and unplug when they can appliances. Don't unplug your stove. Don't unplug your fridge, but other things. Your microwave, you can unplug that. I discovered that one on my own and it was a great cost saving feature. So no matter the reason you're doing it, if the reason is for costs, great, but it also helps climate.
Another thing that we can do is when it's safe and when it's available, we should walk more or bike more and drive less. So if we can cut short trips, if the trip is under a mile and it's something that we can walk and it's through a safe area, then we should consider walking instead of driving when we can, or using mass transit when we can rather than driving, so those are some things that we can do.
Look in our homes and see where there are some things, as I said, power that could be cut back, if we can program our thermostats, for example, as well, tracking our energy use and then seeing where we can cut back on some things, using less water, using less heat to heat our water, if we can wash our clothes in cold water instead of hot water, if we can actually turn back the temperature on our hot water heater, all little steps that we can take, but if we all take these steps, it could have a big impact.
When we go to the grocery store, we use plastic bags or paper bags, but multiple bags. How about if we use reusable totes? And so if you're attending APHA's Annual Meeting, save your tote bag and take that to the grocery store instead of getting plastic bags. But if you get the plastic bags, reuse them. Use them for something else. Don't just send them off to the landfill.
That's a great point. So what are some other ways that we might be able to do more with less or take what we have and get the most out of it?
Yeah, we're quite wasteful, and a lot of people may not realize that public transit is here to be used. Some cities don't have maybe the infrastructure for people to use them in certain areas. But as much as possible, utilizing those things are ultimately very helpful, but also we can be a voice and that can help a ton.
With this age of social media being what it is, if we can use our voices to influence others through social media, it helps spread the words about the simple concrete things that we're doing.
For example, we're, like I said, we're cutting back on power, and turning off devices, unplugging devices when they're not in use altogether. Share that through social media. Say, "This is what I'm doing." Social media, certainly Twitter, has a big uptake on things of this nature.
We can also use our voices in town hall meetings or forums, for example. We can join groups and make sure that the voice is heard and raised there. We can write letters to the editor in op-eds for newspapers and journals and help spread the word that way too.
So being a voice is one great passive, but influential way that we can showcase the great things that we're doing to counteract climate change and help the environment, and save money, and improve health, but we can showcase those through social media, letters to the editor, and participation in town halls, meetings, marches, etcetera.
That's fantastic. So for the person who wants to get involved, and wants to be more politically minded and socially motivated, they don't know where to begin. What tools or resources do you suggest?
So trying to get on some listservs, for example, is one really good way, so I have to plug ours. Become a partner of APHA's Year of Climate Change and Health. If you go to our web page, apha.org/climate, in the side panel, there's a button that says, "partners." On the partners' page, we have a whole worksheet of things that individual partners can do to be more climate-minded. So it gives lots of examples, some that I've shared here, recycling, printing less, those kind of small steps that can really help once we all take hold of them, so that's one way, and once you go and actually join and become a partner, then you get the great emails from us that share information on it. But you can go to websites, web pages. I'm sure others similar to ours have some great examples out there on what people can do or what activities are coming up, but getting more civically involved, knowing when town hall meetings are taking place will also be very helpful.
And then if you're on social media, engaging some of these key groups that are taking big action on climate change, engaging them will very much help you know what's going on, what the current issues are, so certainly follow @PublicHealth, APHA, but there are some other great organizations out there as well that have really good social media profiles or great websites.
So I do realize that what I'm saying is everything geared to the internet and social media, but if you're not plugged in, there are still ways to get involved, certainly following what's going on in your community through their news outlet, be it maybe a newspaper, etc. So knowing what you can get involved in that way, and then also knowing that that is also a means for you to voice your opinion, that will help other audiences that are not as social media and internet savvy still get out there and get their voice out there, and also learn more about what's going on and what they can do.
Absolutely, so really there's no excuse not to try something.
There's no excuse. There's no excuse at all. Churches are going on board, PTAs, other organizations like that. Immerse yourself. And if you have to be the climate change work group within that, that's a great start. You can be the voice.
Absolutely, be the environment nerd. Go for it.
I have no problem with it.
For more information, go to www.apha.org/climate. Thanks for listening, and until next time, this is The Nation's Health Podcast.