Hello Climate Health Now Community,

We hope this newsletter finds you well. This newsletter is jam-packed with information and updates! Below you'll find information about our second strategy and structure update, highlights of our August Community Meeting focused on the health impacts of extreme heat and media strategies to connect heat waves to the need for climate action (if you missed it, the recording is here), information about the upcoming Voting4Climate&Health webinar, our partnership with MyGreenDoctor, and more!

We also wanted to specifically call out a few exciting wins -- both large and local. First, as you've all heard, though the news is not all good and the devil is in the details, the U.S. passage of the the Inflation Reduction Act represents a historically unprecedented investment in climate and energy programs and has the potential to transform the U.S. response to the climate crisis and accelerate the clean energy transition. The IRA's passage is a significant step forward-- with many still remaining-- and it's a major testament to the tireless work of millions of concerned people working together in the climate movement.  If you haven't already, we'd encourage you to check out the Medical Society Consortium's press release here. (If you want to learn more, we liked this podcast episode from A Matter of Degrees and this one from Volts.) 

More locally, four CHN members were accepted into this year's Climate Health Organizing Fellowship -- Shuinn Chang, C Freeman, Cindy Haag, and Ilana Murphy. Congratulations to you all -- and we can't wait to work alongside your growing community organizing leadership!

We also want to give a huge shout out to Shuinn Chang for updating our website -- you can check it out here! And thank you to everyone who helped Shuinn to proofread it and offer feedback. 

In solidarity,

Amanda Millstein & Ashley McClure

CHN Co-founders and Co-directors

On July 27th we shared our second organizational strategy and structure update resulting from our collaboration with Building for Mission. In case you missed it, you can watch the recording here. We briefly recapped our Theory of Change and Mission:

Climate Health Now's Theory of Change

If we organize and enable California’s health professionals and workers to put pressure on policymakers and decision-makers then we will see bold, urgent system-level climate solutions because of the social trust and influence our professions have on public opinion.

Climate Health Now's Mission

Climate Health Now is a group of members of the California health community who advocate for climate action through a health and equity framework.  We use community organizing to build the base of climate-engaged health, allied health, and healthcare administrator professionals across California to leverage our trusted health voices in support of the climate justice movement in order to protect health and achieve health equity.

For our second update, we presented our strategic vision and strategy: to build a diverse community of California health professionals and workers across the state who work in collaboration and partnership with community, youth, and environmental justice groups to put pressure on policy- and decision-makers in California to achieve bold, urgent, system-level change to protect health!

We will be presenting our final strategy and structure update related to our work with Building for Mission on Wednesday, September 14th from 12:30-1:30 pm -- you can register here! 

Please reach out with any questions, ideas or feedback and thank you to everyone who attended and offered feedback during and after the previous meetings in this process. 

Also, if you are interested in learning more about talking to the media, we are thrilled to announce a media training for CHN members coming up on Thursday September 29 from 5-6:30 pm -- check out the information below for more info and click this link to register.  You can also watch (or re-watch!) CHN's media training from November 2020 here.

The Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health is offering a series of media and message training workshops to state chapters, including Climate Health Now! This is a great opportunity for our membership to learn more about key health-climate messages, tips and lessons on working with media, and best practices for interviews. The training is led by the communications team at Burness, a social change communications firm that has worked with the Consortium since its launch. 

This 1.5 hour virtual training workshop will be offered to CHN members from 5:00 – 6:30 PM PT on Thursday, September 29, 2022. *Please register no later than September 22*

This workshop will focus on:

• Being Memorable When Talking with Reporters
• How to Craft Messages on Health, Climate Change and Equity
• Tips for Working with Reporters: Staying in Control of Interviews and
• Getting Your Message Out

Once you have filled out this registration form, please look for an invitation from the Burness team inviting you to a calendar appointment and sharing the Zoom information for this session. 

In addition to this session, Burness will be offering an additional training with more hands-on practice for those who want to take part in the Health & Climate Rapid Response Media Team. Attending this training does not commit you to any further participation in this media team.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Anna Chen at achen@burness.com or to Climate Health Now at caclimatehealthnow@gmail.com. 

...Several CHN members were talked specifically about heat, climate change, and protecting vulnerable populations this summer.

Dr. Teresa Munoz was a panelist on a webinar called "Protecting Latino Families from Extreme Heat," hosted by Moms Clean Air Force -- you can watch the recording here.

And check out Drs. Lisa Patel and Amanda Millstein on Sarah Spengeman's Hot Mamas podcast talking about keeping kids safe during extreme heat here.

 In June 2022, the American Medical Association declared:

• Climate Change Is A Public Health Crisis 
• Voting Is A Social Determinant Of Health 
  

With these two resolutions, climate health advocacy and non-partisan healthcare-based civic engagement have gone mainstream. As members of Climate Health Now and Voting4Climate&Health (V4CH), we already recognize the effects of climate change on our patients’ health. We may be less familiar with Voting as a Social Determinant of Health. The care we can provide in our own practices determines less than 20% of health outcomes - the rest depend on social determinants of health, including VOTING. 

Voting is a climate solution. 

That’s why V4CH is partnering with Vot-ER. Non-partisan healthcare based civic engagement and voter registration is an effective way to empower patients to improve their health and demand climate action. The AMA declarations make clear that this is our lane! 

Learn from the experts about how these two new AMA resolutions expand our climate health advocacy. Explore the role of non-partisan healthcare civic engagement to solve the climate health crisis. Then take quick actions to empower your patients to vote for their health and a healthy environment, using easy tools from Vot-ER.

Guest speakers include Ashley McClure MD, co-founder of Climate Health Now, and Jasmin A. Eatman, M.D./Ph.D. Candidate, Emory University School of Medicine - two AMA members who were instrumental in passing the new resolutions, as well as Lisa Patel MD, MESc, Deputy Executive Director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health. 

Expect to leave energized, with new tools for advocacy on climate, health and equity. A link to the recording will be sent to all registrants. Please share this with colleagues across the U.S. -- the content discussed is not specific to California!

The Voting4Climate&Health action team is branching off on its own! Our roots are grounded in Climate Health Now. We so appreciate all we have learned as we have grown along with Climate Health Now. We cherish the relationships we’ve made. We plan to continue on this journey in parallel, still involved with CHN,  while continuing our own work on health professional civic engagement. We know we can’t solve the climate health crisis without a healthy democracy, where all voices are heard in free and fair elections. 

Our mission: Voting4Climate&Health engages all health professionals to use our trusted voices to strengthen the democracy required for solving the climate health crisis. We do this by promoting patient civic engagement to vote for climate & health and by advocating for the healthy democracy necessary for their voices to be heard.

The members of the Voting4Climate&Health team believe that as trusted health professionals, we will help our patients understand that VOTING gives them a voice in the policies that affect their environment and therefore their health. The people we elect set the policies that determine the conditions for our health - whether we have clean air to breathe, water to drink, and a safe climate to live in. 

As health professionals, we have a unique relationship with our patients - many of whom are most harmed by fossil fuel pollution and the climate crisis, yet are not registered or consistent voters. Elected leaders respond to people who vote. People who vote influence their health outcomes. Voting is a climate solution. 

We so appreciate all we have learned as we have grown along with Climate Health Now,. We cherish the relationships we’ve made. We plan to continue on this journey in parallel, still involved with CHN, but focusing our efforts on healing democracy to uplift the voices of all our patients and colleagues for a healthy climate.

Learn more at the Voting4Climate&Health Landing Page

Contact us at voteclimatehealth@gmail.com

On July 28, many CHN members turned out at Laney College in Oakland to tell the California Air Resources Board that we need a Scoping Plan that protects health, especially that of communities most impacted by fossil fuels, and doesn't rely on false solutions. A HUGE thanks to everyone who spoke -- and stay tuned, there will be many more opportunities for us to use our health voices in the months ahead.

To take advantage of CHN's membership, you can use the code MGDCHN when you are registering to gain access to resources.

Visit the MyGreenDoctor website here!

• August 24, 12:30-1:30p: Voting as a Prescription for the Climate Health Crisis  
• September 15 and 22, 8:30-10:30a: Climate for Health Ambassador training with EcoAmerica for KP providers and staff

• September 14, 12:30p-1:30p: CHN September Community Meeting - Strategy/Structure Update

• September 23: NorCal Symposium on Climate, Health, and Equity - no registration link yet

• September 29, 5-6p: Media and messaging training for CHN members

• October 21, 2-4p - Understanding the Climate Health Crisis and How California Physicians Can Make an Impact - for CMA members

• To Shuinn Chang, C Freeman, Cindy Haag and Ilana Murphy for being accepted into the Climate Health Organizing Fellows Program
• To Shuinn Chang for her amazing work revamping the CHN website
• To Teresa Munoz for speaking on the Moms Clean Air Force panel
• To Jeff Mann, Ashley McClure, Amanda Millstein, Margie Chen, Marjaneh Moini, Naomi Bardach who spoke at the CARB community listening session in Oakland in July
• To Margie Chen, Cynthia Mahoney, Karina Maher and others who have been working so hard to get the new Voting4Climate&Health group off the ground
  
• To Joshua Weil and Bonnie Schneider for generously offering their time and expertise 
• To Alex Sherriffs and Venise Curry for participating in the CARB Listening Session in Fresno calling for a stronger, more protective state-scoping plan
  
• To Chelsea Young for the member spotlight and to Ilana Murphy for being spotlighted