Physician researchers can contribute effectively to understanding the root causes as well as the effects of global warming and changing climate on individual patients and on the community. This water shortage is driven partly by climate change and partly by the use of water for food production. Dr. Patz, in 1994, convened the first-ever session on climate change for the American Public Health Association and was the lead author of “Global Climate Change and Emerging Infectious Diseases,” published by JAMA in 1996. And it may push bats to look for other habitats’, explains Henrik F. Lorentzen. The climate crisis affects people’s health in myriad interconnected ways, starting from birth.

The mission of the Consortium, represented by 500K physicians, is to inform the public and policymakers about the harmful health effects of climate change. Every child born today will have their health defined by climate change, according to the November 2019 report on health and climate change in the British medical journal The Lancet, which examines the effect of climate change on health globally. As travellers in this space ship called Earth, we need to be very prudent as to how we use the resources vital to our health such as air, clean water and our atmosphere. "Nurses need to catch up quickly," says Patrice Nicholas, director of the Center for Climate Change, Climate Justice and Health at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston.

Physicians can play a substantial role in addressing climate change by advocating for climate change adaptation and mitigation policies and educating themselves about climate change and how it affects public and individual health, and the potential health threats it may pose to their community. And it may push bats to look for other habitats’, explains Henrik F. Lorentzen.