When I think about climate change and how much we are really starting to see the effects, I get worried most about those who truly do not believe it to be real. With the science being disproven by large corporations and governments lobbying for their best interest is causing a divide where misinformation is being sold as the truth. We can already see how this is happening when our president tweets about climate change not being real and appointing those in office who believe the same thing.
As a public health professional our greatest attention needs to go toward efforts to prepare vulnerable populations to be prepared by going out and educating those in the community and providing tools to have kits at home for emergencies. This would include preparing those vulnerable to fires and earthquakes with supplies necessary for that category of disaster; preparing those vulnerable to floods and hurricane/sea level rising with supplies and barricades; preparing those vulnerable to extreme temperatures and so on.
If I were explaining climate change to a long-lost relative who had never heard about climate change, I would first ask a series of questions to evoke thought about the environment and what would happen if the Arctic were to melt or if volcanos were to begin erupting. With these kinds of questions I would be able to bring about the realization that as time goes on and we continue to produce waste in our atmosphere, events such as destructive hurricanes and fires causing thousands of individuals to be at stake. Going on to ask questions about people who will be with no homes or food, hoping to draw a connection to the health of people diminishing. Hopefully with all this in mind, they will begin to understand what climate change means and how it is currently happening and will continue to happen if we don't begin to make bigger changes to the way in which we are using this planet.
As a public health professional our greatest attention needs to go toward efforts to prepare vulnerable populations to be prepared by going out and educating those in the community and providing tools to have kits at home for emergencies. This would include preparing those vulnerable to fires and earthquakes with supplies necessary for that category of disaster; preparing those vulnerable to floods and hurricane/sea level rising with supplies and barricades; preparing those vulnerable to extreme temperatures and so on.
If I were explaining climate change to a long-lost relative who had never heard about climate change, I would first ask a series of questions to evoke thought about the environment and what would happen if the Arctic were to melt or if volcanos were to begin erupting. With these kinds of questions I would be able to bring about the realization that as time goes on and we continue to produce waste in our atmosphere, events such as destructive hurricanes and fires causing thousands of individuals to be at stake. Going on to ask questions about people who will be with no homes or food, hoping to draw a connection to the health of people diminishing. Hopefully with all this in mind, they will begin to understand what climate change means and how it is currently happening and will continue to happen if we don't begin to make bigger changes to the way in which we are using this planet.
Definitely agree that we need to focus a lot of our efforts on vulnerable populations because they will be the ones that are the most impacted by this issue.
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