Climate Justice Changes Health: Local, Tribal, Global, and Generational

Originally aired February 27, 2017

Co-hosted by APHA, the Center for Climate Change and Health, Island Press, and SSF, this kick-off webinar for APHA’s Year of Climate Change and Health examines how climate justice is the best strategy to address both climate change and health inequities — locally, tribally, globally, and across generations. Panelists engaged in frontline struggles for climate justice and healthy communities share how equity and community power must be at the center of every climate health response.

Speakers

Linda Rudolph (Co-Moderator)

Director, Climate Change and Public Health Project, Public Health Institute

Linda Rudolph is the Director of the Climate Change and Public Health Project at the Public Health Institute’s Center for Climate Change and Public Health. She is also principal investigator on a PHI project to advance the integration of Health in All Policies in local jurisdictions across California — centering equity and community health in climate resilience planning.

Surili Patel (Co-Moderator)

Senior Program Manager, Environmental Health, American Public Health Association

Surili Patel is a Senior Program Manager for environmental health at the American Public Health Association’s Center for Public Health Policy. She works at the intersection of climate, health, and equity — helping translate the science of climate–health impacts into policy frameworks and public health programs that can reach and protect the most vulnerable communities.

Jacqui Patterson

Director, Environmental and Climate Justice Program, NAACP

Jacqui Patterson is the Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, which works to ensure that environmental and climate justice are central to the civil rights movement. Since 2007, she has also served as coordinator and co-founder of Women of Color United, a network advocating for the rights and leadership of women of color on environmental, climate, and social justice issues.

Renzo Guinto, MD

Manager, Healthy Energy Initiative, Health Care Without Harm (Asia); Researcher, University of the Philippines

Dr. Renzo Guinto is a physician and researcher who focuses on the nexus of climate change, energy, and health. He managed the Healthy Energy Initiative of Health Care Without Harm in Asia, served as co-investigator at the Universal Health Care Study Group of the University of the Philippines, and worked as a consultant with the International Organization for Migration and the Philippine Department of Health — bringing a global south perspective to climate health justice.

Lisa Hoyos

Director, Climate Parents

Lisa Hoyos is the Director of Climate Parents, an organization that mobilizes parents and families to advocate for climate action in schools, communities, and legislatures. She has been a campaigner in the labor and environmental movements for over twenty years, having worked with such organizations as the BlueGreen Alliance, the AFL-CIO, and Greenpeace — bringing a movement-building lens to the intersection of climate, public health, and family advocacy.

Amy Vanderwarker

Co-Director, Climate Justice Program, California Environmental Justice Alliance

Amy Vanderwarker is Co-Director of the Climate Justice program at the California Environmental Justice Alliance, where she has worked across the state to support frontline struggles for healthy places to live, work, and play — from Calexico on the border of Mexico to the Klamath Basin at the border of Oregon. Her work ensures that climate policy is shaped by and accountable to the communities most harmed by pollution and climate change.

Patricia Cochran

Executive Director, Alaska Native Science Commission

Patricia Cochran is the Executive Director of the Alaska Native Science Commission, which brings together research and science in partnership with Alaska Native communities. Born and raised in Nome, Alaska, she previously served as Chair of the 2009 Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change, Co-Chair of the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Network on Climate Change, past Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and former Arctic Representative to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.