Today in California, State Senator Fran Pavley chaired a hearing for the state’s Senate Select Committee on Climate Change and AB 32 Implementation, to assess California’s vulnerabilities to climate change as well as the state’s progress on its 2006 climate change legislation. Public Health Institute’s Linda Rudolph, M.D., MPH, testified on the public health risks of climate change in California. Other presenters included Secretary of Natural Resources John Laird, California Air Resources Board chair Mary Nichols, and Professor Rachel Morello-Frosch from the University of California-Berkeley’s School of Public Health. The hearing looked at rising concerns about extreme weather and short-lived climate pollutants such as black carbon. 

Formerly deputy director of the California Department of Public Health's Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Public Health, Dr. Rudolph highlighted some of the many ways that climate change threatens health, and called for strong action on climate. “Climate change is the greatest public health challenge of the 21st century,” said Rudolph. “We can do something about it. Many strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or adapt to climate change have huge health co-benefits. But, our window of opportunity for averting catastrophic climate change is closing.”

Rudolph went on to say that, “the health care cost impacts of climate change are enormous. A recent study found that just six climate-related extreme weather events – three of which occurred in California –generated health costs of over $14 billion.” She presented numerous examples of ways to make our communities more climate resilient, including strategies for reducing urban heat islands with cool roofs, urban greening, and cool and permeable pavements. And Rudolph emphasized that taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions offers direct and indirect co-benefits to health.

More information about today’s hearing, including background materials and Dr. Rudolph’s presentation slides, can be found on the Senate Select Committee’s hearings webpage, and on Senator Pavley’s website.

This past week wildfires torched 28,000 acres in California, at one point threatening 4,000 homes in Ventura County before fire crews were able to begin to rein them in. Wood smoke contains particulate matter and toxins, posing greatest danger to people with respiratory issues and heart disease. The elderly as well as children, whose lungs are still developing, are also especially vulnerable when wildfires break out, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wildfires displace families from their homes. Excessive fires alter ecosystems, destabilizing the balance of flora and fauna. And the cost of fighting increasing fires, just like the cost of recovery from extreme storms, sucks up resources that could go to meet other public needs.

To date this year there have been roughly 200 more wildfires than average in California, a state that typically experiences fire threat in the fall, after the dry summer season. As Ventura County fire spokesman Tom Kruschke remarked, "This is a very, very strange weather pattern for this time of year." A number of reports have linked climate change to more frequent wildfires, and predict more fires, longer wildfire seasons, and vast increases in the numbers of acres burned.

The recent California wildfires are one more signal that the time to act on climate change is now. To protect our health, we must lean into the two challenges before us: prepare, putting systems in place to deal with increased wildfire threat and the many other effects of current climate change; and prevent, acting quickly, effectively, and significantly to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for the problem. We have the capacity to take climate action and thereby protect human health. Do we have the will?