This commentary is by Catherine Machalaba of Norwich. She is a member of the Vermont Public Health Association.
Growing up in Vermont, summer rain was always calming — the comforting sound of steady drops against the metal roof, cooling things down and immediately brightening the green landscape.
These days, rain brings more uncertainty and lately, fear. We’ve always had storms, but climate change affects rainfall patterns, making storms more severe. Since the 1960s, average yearly precipitation in the state has increased by half a foot. While we tend to think about rising sea levels outside of our state, the flooding in recent summers — including in downtown Montpelier — has shown us we have to worry about rivers and creeks flooding in our own backyard.
You may have noticed the heat last summer, too. Our state has seen some of the quickest rises in temperature in the country. Rising temperatures make the days challenging, especially for farmers, landscapers, builders and others working outdoors under the hot sun. In addition to heat exhaustion, there can be impacts on heart health. When it doesn’t cool down at night, our sleep suffers — affecting our mood and cognition and leaving us more prone to accidents. We will experience more hot days, and we will feel it!
The health effects of climate change are many and varied. Unfortunately, Vermonters are experiencing many of them, and things are only on track to get worse.
Changes in temperature and rainfall play a role in where disease vectors and agricultural pests are found, with climate change in general making things more friendly for invasive mosquitos that are prone to carry disease. And chances are you know someone who’s had a tick-borne disease — did you know that tick “season” in Vermont is now essentially considered year-round, thanks to higher winter temperatures? (Always check yourself and your pets for ticks after spending time outdoors.)
In last year’s flooding, emergency services and volunteers worked tirelessly to protect Vermonters from injury and drowning. But we’re not in the clear — flooding has serious follow-on impacts, including mold (which can cause allergies, asthma and fungal infections) and water contamination — making water unsafe to drink. Erosion along riverbanks leaves us more vulnerable to future storms. And stress and anxiety from climate change, during extreme weather events and when looking toward the future, take a toll on our mental and physical health.
All of this obviously has consequences we pay for, burdening our health and our wallets.
Guess who’s not paying? Big oil.
The climate crisis presents “externality” issues — oil companies make huge profits while polluting, pushing the cost of dealing with health and other harms from climate change to us. (If you’ve checked your heating bill in recent years, you might have noticed they’ve also pushed higher fuel costs onto us, even as they benefited from “blockbuster” profits.)
There is bad and good news for Vermonters. The bad news is that our government still provides financial benefits to polluters and doesn’t hold them accountable for the damages they cause. The health effects of climate change are only getting worse, putting our families and communities — ourselves — at risk. The good news is there is plenty we CAN do to protect our environment and our health and see the economic benefits of a healthier, more resilient state.
Gov. Phil Scott is proposing to roll back Vermont’s progress in reducing reliance on dirty fossil fuels. Yet if economic benefits are shifted away from big oil to ordinary Vermonters, options that reduce emissions and make us more resilient will end up being more affordable. This includes helping Vermont workers and companies in the oil industry transition to greener options — but rapidly, because when it comes to our health, we don’t have the luxury of time.
What can each of us do? Share your concerns with lawmakers, so they fight for your health, hold polluters accountable and invest in green options to make them affordable for all Vermonters. Work with local organizations to make sure the most vulnerable are protected — through community cooling centers on hot days and programs like Window Dressers to save on winter heating costs.
Work with natural resource managers to protect ecosystems and reforest areas at risk of erosion. And protect biodiversity, so that everything else is more resilient as the climate changes — we depend more than ever on nature’s mechanisms for pest control, pollination, watersheds and more.
There’s no way to sugarcoat the fact that the outlook for our health is grim as temperatures rise and extreme events threaten everything from our local food and water supply to our critical infrastructure. The United Nations has acknowledged that climate change is a threat to human existence. Certain communities — including our elderly grandparents and neighbors — are especially vulnerable to health effects of climate change.
You might not have time to worry about the health of the planet, but how about the health of your family and fellow Vermonters? The best time to act was yesterday; the second-best time is today.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Catherine Machalaba: Protect Vermonters, our health depends on climate action.