Heated World has a podcast of a 30 minute interview with Dr. Aaron Bernstein about fighting climate change to prevent the next pandemic. Dr. Bernstein is interim director of Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment.
Dr. Bernstein talks about how both diseases and climate change are not political, they are health issues. Health is not a political issue, it is about people thriving and not being sick. And viral illnesses and climate change are both health issues.
He discusses the link between changing climate, changing vectors for diseases, and biodiversity loss and how they are all related to climate change, and how some of theses could have led to the emergence of COVID-19.
He also discusses the link between climate and air pollution, with climate change making air pollution worse. And he talks about the link between air pollution making people more vulnerable to both viral and bacterial pneumonias, and how air pollution affects other health problems such as asthma, heart disease, and strokes.
He ends with discussing giving people hope, about both COVID-19 and climate change. “The good news is that a lot of stuff we can do on climate is also good stuff to do to prevent the spread of diseases like COVID and prevent future emergence of diseases.”
