Climate Change and the People's Health (Small Books Big Ideas in Population Heal)

Climate change and social inequity are both sprawling, insidious forces that threaten populations around the world. It's time we start talking about them together.

Climate Change and the People's Health offers a brave and ambitious new framework for understanding how our planet's two greatest existential threats comingle, complement, and amplify one another -- and what can be done to mitigate future harm. In doing so it posits three new modes of thinking:

· That climate change interacts with the social determinants of health and exacerbates existing health inequities
· The idea of a "consumptagenic system" -- a network of policies, processes, governance and modes of understanding that fuel unhealthy, and environmentally destructive production and consumption
· The steps necessary to move from denial and inertia toward effective mobilization, including economic, social, and policy interventions

With insights from physical science, social science, and humanities, this short book examines how climate change and social inequity are indelibly linked, and considering them together can bring about effective change in social equity, health, and the environment.