Blog
Why Healthcare Leaders Need to Lead on the Transition to Clean Energy
When you already have something important, you won’t make any sacrifices to get it. But when you need it – you ache to make those sacrifices. Leaders in healthcare have to make the case that we need clean energy to create a healthier world for folks in our communities. When you already have clean drinking water, that comes in at a
The Inflation Reduction Act is a Climate Bill – and Health Systems Need to Act on It
There is no point in trying to focus on any other topic – we need to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The name’s obvious political hijinks aside, this is an outstanding climate bill, and a decent healthcare bill. First, it more than pays for itself, with $490B of new spending, more than offset
The Crisis of Normalization
Human beings have an incredible capacity to normalize changes in our environment. On May 27, 2020 the New York Times lead headline was “An Incalculable Loss” about how the United States had lost 100,000 people to Covid-19. Only 2 years later the entire country has moved on – despite there currently being about 500 deaths
Why Finance Leaders May End Up Driving Climate Strategy at Health Systems
Climate change is not just a mission issue for health systems – it is also a business issue. Investors across the spectrum are increasingly demanding visibility into the climate risk of their investments, seeking proof that bond issuers understand their climate risks, transformation risks and costs, current evaluations of emissions, and plans for reducing emissions.
Two Key Psychological Concepts To Keep Past In Order To Impact the Climate Crisis
Today I want to discuss two key psychological concepts, and how they impact our work to prevent the climate crisis. If we could get past these two mental roadblocks, an avalanche of powerful change can happen. The first concept is denial. Here is what Psychology Today says on the topic: “Denial is a defense mechanism
Supreme Court Decision: Limit the EPA’s Authority to Regulate Climate Emissions
By now you have read a lot about the Supreme Court decision to limit the EPA’s authority to regulate climate emissions. I cannot say I am shocked. One of our beliefs at Healthcare Climate ActionWorks is that the solution to climate change will not come from the international meetings, or from the federal government, or from
Healthcare Climate ActionWorks quickly reduces health system emissions by 10%
Getting your health system to net zero emissions will be no easy task. 60-80% of a health system’s emissions come from the supply chain. Clearly systems will need to set new emissions reductions criteria for suppliers and GPOs. For the other 20-40 of a health system’s emissions – which are those emissions that your health
Health Systems Can Act to Stop a Health Crisis
It has been quite a week. Southeast Asia – including India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh – is having such extreme heat that it is decreasing crop yields by up to 15%. India ended its wheat exports for fear that it will not have enough to feed its own people. And of course – the heat itself
Biden Administration has announced a 2 year pause on any new tariffs on solar panels
Have you tried to buy an American made TV? Very tough to do – in fact, impossible. There are things that we simply no longer manufacture in the US because of the high cost of manufacturing here, and the very low cost of container shipping. We do still manufacture solar panels here, but not many,