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June 2024: health havoc of climate change

Each month, we break down our topic into four weekly modules. Catch up on previous editions here.​

This week's module: READ

• 🎯 READ | What's climate change doing to our health? (TODAY)
• WATCH | Public health solutions to climate change (6/12/24)
• ACT | What you can do for personal, interpersonal, and systemic health solutions (6/19/24)
• REFLECT | Share your commitment to including health discourse when you talk about the environment (6/26/24)

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes for the action plan

Here's what we'll learn today Reader

Hey hey hey Reader❣️

I want you to meet the new Nivi. She went to HOME Jam for climate and environmental leaders. She is HYDRATED and HEALED!! (Okay fine maybe not fully… but still)

I said this last week but I’d HIGHLY RECOMMEND going to a Jam—they are worldwide and sooooo well-facilitated. I rant about how most events are bad at least 1x a day, so the bar is HIGH.

At the Jam, we practiced integrating three dimensions of change: personal, interpersonal, and systemic. It’s very fitting that June’s Changeletter topic is whaaAAattt is climate change doing to our health?! because health is personal, interpersonal, and systemic!

Honestly, this month’s topic might suck, but I promise you we will hunt for the hope and optimism. We must grapple with the reality first: climate change has serious health consequences. Especially for those of us who are caregivers, it’s heartbreaking to shoulder the extent of what’s happening.

Stay with me though—through our READ, WATCH, ACT, and REFLECT modules this month, we’ll find some solutions and moments of levity to break up the suckiness.

Starting with: here is a very silly photo of The New Nivi being hydrated and healed. And really freaking COLD!!

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​P.S. don’t forget to join Remake’s #NoNewClothes challenge!​

P.P.S. I’m Chief Schemer for PNW Climate Week so if your org wants to pay Soapbox to put on an event in Seattle in July, let’s do it!! Soapbox Project is also officially a 501(c)3 now so get those tax breaks!

P.P.S. Congrats to Augustus on winning Future's competition!​

Your bite-sized action plan Reader

✅ take a deep breath and READ some depressing facts about health consequences of climate change sorryyyyy

Okay so as I said, this topic kinda sucks. But it’s SOOOOOO important. To balance the suckiness with the important-ness, I’m only going to share ONE article for us to READ today. And then at the end, I’m going to link a whole bunch more.

They will all be articles that Grist has published. Because Grist is our #1 preferred news partner for Soapbox Project, since they focus on solutions and hope and all the good stuff that comes when you decide to take a deep breath and wade through the Bad Things. (Pro tip: set up a monthly donation to Grist!)

Our READ module’s primary article is about how climate change is putting the health of billions at risk. Beatrice the Bee is with me as I write this because I need some moral support. (Meta, right? Don't look too closely at the timestamp lol)

Take a deep breath and speed through these Super Not Fun Facts with me!

• Heat deaths 🥵
  Global warming may lead to a 370 percent increase in annual heat-related deaths. Auusldkja;owijuolkasmdflk;jadf
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• Food insecurity 😭
  The confluence of climate-driven heat and drought have put 127 million people at risk of moderate or severe food insecurity.
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• Those FREAKING MOSQUITOS 🦟
  With 2 degree Celsius warming, we might see a 37% increase in the spread of dengue, a deadly mosquito-borne virus.
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• And more. (Recommendation: don’t read these unless you feel grounded enough to take it in without spiraling into doom.)
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  ​Reproductive health (I’m SO PISSED at the gender disparities), women confronting the dangerous health effects of consuming salty water, garment workers dying because of fast fashion + heat exhaustion, air pollution deaths, mental health, and more bad things. Also, Israel’s offensive on Gaza is already horrifying enough without the toxic debris​

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Okay. Gosh. That SUCKED to write, honestly. But Beatrice the Bee is reminding us to re-read this paragraph of the original Grist article:

None of these impacts is inevitable.

One more time: none of these impacts is inevitable.

I recommend saying it out loud. This future CAN BE CHANGED. It’s in our hands. We have the technology and the research and the money. We just need to freaking do it.

Gathering the political and cultural will to heal the climate crisis will depend on building community resilience.

More to come in the next three weeks of this month’s Changeletter, but in the meantime, here’s two quick actions you can take:

1. take and share the #NoNewClothes pledge​
2. and say hi to your neighbor

Thank you for sticking with me through this extra-hard Changeletter. YOU are what gives me hope. That there are 8,000 people around the world reading and taking action with us is not something I take lightly! Thank you thank you thank you!! Now I will go outside and say hi to a flower and take some deep breaths. I hope you will too!

Lots of love Reader💚

-Nivi