APRIL/MAY 1019 • CHATELAINE 77
WHILE LARGE PARTS of southern Canada are feeling the eff ects of climate
change—unchecked forest fi res, once-in-a-century storms that now hap-
pen once a year—people living in the North have been on the front lines
for a long time. There, rising temperatures have meant, among other
things, thawing permafrost, dramatically unstable weather and dwindling
caribou populations. But for Courtney Howard, an indefatigable emer-
gency room doctor in Yellowknife and the president of the Canadian
Association of Physicians for the Environment, the physical changes
wrought by a warming planet are just, well, the tip of the iceberg. She
argues that climate change is also, not surprisingly, very bad for your
health; it’s the biggest global health threat of the 21st century. Some of
the illnesses caused or exacerbated by climate change are obvious (heat-
stroke induced by longer, more severe heatwaves, for example), but Howard
highlights less apparent psychological conditions: post-traumatic stress
disorder experienced by forest fi re survivors or the increasingly common
anxiety and depression felt by people freaked out by the imminent
apocalypse. Howard is one of the lead authors of the Canadian policy
makers’ brief, produced in conjunction with the 2018 Lancet Countdown—
the medical journal’s comprehensive analysis of the health issues asso-
ciated with climate change—and she and her co-authors have several
policy recommendations. It’s an ambitious list, including phasing out coal,
introducing global carbon pricing and rapidly integrating climate
change and health in all medical and health sciences facilities. With
the International Federation of Medical Students, she’s trying to intro-
duce climate change and health in the curriculum of every medical school
in the world by next year. Howard currently spends 30 to 40 hours a week
on her climate health work, most of it as a volunteer, while still working
eight shifts a month in the ER. That balance may have to change soon,
though, she says: “The timelines of climate change are just so urgent.”The Yellowknife ER doctor
alarmed by the health impact
of climate change
Polar bears’ days
are numberedThe Arctic, which is
warming at twice theglobal rate, is undergoing
a dramatic transformation.
The National Research
Council predicts that more
than 95 percent of sea ice
will be gone by 2100. The
melting ice causes sea
levels to rise worldwide,
speeds up climate change
and threatens the habitat
of some of our most iconic
wildlife. Polar bears live
and hunt on the sea ice,
and they face extinction
unless they can adapt
by fi nding new sources
of food on land, bringingthem closer to our towns.
(Because of this habitat
change, polar bears have
started interbreeding
with grizzlies, producing
honey-coloured hybrid
“pizzly bears”!) Beluga
whales also depend on
sea ice for protection
from killer whales.
Inuit Elders have been
observing increasing
numbers of orcas in
Arctic waters, which
means belugas won’t be
swimming so wild and free
in the decades to come.Courtney
Howard,
40PHOTO, PAT KANE.