Climate and Health Community Forum at Avalon Surf Life Saving Club

Local doctors will be running a Climate and Health Community Forum at Avalon Surf Life Saving Club on 19^th February at 7pm. 

As health professionals, they are seeing the impacts of our changing climate in their surgeries and will speak about how global warming is affecting the health of everyone in our community right now.

The forum is organised by the local members of medical group Doctors for the Environment Australia.

People in the Northern Beaches are being directly affected by climate change in several ways:

• More frequent and severe hot weather

In December, soaring temperatures put pressure on the grid and led to hundreds of      residents to be without power.

Heat has significant impacts on our health, including mental health and chronic diseases. Those who are especially vulnerable are children, older people and those living with disabilities.

Mental health presentations to GPs and hospitals have been increasing.

• More frequent and severe storms

In mid-January, severe winds and lightning storms also saw significant numbers of residents go without power.

Mid last year, sections of Northern Beaches suffered severe flash flooding. Trees were uprooted and thrown onto cars and roads.

• More frequent and severe bushfires

Apart from the immediate risks from bushfires to people and places we love, bushfire smoke can travel well beyond its source and impact our health.

Poor air quality causes and exacerbates lung diseases such as asthma, especially in children. Pollution is also a causative and exacerbating factor in cardiovascular disease, such as heart disease and stroke.

Forum speakers

• Sophie Scamps, Mackellar’s independent MP

• Local resident Professor Anthony Harris AM, professor of psychiatry at the University of Sydney

• Dr Shaun Watson, neurologist

• Dr Kate Wylie, executive director of Doctors for the Environment Australia and a GP