The Climate and Health Alliance and Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Assocations co-hosted a "Greening the Health Sector Policy Think Tank" in Sydney in August 2012. This event was attended by 52 enthusiastic participants from a range of health facilities, state departments and universities. We certainly achieved our aim of starting an important conversation about how hospitals and healthcare providers can reduce their own carbon footprints (mitigation), and in doing so how the Australian health system can be strengthened through the...

CAHA's suggestion for a publication focused on the ˜health implications of climate change' was chosen from a pool of ideas for a workshop at the Melbourne Writers Festical last month. The idea was conceived by Melissa Sweet from the health blog Croakey who invited readers to submit ideas for new, health related online publications so that one could be selected for development at the New News Conference as part of the Melbourne Writers' Festival. Around thirty eager participants showed up...

We're very excited about our upcoming workshop at the Population Health Congress in Adelaide on 9th September. We'll be really giving our brains a workout as we think about how to transform Australia, and society for that matter, to more sustainable, healthier ways of living. Sunday 9th September - Pre-conference Workshop, Population Health Congress, Adelaide Convention Centre This workshop will bring together some of the thinking that is emerging around the world that recognises that as a species, we are...

This article was published on The Conversation on 10 August 2012 via the following link: https://theconversation.edu.au/health-ministers-attacks-on-climate-change-action-are-just-sick-8671 By Stephan Lewandowsky and Fiona Armstrong The ACCC has been vigilant about following up the 45 or so carbon price gouging complaints it gets each day. But who can stop the politicians? Their relentless carbon price scare campaigns seek to frighten, rather than inform, an increasingly polarised public who should be getting the facts on health and climate change. Take, for example, the Liberal...

Climate and Health Alliance members and other health professionals and health service executives met with the Australian Government Climate Commission on Wednesday 25th July 2012 at Sunshine Hospital to discuss health and climate change. The meeting was hosted by Western Health CEO Kathryn Cook at the new Sunshine Hospital and made possible by Friends of CAHA and Doctors for the Environment member Dr Forbes McGain and his colleague at Western Health, sustainability officer Catherine O'Shea. Commissioners Tim Flannery, Lesley Hughes,...

The Climate and Health Alliance made the following statement to the Productivity Commission's public hearing in Melbourne for the Commission's Inquiry into Barriers to Effective Climate Change Adaptation on Monday 16 July 2012: The Climate and Health Alliance has responded to the Productivity Commission Draft Report on Climate Change Adaptation out of concern that the issue of health protection through effective adaptation is being overlooked in Australia's adaptation responses and in the Commission's report. In 2009, the international medical journal...

Where is the national strategy to protect our health from climate change? Where are the efforts to help health organisations transition to a low carbon sector? The budget failed to address these and other important health concerns around climate change, according to Fiona Armstrong, Convenor of the Climate and Health Alliance. There is an ongoing failure of the federal government and opposition to respond to the risks to health from climate change. We should be seeing commitments in this budget...

The Climate and Health Alliance along with Koowerup Regional Health Service recently initiated a Climate and Health Clinic - a two day event run as part of the Melbourne Sustainability Festival. With the help of more than 20 fabulous volunteers, the Clinic offered 'climate and health checks' to hundreds of festival-goers, and those who wished to could have their own prescription for 'climate and health'. The prescriptions acted as a checklist to assist people identify actions that they could take...

By Fiona Armstrong December 9th, 2011 In the final week in Durban a sense of frustration is permeating the COP, where aspirations for a global deal remain high, but expectations swing between mildly hopeful and almost absent. The tone of the Australian delegation is one of determined but checked progress, maintaining there will be positive outcomes on some issues while keeping expectations low. Australia continues its dream run in terms of public sentiment here, where many international delegates are under...

First published by Melissa Sweet on the health blog Croakey Emeritus Professor Bob Douglas writes: Earlier this month in Geelong, I attended a National Summit on "Transforming Australia". This was a three-day meeting of 60 invited activists from various civil society groups around Australia. We were united by a common concern that Australia will not be able to deal effectively with the problems that now confront the human world without transformative change in the way we manage our institutions, and...