Climate change is having numerous health impacts, including increased rates of strokes, heart attacks, heat-related deaths and cancer.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to health in the 21st century and also the greatest health opportunity for humanity. Thus, climate change mitigation, adaptation resilience measures are fundamental to public health.¹

HSA Policy on Environmental Sustainability

Preamble: Our relationship with the planet

1. As Christians we believe we are made in God’s image and that we are given the mandate to care for creation. This mandate is based on an understanding that stewardship of God’s creation (creation care) is a clear biblical imperative and is an integral part of what it means to follow Jesus as Lord⁵.
2. The Triune God has an ongoing role in creation through the agency of the Spirit in continuing to create; in rehabilitating the degraded and polluted parts of creation; and in actively participating in the redemption of creation.
3. God’s creation is good and waiting (Romans 8:19-23) until “all things” are reconciled in Christ (Colossians 1:20).  Jesus represents the first fruits of the new creation as the Son of God who incarnated, died on a cross and rose from the dead from within creation. Jesus is the one who redeems humanity and triggers the hope of a new heaven and new earth.
4. Christians understand salvation as God’s gracious initiative which:
   - Transforms human life including a restored engagement with creation care, and
   - Invites an ongoing participation in the mission of God in the world. This mission includes pilot ‘new creation’ activities and the rehabilitation of spoilt creation.
5. While human sin can lead to failures in our God given mandate for creation care (e.g. neglect, utilitarian misuse and greed, pollution, degradation, loss of biodiversity and human induced climate change); Christians willingly join with all people of goodwill who are committed to genuine stewardship of God’s world.
6. Christians have much to learn from cultures which have preserved a creation care ethos and live close to the rhythms of the created world in a sustainable way.
7. When we enjoy the creation and our part in it, we experience a feeling of health and wholeness that we understand is essential to our wellbeing.
8. HSA seeks to partner with donors and Health Development Partners in this holistic creation care vision.

HSA Policy on Environmental Sustainability

Planetary health is the achievement of the highest attainable standard of health, wellbeing, and equity worldwide through judicious attention to the human systems - political, economic, and social - that shape the future of humanity and the Earth's natural systems that define the safe environmental limits within which humanity can flourish.²

Sally Shaw discusses Climate and Creation Care at the 2021 HealthServe Annual Conference.

Dr Kim Loo explains how climate change is having numerous health impacts, including increased rates of strokes, heart attacks, heat-related deaths and cancer.

Dr Sebastian Pfautsch explains how ubanisation and climate change are increasing temperatures in our communities.

Article: What does heat do to the body – and how does it kill? - Sydney Morning Herald

References

¹ Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N, Ayeb-Karlsson S, Belesova K, Berry H, et al. The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: shaping the health of nations for centuries to come. The Lancet 2018;392:2479-514.

² Whitmee S, Haines A, Beyrer C, Boltz F, Capon AG, Dias BFDS, et al. Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation - Lancet Commission on planetary health. The Lancet. 2015;386(10007):1973-2028

³ https://www.thelancet.com/series/heat-and-health

⁴ https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00682.2018

⁵ https://lausanne.org/networks/issues/creation-care