back in where I was before. So this is our, these are the results of our segmentation analysis. This shows where the American people currently are with regard to, sorry, with regard to their understanding of climate change. And as I said before, about eight out of 10 Americans accept the reality of climate change, but most of them see it as a distant threat. Only two out of 10 really don't accept the reality of climate change. And it's only the dismissive segment on the far right-hand side of this slide that really just flat out reject the realities of climate change. They either don't accept that it's real, that it's human caused, or that it's serious. But the good, I should say the most fundamental determinant of where a person falls on this Six Americas spectrum is their political ideology. I don't think I need to explain why that is to any of you, but clearly we are hearing most about climate change from our political leaders, and that has led to a serious divergence of worldviews about climate change among conservatives and liberals. But the second most important set of predictors about where a person falls on the Six Americas continuum can be encapsulated in, it's five key facts that can be conveyed in 10 simple words. The fact that climate change is real, that it's human caused, that there's an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that human-caused climate change is a reality, that it's serious. Climate change isn't just a threat to plants, penguins, and polar bears, but it's harming people as well. And finally, that there's hope, that there are actions that we can take that will make a difference. So these are essentially the five most important facts for every American to understand, and those who do understand it are much more likely to be alarmed or concerned about climate change. The good news about where America is with regard to our current, regard to our understanding of the issue, is that there's been a huge increase in climate concern over the past five or six years. Back in October 2014, you can see that the alarmed segment, the doubtful segment, and the dismissive segment were all about 13% of the population. Today, you know, wind the clock six years forward, the alarmed has doubled in size, the doubtful has remained about the same, and the dismissive, actually somewhat contrary to anybody's expectation, the dismissive have actually contracted significantly in size. And that is a really good thing. So that's sort of the best news of my presentation. There's a corollary to that, though, and that is that in order, as I said before, the interruption, the most important, the single most important act individuals can take to express their concerns about climate change is to engage with their political, their elected officials to express their concern about the issue and express their desire to see their elected officials enact policies that will help protect our climate, our health, and do so in an equitable manner. If you look on the left-hand side of this slide, you can see that currently only 1% of our survey respondents in last December told us that they are currently engaged in a campaign to convince elected officials to take actions to reduce global warming. Another 9% said they would definitely do that, and another quarter, give or take, said that they would be probably willing to do that. So the numbers are encouraging in terms of potential to move people to policy, to become policy advocates, but right now it's mostly potential and not a lot of action on the ground. Which brings us to us, health professionals, right? We know a lot about climate change as a health emergency. We have an ethical obligation to share that with the public and with policymakers. We know that there's sort of an evidence-based approach to sharing what we know, sharing the factual matters that we are experts about, and that evidence-based approach is to take the complexities of what we know, render it as simple, clear messages, do everything we can to make sure those messages are repeated often, and to use not only our trusted voices to get those messages out, but to try to recruit as many other trusted messengers in society to also amplify our simple, clear messages. We could go on all day about the sort of how one does that, but I really want to come back to the simple, clear messages. These five key facts that can be expressed so simply, each in two words, I would contend that it's not, as health professionals, it's not really our job to share, to make the case that climate change is real and that it's human-caused. That's the job of members of the climate science community, but it's incredibly helpful when we amplify their conclusion that human-caused climate change is a reality, and we do so specifically in the form of stating, of affirming the degree of consensus among climate experts. So more than 97%, probably more like 99% of climate scientists have long since come to agreement based on the evidence that human-caused climate change is a reality. We, as health professionals, we know that it's serious because it's harming our health in a variety of ways. We also know that there's a reason for hope, because as Jonathan Spatz said, the very actions that most need to happen are going to not only help us limit climate change, but it's also going to help produce greater health and in an equitable manner. So that's why Jonathan has concluded that there's hope, that climate action represents the greatest public health opportunity that we face in the 21st century. With regard to understanding the risks of climate change, the human health risks, these are the numbers from our surveys in October 2014 and last year in April 2020. I'm just going to summarize by saying what I conclude from this data slide is that six years ago, about one out of four people understood that health harms were escalating. Health harms from climate change were escalating in their community. Now it's more like one out of two. So what was, we've essentially doubled over the course of six years, the proportion of the public that understands the realities of the risks and harms of climate change. And Mona's going to tell you a bit in a moment about why that is, about what she and her colleagues have been doing to make that so. But I just want to make the point that we are, we are now, we have always been and we likely always will be among the most trusted voices of any categories of professionals in America. There's been a huge erosion of public trust in most categories of professionals, but we, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, public health professionals, we remain trusted. And that creates an incredible opportunity for us to convey what we know. Now, let me share a fundamental insight from the field of behavioral economics, because this comes right to why our voices are not only necessary, but we have a unique opportunity. And the insight from behavioral economics is that people are reluctant to pay today for benefits that will accrue in the future. And yet most voices talking about climate solutions, they're talking about benefits that will accrue in the future. For the very reason that Jonathan talked about earlier, the fact that climate change, that climate actions, climate solutions will not only bring benefits to our climate in the future, they will also bring benefits to our health, to the health of everyone in our country, especially to the health of our most vulnerable. And they do so quickly and they do so locally. So the unique message that we as health professionals have the opportunity to introduce to the public, this really does address that conundrum of behavioral economics, that people are unwilling to make decisions, to make trade-offs about future benefits trading off costs today. I'll close with this data from our colleagues, our friends at EcoAmerica, who recently conducted a poll and they asked people, would you support climate solutions if they benefited any of the following? As you'll see, people are most motivated by the benefits to protect personal and public health. They are also highly motivated by the benefits to create good-paying jobs, which is certainly President Biden's main line of argumentation right now. They are also motivated by strengthening resilience in our communities and by advancing justice and equity. So these happen to be benefits that as public health professionals, we all can credibly speak to these benefits. And more than anything, it's the public health benefits that motivate people to support climate action. So with that, I close and I look forward to hearing Mona's thoughts about exactly how she and her colleagues in the Medical Society Consortium are amplifying these messages. Hi, I'm Mona Sarfati and I'm a family physician with public health training, spent much of my career teaching family medicine to residents in training programs with a period of about eight years right in the middle of my career in which I was an advisor in the Senate on health policy, focusing very heavily on health access issues. And I joined the Center for Climate Change Communication about seven years ago and have been working on climate change since. And I think I advanced my own slides. Okay, so I'm going to be speaking about the physician's role on climate and health and taking off from the presentations that you just heard from my colleagues about why this is a health problem and a health opportunity and the kinds of messaging that can guide us as we try to communicate with the public. So I don't have financial disclosures to make, but I do have some personal disclosures. And these are new young members of our family, grandchildren, and they motivate me every day to work on this issue to ensure that we can pass on to them the kind of beautiful world that we have been very privileged to live in, in the last many years. So we started by trying to understand what physicians think about climate change. We conducted several surveys and found out that physicians knew in much greater numbers than the public at large exactly that climate change was happening and that it was largely if not completely human caused. And they were quite concerned. They saw it as directly relevant to patient care and 70% actually observed that it was affecting their own patients with 50% saying that it was affecting their patients to a great extent or a moderate extent. As you've heard, physicians and other health professionals are greatly trusted by the public, which is not the case for members of Congress and lobbyists and others. So doctors, nurses, pharmacists are some of the most trusted professionals, and we're used to discussing science issues with the public, and we have an opportunity to speak to many members of the public in the course of a year. Based on the research that's been done by Ed and his colleagues, we know that there are five key messages that we can send somewhat uniquely because we are health experts. And that is, the first is that climate change is harming our health, and the second is that everybody is at risk, but some people are at greater risk, and those at greater risk include children because they spend more time outside, pregnant women who, it turns out, are more sensitive to heat and to poor air quality, people with chronic health conditions, the elderly, people who are poor or have fewer assets, and this includes many people of color. This situation will get worse until we address it, and we know that the solutions are to mitigate the deterioration of the atmosphere by reducing the carbon dioxide and other pollutants that are making the atmosphere deteriorate, and that we need to protect people with the many protective measures that are available to us. Doing these things will give us cleaner air and cleaner water, and therefore better health, and they will work quite quickly, very rapidly, be of benefit. My slide is no longer advancing, so perhaps the people who are handling the slides. Thank you very much. So, about four years ago, we released this report, Medical Alert, Climate Change is Harming Our Health, and we released it as we launched a new organization, the Medical Society Consortium for Climate and Health. At the time that we launched, we had only eight medical societies, but today there are 32, and those societies represent over 600,000 physicians, which is more than 60 percent of all the doctors in the United States. We also have 59 affiliated public health and science-based groups, and 16 of those are state-based organizations of clinicians, doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, and we've got about 1,000 individual advocates as well. And together, we try to organize, empower, mobilize, and amplify. We organize by bringing all of us together, empower by sharing talking points and providing materials and information, and mobilize by finding events and opportunities to get the word out to the public and to approach policymakers with our suggested solutions. And then we try to amplify through good public relations to make sure as many people hear about all of this as possible. Next slide, please. So what exactly do physicians want? Well, it turns out, based on our surveys, that they want their societies to speak out on the issues. They indicated they felt doctors had a responsibility to educate the public and their own patients. They wanted CME for themselves and for medical students, and they felt that doctors should take a lead role in establishing environmental responsibility in their workplaces. Next slide. How do we educate? Well, we talk about the impact of climate change on health and the moral imperative of passing on a livable planet to our grandchildren and children, and about the many ways that we know that we can do that that will improve our health and make for a better, healthier environment. Next slide. So as physicians, we know that we are in a position to help people prevent the illnesses that they're exposed to. And on this slide, which I hope you'll receive afterward, there's a list of the specific kinds of environmental situations and the way that we can give advice that will guide people so that they can protect themselves and their families. So the first is heat waves, and we know that hydration and watching air quality can help people protect themselves. With wildfires, people have lung issues. We can tell them that they should watch the air quality, they should protect themselves by staying indoors or going to a different location, and using the kinds of medications that they need if they have an underlying lung or heart issue. Next slide, please. We can also empower people with the kinds of solutions that will help to reduce warming and to prevent the impacts, and to try to strengthen the health system to make it resilient so that it will be there when people need it when disaster threatens. Next slide, please. We have been pursuing a specific policy agenda since 2019, when we released the call to action on climate, health, and equity, a policy action agenda. And since we and other health groups released that agenda, there are 188 organizations of medicine, nursing, and public health, schools of medicine, nursing, and public health, and also hospitals and health systems, 500 hospitals and health systems that have endorsed this agenda. Next slide, please. The agenda declares climate change a public health emergency, as you've heard from the colleagues who spoke before me, and puts forth a 10-point agenda. Six of those 10 points are directly beneficial to health. And just several I'll mention, energy choice and energy efficiency, our use of land and agricultural techniques, and the type of transportation and infrastructure that we establish. And each of these can make a major difference in mitigating the impacts of climate change. One of those 10 focused specifically on helping communities to transition from their reliance on fossil fuels, and that includes communities that are currently reliant for their economic engine on fossil fuels, to find other economic models so that they can transition away. And then two of those agenda items focus on health professionals and the health system and the need to make the health system more environmentally responsible and also more resilient so that it will be there when we need it. Next slide, when people need it. Next slide, please. This is a number of physicians holding climate change as a health emergency signs. And that's a message that is being widely shared. Next slide, please. So clean renewable energy releases no greenhouse gases and doesn't pollute the air. And that's why it's not only a climate solution, but also a health solution. Active transportation, zero carbon transportation doesn't pollute the air. If it is active, it helps us get more physical activity. And of course, we know that's healthy and diets with more fruits and vegetables and less meat mean less methane gas is produced and they're closer to the kind of.

segmentation analysis

American people

climate change acceptance

political ideology

key facts about climate change