June 25, 2020 - The Royal Commission on the 2019-20 summer bushfires released an Issues Paper in May, specifically addressing the health care arrangements of natural disasters. DEA’s submission calls for a national health ...
Climate Change
Human pressure on the natural environment is widening and escalating. Environmental threats to human wellbeing, health and survival has become evident over the past two to three decades.
Doctors for the Environment Australia seeks to raise awareness of the risks to local and global human health – present and future – from environmentally damaging and disruptive technological choices and related short-term economic priorities.
DEA is focussed on human-induced climate change, widely regarded as now the most serious, and growing, worldwide threat to human health and survival and to social stability.
In September 2019, Doctors for the Environment Australia declared a Climate Health Emergency and were supported by numerous medical organisations both in Australia and overseas.
Climate Change Resources
POLICY PAPER AND POSITION STATEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
DEA Policy: Action on climate change and health – governance and strategy : the need for federal leadership and new Commonwealth laws to guide climate change mitigation and adaptation with a focus on present and future threats.
FACTSHEETS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Heatwaves and Health (Jan 2020)
Bushfires and Health: our fire-prone continent is at particular risk from the impacts of climate change, and we are experiencing more extreme heat events, an increase in severe fire danger days and a longer fire season. (Dec 2017)
Severe storms, floods and your health (March 2017)
How Climate Change Affects Your Health: The Facts (September 2021)
PRESENTATIONS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Webinar on climate change and health for medical practitioners (March 2021)
PowerPoint presentation that details why climate change and sustainability is core business for health professionals and an essential part of health education. (July 2018)
DEA SUBMISSIONS RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE
Zali Steggall’s climate change Bills (Nov 2020)
#turnoffthegas
June 23, 2020 - Doctors for the Environment Australia members urge the Morrison Government to seek an alternative to a gas led recovery from the Covid19 pandemic. With Australia’s abundance of solar and wind ...
Royal Commission into National Disaster Arrangements (Bushfires Royal Commission) April 2020.
April 29, 2020 - The health impacts of last summer’s devastating bushfire season are serious, complex and wide-ranging and health is integral to making decisions about emergency and disaster responses. More research is needed to ...
The Canberra Times: Let us also rise to the climate challenge
April 29, 2020 - Dr Trudi Beck says she knows that coronavirus is no small matter, and as a doctor, she takes it as seriously as anyone can. But, Dr Beck writes, “I also ...
Independent Review into SA’s 2019-20 Bushfire Season
March 20, 2020 - DEA highlighted the serious omissions of consideration of neither health nor climate change in the review. DEA recommendations include the acknowledgment of the ongoing impact of climate change on bushfires, ...
RiotAct: Community support is the way to beat distressing times, says Canberra doctor
March 20, 2020 - There are clear parallels with society’s response to the summer’s bushfires and the coronavirus outbreak–and as a community, we must work together, says Dr Arnagretta Hunter. “One of my best ...
Independent Australia: Australia needs to commit to target of net-zero emissions by 2050
March 2, 2020 - After two decades of refusal to acknowledge the science of climate change, change, it has taken a national bushfire tragedy for policy-makers to wake-up, writes Dr John Iser From climate change ...
DEA responds to the Federal Opposition’s target of zero net carbon emissions by 2050
February 26, 2020 - The commitment by the ALP to a target of zero net carbon emissions by 2050 is a welcome sign that Australia may eventually join 73 other countries in doing so, ...
Media release: Doctors’ open letter to the Premier of Tasmania: logging is a health hazard
February 17, 2020 - Dear Premier Gutwein, Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) is alarmed at the resumption of old growth logging in the North West of Tasmania, as it imperils community health. We ...
Victoria’s new environmental laws submission (February 2020)
February 7, 2020 - This submission focuses primarily upon aspects of the new EP laws as they relate to air pollution and climate change, as these are closely related to DEA policy and expertise. ...
Media release: Doctors slam NSW Government’s proposed planning changes
February 5, 2020 - Doctors are demanding that the NSW Government abandons its bill to change the law so that the emissions from burning fossil fuels outside NSW no longer need to be taken ...
Leading international health groups issue joint statement calling for Siemens to #StopAdani
February 3, 2020 - Dear Mr Kaeser, As a company committed to health and sustainability, Siemens’ decision to provide rail signalling for the Adani coal mine is deeply disappointing. We, the undersigned, urge you ...
iNews: Australian doctor on ‘nerve-wracking’ wildfires and climate crisis: ‘You can taste it and I make sure my children stay indoors’
January 29, 2020 - Canberra Cardiologist, Dr Arnagretta Hunter, provides an insight into how the fires are impacting both her personal and professional worlds. From waiting for her family and friends and driving through ...
Letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison: “the leader who failed to lead on Climate Change.”
January 21, 2020 - To Scott Morrison, like everyone else in Australia, and increasingly around the world, I have spent the past couple of months in horrified disbelief at the scale of the bushfire ...
Newcastle Herald: Michael Schien writes, the real threat to national security is the way our system makes rational planning virtually impossible
January 17, 2020 - The climate emergency has arrived, writes Dr Michael Schien. With the first degree of the predicted four degrees of warming by 2100, this 11,000 kilometre fire front is stretching our ...
New Daily: Burning anxiety–The new normal isn’t just the fire, it’s the fear
January 13, 2020 - Speaking to The New Daily, psychiatrist Dr Robert Llewellyn-Jones and Honorary Secretary Dr Richard Yin highlight that climate change impacts such as Australia’s unprecedented fires not only have direct physical ...
Heatwaves and Health in Australia
January 3, 2020 - Heatwaves have been called ‘silent’ killers and, without reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, they are predicted to become more frequent, more intense and longer. DEA’s comprehensive fact sheet uses the ...
ABC’s World Today: Heatwave to hit record temperatures across Australia
December 18, 2019 - As Australians this week brace for a nationwide heatwave which could see temperatures approach 50 degrees in some areas, Dr Arnagretta Hunter says that while people have lived with such high ...
Medical Republic: Australia’s doctors raise their voices on climate change
December 4, 2019 - With the early start to our bushfire season, widespread fires burning across the country with tragic loss of life and property, and a number of areas breaking November heat records, ...
Response to Alexander Downer: how much are we prepared to pay for our children’s future?
November 27, 2019 - Alexander Downer, a former leader of the Liberal Party , Minister for Foreign Affairs and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, wrote in the Australian Financial Review last Monday (18 ...