Good to reduce carbon footprint of health care

“Health care has an impact on climate change and we must do more to reduce it” (Feb. 24): Thank you to the authors for this submission and thank you to the U-T for covering this critical topic.

Amplifying the message that climate change is harming our health, and the health of our children, should compel us all to take action within our sphere of influence. I am a family physician practicing in San Diego, astutely aware of the negative health impacts. I serve with Dr. Christine James on the Public Health Advisory Council of Climate Action Campaign, along with a number of physicians in the community representing a range of health care systems. We work collaboratively to support this mission.

It is encouraging to see

our organizations doing more to mitigate their impact while educating patients about the health risks of climate change and supporting the interests of the communities they serve.

Kristin Hampshire

This excellent commentary displays the irony of health care contributing to climate change while climate change itself deteriorates our health. For example, the commentary mentions the significant health consequences of the air pollution from burning fossil fuels. Harvard researchers found that 350,000 people die per year in the U.S. from this air pollution.

There are many other more harmful positive physical feedbacks in climate change. For example, the melting of land and sea ice allows the greater absorption of sunlight, which increases the melting, accelerating the whole process. We should reduce the carbon footprint of health care while we more generally try to break out of these multiple positive physical feedback loops by cutting back on fossil fuel use.

Jack Holtzman Irwin Rubenstein