Mobilizing COVID-19 level public health interventions for climate breakdown is necessary.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has proven that extraordinary public health measures can pivot every aspect of society. Norms, politics, economics, and business practices rapidly responded to coordinated simultaneous policies worldwide. This begs the question of why such advancements have not yet been similarly executed to reduce the short- and long-term morbidity and mortality due to environmental destruction and climate change. This article reviews various reasons explaining the discrepancy between the policies between these two health threats, using a terror management theory lens. Exploring how anthropogenic climate change potentiated the contagion and outcomes of COVID-19, the environmental determinants of health deserve increased attention in public discourse. The industry-driven response to COVID-19 also has exacerbated preexisting health inequalities and vulnerabilities, suggesting that a just transition for climate change must not repeat some of the same mistakes taken in global pandemic measures. Finally, addressing emergency health harms in ways that create more environmental health harms is deemed iatrogenic, displacing rather than truly treating disease. Thus, a planetary health model focused on multisolving health issues is recommended for the basis of addressing COVID-19 and other health disasters.