Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action, a group of more than 200 healthcare providers across Virginia representing various medical specialties, supports Virginia's transition to clean, renewable electricity for the protection of the public health.

Clinicians are seeing the health effects of carbon pollution in our clinics and hospitals today.  Worsening extreme weather events are placing our patients at risk of injury, death, disrupted medical services and mental health effects. Longer and more intense heat waves increasingly threaten our patients with heat-related illness, particularly the elderly, outdoor workers and student athletes. More severe allergy seasons worsen exacerbations of asthma, COPD, and allergic diseases.  Air pollution from fossil fuel combustion heightens the risk of stroke, heart attack and hypertension. 

That is why clinicians from across Virginia have come together to form Virginia Clinicians for Climate Action. Nationally, leading medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and American College of Physicians, have joined the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health with an urgent call to action. The American Public Health Association declared 2017 the Year of Climate Change and Health.

While clinicians can identify and treat climate-related health effects, we cannot prescribe climate solutions from our offices. The necessary transition to a renewable and carbon-free energy supply can only be made through city, state and national action.  Virginia’s Energy Plan should be the blueprint for a clean energy future for our state.  It should maximize distributed solar generation, allowing customers more ability to generate electricity independently.  This should be supported by a study of grid transformation to determine the best way to incorporate distributed generation and battery storage into the grid, increase reliability and ensure that grid investments serve the public.

A clean energy economy is both a necessity and an opportunity to protect the public health and ensure a healthy future for our children. Virginia’s Energy Plan should ensure that our state leads the way.