How Climate Change Is Affecting Our Children's Health

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Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

September 26, 2019

Updated July 03, 2023

Climate change doesn't just affect our planet's health, but also our own health — and particularly that of children. Dr. Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital, joined Boston Public Radio on Thursday to explain how climate change harms our health and which groups are affected the worst.

"The way the climate is changing has real relevance to children," Bernstein said. "What we do today is going to matter a heck of a lot more to them over their lifespans."

Children of color and children from low-income households face disproportionately negative impacts from climate change, Bernstein noted.

"Pollution is definitely affecting people of color and people who are poor across the country, and right here in Boston, more than others," he said. "If we stop burning fossil fuels and coal and oil and gas, we can get rid of those disparities. "

By creating green spaces, cities can lessen pollution, climate warming and the negative health consequences that such things cause.

"We can do so much just by greening our city," Bernstein said. "We know we can reverse all of the warming we are seeing from climate change, just by greening our cities."

Bernstein is assistant faculty director of the Climate Change & Health Initiative at the Harvard Global Health Institute, co-director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is a pediatric hospitalist at Boston Children’s Hospital.