Welcome to the first post from the Climate Change Collective—a group of bloggers joining forces to keep this important issue top of mind for everyone.

How concerned are you about climate change? A recent study reports more than two-thirds of people around the world acknowledge it as a somewhat or very serious threat. It’s encouraging to see the level of concern has increased in recent years, but what will it take to get the deniers on board?

About the Climate Change Collective

The Climate Change Collective was born out of an exchange that took place when I left a comment on a blog post by Jamie Ad Stories. Jamie and I both care deeply about the impact of human activity on our planet and wanted to find a way to keep the climate change message top of mind for everyone.

I have several eco-bloggers in my blogging community, so I put out a tweet to see what kind of interest there would be in a climate-change-related blogging collaboration…and the Climate Change Collective was born! (Full credit to Alison from A Sustainably Simple Life for coming up with the name.)

The idea is simple. The members of the collective will take turns writing a monthly blog post sharing their concerns and unique perspective about climate change. After the post is published, the rest of the group will keep the conversation going by sharing a link to the post on their blogs along with their thoughts and ideas.

If you’re a like-minded blogger and would like to join our collective, please get in touch. More voices joining the conversation means more attention to the problems plaguing our planet!

And now…I have the honour of authoring the first post from the Climate Change Collective.

How climate change impacts your health…and your wallet

With more than two-thirds of people around the world acknowledging climate change as a somewhat or very serious threat, what will it take to get the other one-third on board?

Life is busy. Between jobs, family, kids and other obligations, it’s easy to deny something until it affects us personally.

One of the reasons many continue to ignore climate change is they don’t see tangible evidence of it as they go about their day-to-day lives. That invisibility makes it easy for naysayers to challenge its existence because they haven’t felt the impact on a personal level.

Until climate change hits these people where it matters—their health and especially their wallets—they will continue to consume at an unsustainable pace, drive their gas-guzzling pickup trucks, and prioritize their personal convenience over the state of our planet.

Climate change as a retirement risk?

I have spent my entire career in the retirement business, so security in our later years is always top of mind for me. When it comes to aging, health and financial security are two common concerns shared by people around the world.

Every year, investment management company Natixis releases their Global Retirement Index—a report on the state of retirement security around the globe. Their 2020 report cited climate change as one of the critical risks to retirement security. It was a stark reminder that, at some point, we will all feel the effects of the environmental issues plaguing our planet.

The report may be a couple of years old now, but the message is as concerning as ever. In fact, it’s even more alarming as individuals, business and governments have mostly failed to take the serious steps needed to meet climate change targets.

Retirement may be many years away for you or just around the corner. No matter where you are in your life, there’s growing evidence that climate change will impact your health and wealth in your later years. Let’s have a closer look.

How climate change affects health

Last year, I personally had a stark reminder of how climate change impacts our health. Smoke from wildfires in western Canada created an ugly orange haze that made breathing difficult, even for a healthy person with no respiratory issues.

The fact that smoke from wildfires thousands of kilometres away could affect air quality in my corner of the world was an eye-opening realization that we can no longer call climate change someone else’s problem. It affects us all.

Some of the bleak facts in the Natixis report:

• Air pollution is the world’s top environmental health risk. In 2014, the World Health Organization reported approximately 7 million premature deaths linked to indoor and outdoor air pollution.
• Atmospheric pollution can contribute to age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and ALS. It is also linked to heart disease, Leukemia, cancer, respiratory illness and infertility.

Health is a precious commodity that none of us can afford to take for granted. If health concerns alone aren’t enough, let’s consider the financial impacts.

How climate change affects financial security

The immediate connection between health and financial security is a reduction in income if health issues prevent us from working. In addition to lower income potential, retirees will need to dip into retirement savings to cover medical expenses. The financial risks, however, go further than that.

Turn on the news on any given day and you’ll see reports of deadly and extreme weather events: wildfires, floods, droughts, severe storms, heat waves, blizzards.   

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirms that extreme weather events are on an alarming rise. In the United States alone, the average number of weather events causing more than $1 Billion USD in damage has more than doubled. Over the 40-year period from 1980 to 2021, the average was 7.7 events per year. The annual average for the five-year period from 2017 to 2021 was 17.8.

In 2021, there were 20 billion-dollar weather events with damage totalling $152 Billion USD. And halfway through 2022, there have been 9 such events.

These extreme weather events threaten financial security in several ways.

• First, there is the direct cost of rebuilding property.
• Then, add the cost of higher insurance premiums or, in some cases, the inability to get insurance coverage to protect our most valuable financial asset—our homes.
• Finally, climate events can disrupt the global food supply resulting in higher food prices and greater food insecurity for vulnerable populations.

Ignoring climate change comes at a cost

Whether you’re 3 years or 30 years away from retirement, the message is clear. It’s no longer a question of if, but rather when, we will experience the direct health and financial effects of climate change.

We cannot continue to bury our heads in the sand and hope it goes away. Here are three things you can do starting today:

• Change your personal consumption habits. Every small change will make a difference when multiplied by billions of people.
• Support businesses who are making an effort to reduce their environmental footprint—and boycott those who aren’t.
• Use your vote to hold politicians accountable. Research party platforms and vote for candidates who take climate change seriously and have concrete plans to reduce the impact.

We must speak up and act now. Our lives depend on it!

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Let’s keep in touch! Join my mailing list and I’ll email you when I add a new post.

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Let’s keep the conversation going

Please help keep climate change top of mind for everyone by sharing this post. Also, if you’re a blogger and you’d like to join the Climate Change Collective, please get in touch. The more voices we add to the conversation, the wider our message will spread.

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Have you personally felt the health and financial impacts of climate change? Tell us your thoughts below.