Sparking a Movement for a Healthy Climate Through Leadership Development

Climate change is increasingly impacting health, and health care is contributing to climate change through carbon emissions. Nurses can help mitigate climate change and its effects through leadership development initiatives to expand the impact of the efforts of a single person by activating others. This article describes one such nurse-led leadership development project. The intervention adapted a workshop series curriculum for faith community audiences to a health professional audience. The program gave participants the ability to assess their assets, understand the psychology of communication of climate change, and design appropriately-scaled actions to help mitigate climate change. The program consisted of three in-person workshop sessions plus bi-weekly individual consultations with participants. The seven participants included physicians, nurses, physician and nurse educators, a public health professional, and a veterinary medicine student. The workshops included content on communicating about climate change, crafting a public narrative/storytelling, and tools and methods for organizing in the climate movement. Participants completed action plans including a broad range of leadership efforts as part of the intervention; all participants completed at least the first step of their action plan during the program period. Qualitative interviews highlighted facets of participants' experiences. Nurses and other health professionals are leading the way in mitigating climate change; leadership development programs such as this are one way of taking effective climate action.