Climate Action Figures
A safe place for youth to share steps they are taking to mitigate climate change.
Climate Action Figures
Season 2, Episode 17: Harshita
Navigating Climate Change and Health with Dr. Harshita Umesh
Join host John Whidden as he interviews Dr. Harshita Umesh from India. Discussing the intersections of climate change, health, and active mobility, Dr. Umesh shares her experiences from Bengaluru, her medical journey, and her passionate advocacy for health equity, disaster relief, and mental resilience.
00:00 Introduction to Climate Action Figures
00:30 QuickFix: Thoughtful Travel Tips
01:06 Harshita's Perspective on Air Pollution
01:51 Climate Change Impacts in Bengaluru
04:03 Harshita's Medical Journey and Advocacy
04:48 The Role of Plastic Surgery in Healthcare
08:40 Connecting Medicine and Climate Change
11:47 Mental Health and Climate Anxiety
19:35 Harshita's Climate Action and Non-Profit Work
22:32 Final Thoughts and Messages of Hope
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Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Harshita Umesh from India, and you're tuning in to Climate Action Figures.
John:Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Climate Action Figures. My name is John Whidden and this week on the show you will meet Harshita. This week's QuickFix is brought to you once again by Sophia and her grandmother Bertha from Quebec and they were featured on our first season of Climate Action Figures. They also sent us a big list of QuickFixes that we're very thankful for and we're going to share another one of their QuickFixes today. They say, travel thoughtfully. Airplanes, cruise ships, and other forms of transportation use lots of fuel and are polluting, so think carefully about how you travel. Thanks very much to you two for that, and welcome Harshita.
Harshita:Hi John, how are you?
John:I'm fine, thanks. What do you think about that QuickFix?
Harshita:I think it's really great because as a healthcare provider, we always talk a lot about active mobility, but also in the recent years, air pollution, right? My own country, India, had terrible smog and I had this mother who actually wrote to me and said, My son has gone to school with a mask on for the first time in two years. Not because of COVID, but because of air pollution. And those words, I think, it really resonated with me and made me feel so bad. So yes, we need to be traveling more thoughtfully and we do need to really consider our carbon footprint and what that means, not for the environment alone, but for our health and well being.
John:You've read my mind because my first question was going to be, if you're feeling any direct impacts of climate change there, but before I ask you that, you are from Bangalore, which is the sort of Western way of saying the city, why don't you pronounce the proper way of saying it for us?
Harshita:So, it's called Bengaluru, and my mother tongue is actually Kannada, and my city was the Garden City of India. It was lush with a lot of green trees, green spaces, a lot of lakes we've had a lot of rapid urbanization. in the past couple of years. And I think that's one of the impacts that I'm seeing of climate change right now is urban flooding, which makes me extremely worried. A couple of months back, I was lucky that my home wasn't flooded, but nearby there were a lot of streets that were flooded. And I know two young school going children who lost their lives, whose bodies were never found. I Think when we talk about climate change or even about adaptation, it needs to be locally contextualized. Each of us feel climate change quite differently depending on where we're situated and what our backgrounds are. I was privileged that my home withstood the floods, but I know a lot of people who didn't.
John:That's very sad to hear. Now, do the people of Bengaluru, do I pronounce that correctly?
Harshita:Bengaluru.
John:Bengaluru,
Harshita:Much better.
John:thanks. Do the people of your city, the Garden City historically are they seeming to be aware that climate change is at fault for some of these floods, maybe all of these floods that are happening these days?
Harshita:I wouldn't say that they would relate the floods directly to climate change. One of the most common things that I hear whenever I travel outside, and especially within India, is that Bangalore has one of the best weathers. Like throughout the year, the weather is quite pleasant, but it no longer is. We have a lot of really hot summers, And I think they attribute that a little more to climate change, but also to the loss of tree cover that we've seen in the past couple of years.
John:Harshita, you just graduated from the Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute. Congratulations on becoming that next step, I guess, almost completely a doctor now, right?
Harshita:Technically, yes, completely a doctor and thank you so much for your congratulations.
John:And next will be your residency, is that right?
Harshita:Yes, next is residency on the list.
John:And do you know what specialty you're eventually wanting to head into in your career?
Harshita:Actually, my entire advocacy journey started because I was trying to work up a good application process and I wanted to get in community building, but it was something I was always passionate about because I wanted to be a doctor since I was four years old. And I've wanted to be a plastic surgeon since the 10th grade. And I know plastic surgery is not really what people expected when I was, when you asked me this question, but a lot of plastic surgery right now has been so capitalized on that whenever I say plastic surgery, the first thing that comes to people's minds is cosmetic surgery, so rhinoplasty, facelifts. Breast augmentation, so on and so forth. But a little known fact is that plastic surgery was born out of the need for repair that actually happened post World Wars, care for survivors of burns, for people who had lost limbs. So on and so forth. It was something that was brought for the need of functionality. And I wanted to make care that is accessible, affordable, but still quality care to the people who most need it. And that's where my entire advocacy journey really started, about how do I really advocate for health equity?
John:So, when you were inspired in grade 10 to go into plastic surgery, obviously you weren't looking at Second World War veterans and how you could deal with that, was it something specific you were seeing around you that you really wanted to help with?
Harshita:Actually, like most people, I think what really sparked the interest was I could make a lot of money, and that's not supposed to be. I know that I gave you an entire narrative that was different, but the more I read about it, the more I realized that health as WHO defines it is not merely the absence of a disease, but it's about being in psychosocial, mental, emotional, physical well being. And that protection of it made me want to work for actually the World Health Organization or Médecins Sans Frontières. Doctors Without Borders. And that is where the entire I think that's where I started digging deep and trying to understand, okay, what exactly do I want to advocate for? And where exactly do I want to specialize? Because I started with the understanding that plastic surgery is mainly equal to cosmetic surgery.
John:It's interesting that you mention MSF, Doctors Without Borders, because whenever I want to really know what's going on in a region of the world where there's some sort of a conflict or political disruption, and I'm not sure which group I should trust in terms of what information I'm getting, I always look to MSF because I think they're the doctors, they're smart, on the ground, they're seeing what's going on, and they have they're just going to tell us what's happening.
Harshita:I think for me, MSF had two things. I've always wanted to travel the world, but I've always wanted to travel the world and understand how the person over there really lives. And I always loved medicine and there's this quote by Hippocrates that says wherever there's the love for medicine there's also love for humanity. And I found no better or greater joy than seeing my patients smile, knowing that they have hope for a better tomorrow, knowing that today is the day that they can actually process what's happening to them, that today I will be standing by their side and I'm going to help them achieve what they want as dreams and the future that they hope they can have. So I think MSF really gave me that resonated emotion for me that, you know, they were really providing people with that hope for a better tomorrow while also ensuring access to life essential healthcare services. unfortunately, I still haven't worked officially with MSF, but it's still in the dreams and pipelines, so wish me luck.
John:Yeah, good luck with that, and uh, that sounds like a very exciting potential future. Whenever I think of altruism in organizations, I think MSF has got to be one of the, you know, again, you think back to your first, sure, when you're in grade 10, you're thinking, I could make a lot of money, and doctors clearly can make a lot of money wherever they are in the world, but to sort of put that aside and go work in an area where they're not going to make a lot of money, but they're going to make a lot of difference is pretty exciting to think about. Um,
Harshita:Definitely
John:Now, Harshita, you've made it clear to us that you have this holistic view, uh, you know, a zoomed out view of medicine. It's not just one area, certainly not just, I was thinking about it today as I was preparing for this interview. Medicine, I almost don't like that word because it's, it indicates that health is about medicine when it's not. You've said that, but you have a bigger concern and a bigger picture. How does that view of health and your concern for the environment mesh together.
Harshita:That's a really great question thank you so much for asking. You're absolutely right. I feel like a lot of medicine right now focuses a lot on curative aspects rather than preventive aspects, and, um, I mean, everyone says prevention is better than cure. But while I was starting with my advocacy journey and really trying to find my place and what really resonates with me, I found out that disasters are not natural. And this was in a disaster medicine workshop that I attended. And it was so, I think I was flabbergasted. That's the word. I was so confused. I was like, what do you mean disasters are not natural? I've read the geography and I've read the science. But what they meant was extreme weather events are natural, but disasters are not. Because disasters mean that you're not able to cope with what's happened. It's overwhelming the system. And I really wanted to work in the space. And that's also one of the spaces that MSF does some work in. And the more I learned about it, the more I learned that climate change is really accelerating this process. And there's a lot that's man made. And I realized that I want to work in this space because I want to help mitigate what's happening, to protect the well being. And I found out then that the biggest global health threat is climate change. And I was just like, okay then. I think I found my calling and I found where I want to work. And I decided that this is something that I'm going to start advocating for and I'm going to start doing it and it's quite challenging because I think It's quite hard to really draw the linkages between the two. It's not only that we don't have a lot of climate education in the health curricula, but it's also that the people weren't as aware of the impacts of climate change on their health.
John:This is so fascinating, Harshita, because such a neat connection between you and the podcast, which is one of the reasons we were so happy to have you on here. This podcast is designed as a safe place for young people to share actions they are taking to mitigate climate change, and that was born out of really a sense that young people are struggling with mental health issues around climate change, and just having blinders on about, we didn't create this problem, and yet we're being told we have to solve it. So, do you have a soft spot for mental health aspects of climate change?
Harshita:I do. Thank you so much for asking. My advocacy journey actually started in mental health, but to bring it back to climate a lot of conversation in which you're referring to is climate anxiety or eco anxiety. And there's also solastalgia, which is nostalgia about the environment changing, that it's no longer the way it used to be, and you kind of miss the way the environment was. so much. And I've been on a lot of panels actually speaking about climate change and mental health, but let me put this in a very simple term that everyone's going to understand, and then I can bring back the climate anxiety aspect of it. When it's really hot, do you find it hard to concentrate?
John:Yes.
Harshita:When it's really cold, it's wintry do you just feel like staying in bed all day? Not Really Getting Out And Doing Anything,
John:Well, I'm the wrong person to answer because I love winter, but most people, yes.
Harshita:Aha, yeah, yeah. Well, those are the impacts of climate change on your mental health. in the most simplest of terms. But this entire climate anxiety, as you rightly mentioned, most of it actually comes from feelings of inaction that's happening, that we're not progressing fast enough in this realm, that decisions are not being taken that's really going to safeguard the 1. 5 degrees that's required, or that people are not considering this a serious issue. There are so many people who are denying that climate change is a thing. I think as young people we are privileged in a way that we're receiving a lot of information. You know, this is a globalized world, social media, digitalization has given us access to so much of information. I think it's also important sometimes for us to take a step back and realize that if we can't help ourselves, we're not going to be able to help other people, and we're not going to be able to help the environment. And it's all interconnected and interlinked, right? Because if you're able to protect the environment, you're able to protect yourself, and if you're able to protect yourself, you're then able to have action towards the environment. The way I try to talk about this is a concept called psychological resilience, as a need for climate resilience. Health is seen as non economic loss and damage. You know, you can't really quantify the health impacts or so they say, but the cost of inaction is quite a lot and that we've already seen, Initially there was a hundred billion dollars and now people are calling for 1.3 trillion dollars as reparations in loss and damage and beyond for adaptation financing, mitigation financing, but at the end of the day, what is that financing? It's financing action. And who's creating that action? It's us. It's people. And where does that really stem from? It stems from someone being able to get up, get out, and do something for their environment. And that is the whole concept behind, sorry, that's the whole concept behind hope, behind the ability to actually do something, and the need for building psychological resilience. And this is something super small. If you are able to be kind, if you're able to care about something, and you're able to actually support people who are doing that, you feel a little less lonely. And then multiple actions happen. And when multiple actions happen, we're on our path towards climate action.
John:that's such a wonderful reminder, Harshita. We tend to think about things in economic terms because that's the way our world runs these days, but beyond economics and dollars and cents, it's really the actions that people are taking that is the important thing.
Harshita:I would still say you need to finance those actions,
John:I mean, okay, sure, but it doesn't need to be the ultimate focus like we so often see it. And we've talked already now a little bit about many aspects of COP29 and you somehow in your commitments and your busy life decided to attend COP29. What inspired you to do that?
Harshita:actually, in the beginning, I wasn't sure if I'd like to attend considering a lot of issues, but I realized that coming to COP, I think everybody takes away different things. Obviously, we're looking forward to the negotiations, and that's the major part of why the COP process exists. But for me, it's also a platform for me to learn, to network, and to really share these kind of ideas with communities, to understand what communities are doing. As I previously mentioned, adaptation measures, they have to be locally contextualized, but we're all in the fight for climate change together. So, how do you bring multiple different localized, contextualized actions cohesively and collectively together to really mobilize the larger action that's required? I think that's what I take out of COP every single time, you know? This might be happening to my friend in Mexico, the Valencia floods that happened in Spain, I'm but it's also people who are being affected by it. People whom we have to care about.
John:Speaking of COP, uh, one of our audience members sent in a question, and they asked what's one thing that you came away with that you could apply in your situation there? Do you have an answer to that question?
Harshita:as a health advocate, it's always nice to see health gaining a lot of importance in the COP processes. And health is one of the best arguments for climate action because people care about their health. two of the things that I really saw coming out was the COP Continuity Coalition for Climate and Health that really brings in more coordinated action towards climate and health. But also my personal favorite, which is the launch of the Friends of Climate and Health Community. And I think that's really great that we're a growing community and this feels more like a family and safe space where we're learning from each other and sharing knowledge.
John:Thanks to Barbara for sending that question in, that's a very interesting answer. And now I have to take my turn and ask you a question, big question, is the COP process worth continuing?
Harshita:Wow. I think this is my personal views, the COP process is worth continuing because we live in a world that's very dynamic and we're seeing the impacts of climate change. But even if we halt all fossil fuels the work that we're doing, it's already impacted our planet and it's going to continue impacting our climate. It's not something that it's going to get fixed. So these processes actually allow us to reflect, debate, come to terms with what's happening and also receive reparations for it, receive support for it, receive expertise on it. And I think that's something that's important. And I'm being very optimistic and hopeful here because I feel like that's all I have left. If I'm not optimistic and hopeful, then I don't know how I'm going to live tomorrow. I don't know what I'm going to be able to do tomorrow. And that's the only way for me to have action for tomorrow.
John:One more audience member question for you. Tina asks, what message do you want the world to hear?
Harshita:Every day when I go to the hospital. I talk to patients. And when I'm speaking here to you, I'm speaking on behalf of the thousands of patients I treat every single day. And as a frontline worker, I draw hope from this community that's actually working its very hardest to adapt to our ever changing climate. We might be privileged in so many ways, but there are so many people who are not. So I know that the transformative action that we seek is rooted in the power of the people, and that our collective efforts empower us to shape a sustainable future. One that is healthier, safer, and more resilient for the generations to come.
John:I feel like I could listen to you talk for hours, but at some point we need to wrap up. And so before we do that, I would love to hear what your climate action is that you've chosen for us today.
Harshita:While my climate action is actually a lot about empowering youth and doing a lot of capacity building in terms of climate and health. But I also run a non profit called as Vaada. Vaada means promise and it's our promise towards universal health coverage. So we do a lot of disaster relief health camps most people actually die from health related issues after disasters rather than from the disaster itself. And these are simple health related issues like imagine dying from a common cough or cold, or like diarrhea. That's alarming, isn't it? So we come in, we teach the community how to build back better, more resilient and healthier societies capitalizing on the knowledge that already exists with them. We provide them with essential healthcare services. We also connect them with local hospitals to ensure more long term action. And I also work in the space of SRHR, which is Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights and Mental Health. in the aspect of mental health, I do a lot of network building and support circles, where we really bring in these local communities that are working to build psychological resilience in their communities, and peer led advocacy efforts, and try to bring that to a global platform. For example, with the Health Working Group of YOUNGO, we're amplifying the Eco Anxiety Project Africa's Eco Resilience Campaign, where everybody shares what gives them hope for tomorrow and what's their tiny story of resilience. And in the space of gender, we actually work with sex workers to diversify their livelihoods, to help them create something that's more sustainable. Working in a Sustainable Livelihood that also promotes the local arts, culture, and heritage of the country. I think when it comes down to final actions with people, I say the Sustainable Development Goal starts with the letter S and a capital S because it's sustainable. And for something to be sustainable, it has to be something that you're passionate about. Because when you're passionate about something, you will make time for it. And when you make time for it, you're going to continue making time for it, because you love what you do. And at the heart of loving what you do, comes you doing action every single day, and that makes it sustainable. So to anyone who's listening, this is just a personal action take, I guess. Do something that you love, do it well, and do it every day. And I think you doing that's going to contribute much more and change lives more than you can ever imagine.
John:Wow. So much information you're giving us. That's so fascinating. It makes me wonder if there's an Indian version of TED Talks or do you get TED Talks and see TED Talks in India?
Harshita:I'm not sure about an Indian version of TED Talks, but we definitely do have TED Talks, and I actually very recently gave a TEDx talk.
John:Did you, because I was just thinking, you need to do a TED Talk because people will want to listen to you. So
Harshita:That is So kind of
John:thank you very much for, sharing all this. We have one last question for you, except I'm going to, I'm going to put a twist on it. This is the first time. I always ask at the end of the program, what gives you hope? But I'm putting a little twist. I hope the listeners and viewers aren't upset with me, because you've talked so much about hope today, and you've given us examples of what gives you hope. I'm curious to know, How you intentionally go about looking for hope in your life.
Harshita:Pinterest is still a thing, right?
John:Sure.
Harshita:I'm actually a very cheesy person where I Google codes from Pinterest and I stick them on my study desk or my wall and this kind of changes every couple of days and I'm actually not at my room today because there was a really cute one that I've stuck on my thing, but they give me a lot of hope. That's how I intentionally search for hope sometimes. I find it really motivating and inspiring, and it kind of puts a smile on my face and makes me laugh sometimes about how cheesy it is, but I think it's really beautiful the way it's poetic, artsy, and all at the same time, so if I intentionally had to search for hope, I would definitely Google. Pinterest quotes.
John:Okay, great. Thanks for that advice. From wanting to be a doctor your whole life to thinking how much money you could make in grade 10 when you were back at that stage to all of the amazing things you're doing now. It's been quite a journey. We thank you so much for sharing part of that journey with us today. And I just can't wait to see where you're going to be in 10 years. You're going to be famous. I think we'll be reading about you So thank you very much for being with us today, Harshita.
Harshita:Thank you so much for having me, John, and for such kind words. I mean, I think people like you also give me hope, but I don't think we should be living on validation from other people, so
John:Very true, and no, I did not pay Harshi to say that. But thank you very much. And thank you, dear listener or viewer. We will be back again next week to hear from another Climate Action Figure. Until then,
Harshita:Go Figures!