An Oct. 25 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine is entitled “Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency.” It advocates for a World Health Organization (WHO) declaration that “the indivisible climate and nature crisis is a global health emergency.” It observes that the three preconditions for such a declaration are clearly met: That Climate change: (1) is serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected, (2) carries implications for public health beyond the affected state’s national border, and (3) may require immediate international action.

As a recently retired physician with work experience in the low-lying atoll islands of the Marshall Islands, I can personally relate to current and future health/societal ramifications of climate change. Already, parts of Micronesia have experienced droughts and deluges that have become more extreme. Alignments of moon, tide and wind result in flooding of previously safe dry areas. And all of this results in uncertainties regarding safe homes, potable water, waste disposal, heat-related illness and vector-borne/infectious disease — increasing the already difficult challenges of supporting individual and community health in these small islands. These concerns can certainly extend over time to the low-lying coastal areas of Hawaii.

Having attended injured and sick patients for more than 50 years, I can testify to the critical impact of the social and physical environment in sustaining each individual’s health and well-being. Climate change will, with increasing momentum, adversely impact individual as well as community health.

The preponderance of scientific evidence and projections support the conclusions that climate change is real, ongoing, disruptive and related to the end products of humankind’s fossil fuel consumption. Analysis also supports the conclusion that decreasing our fossil fuel consumption will decrease the rate and magnitude of climate change and by so doing advance the cause of global health. Addressing climate change is a way of doing something positive regarding critical issues of future individual, community and global health.

Noting that climate change is a global problem and that most effective changes must be at the national and international level I have felt somewhat helpless, as a resident of Hawaii, to usefully address these issues. Until now.

There is a real chance that a state carbon tax with taxpayer rebate (carbon cashback bill) may pass in the 2024 legislative session. Passage will incentivize use of alternatives to fossil fuel and facilitate our transition from fossil fuel consumption to clean renewable sources of energy, and provide a model for dealing with climate change. Passage will result in more dollars circulating through the local economy and, through the cash-back to residents, mitigate adverse effects on those who are less well-off in our community.

Climate change is resulting in a real, though slow-evolving, global health emergency. Locally we, the residents of Hawaii, have the opportunity to take on a leadership role in acknowledging and addressing the problem. Implementing the carbon cashback bill is an overwhelmingly reasonable next step. This is not only a right step for Hawaii, but passage will help move to the national policy we need, a national price on carbon.

I encourage readers to get more information regarding this proposal at carboncashbackhawaii.org. Please consider contacting your state senators and representatives to express your support.

Eric Lindborg, M.D., is a retired family practice physician who has worked in Panama, Washington’s San Juan Islands, the Marshall Islands and Kailua-Kona, where he now lives.