Climate change is an insidious and complex problem with serious long-term global existential ramifications. Our national leaders have either been unwilling to tackle it or willfully ignoring it. Interestingly, physicians daily see the individual consequences of poor lifestyle choices that, like climate change, have a long lag time before catastrophic health consequences become apparent.
For example, a teen may start smoking, and smoke one to two packs a day for 40 years without noticeable effect on his life. Then, at 65, he notices fatigue when he mows his lawn, and soon that he is out of breath after walking two blocks.