Climate Advocacy for Healthcare Professionals

Lecture & workshop
60 to 180 min

Healthcare professionals :
Most Trusted Voices, and BEST POSITIONED TO ENACT CHANGE

My house is built on permafrost— as a resident of the sub-arctic, I think about climate change on a daily basis. I trained as a building engineer, but in my career I quickly realized that the most effective voices and the most fierce changemakers are healthcare professionals: doctors ranked as the world’s most trustworthy profession in 2022, they came in third behind local pharmacists and nurses in 2021, and second behind nurses in 2020. We have no time to waste— and I feel strongly that working with doctors is the most effective way I can have an impact on the climate crisis. I want to support healthcare professionals into becoming the most effective climate changemakers.

LECTURE & WORKSHOP :
How to Design an Advocacy Target Suitable for the Climate Crisis

I offer a lecture and workshop tailored to help medical students in becoming better advocates for the climate crisis. How must one set a target? I became a much more effective climate advocate when I understood that setting a specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-bound target had a much higher likelihood of success. I see now from my younger years that “Saving the Planet” is not an effective target. How about : “Phase out the use of 90% of Metered-Dose Inhalers (MDIs) and replace them with DPIs (Dry Powder Inhalers) at my local hospital by the end of 2023, in order to achieve close to 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.” Did you know that MDIs have a much larger greenhouse gas emission potential than DPIs, yet some studies show that they can be replaced while reducing costs?

William Gagnon is an engineer (B.Eng. Concordia 2017, M.Sc. candidate McGill 2023), changemaker, innovation facilitator, and expert on healthcare systems decarbonization. He completed a Climate Fellowship at Cornell University (2019), a course on “Leadership, Organizing and Action : Leading Change” at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (2022), and he was Campaign Manager for Dr Courtney Howard’s leadership bid in the Green Party of Canada in 2020. He now works for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) as an Energy Transition Advisor.

Full resume here.

“Will’s unique experience and expertise from working at the intersections of public communication, advocacy and leadership, climate change, health, and engineering made for an incredibly eye opening and inspiring talk. He not only is able to tee up and describe the issue at hand but also offer an inspiring vision for the future paired with tangible ways to take action.”

— Sehjal Bhargava – CFMS Longitudinal Advocacy Training Series Founding Member, Chair of CAPE SK