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We hope this finds you healthy and safe headed into the weekend. If your work this week was high stress due to COVID-19, may the weekend come as a chance to relax and decompress.

If what you're needing in this moment are heartwarming stories of community and action during COVID-19, our friends at Harvard C-CHANGE have you covered.

If your relaxing activity of choice is film watching, we have some good news to share: the Environmental Film Festival has relocated online until March 31st. You can check it out here.

Finally, if you've been wanting to support the healthcare workers on the ground in this pandemic, we encourage you to take some time this weekend to learn more about the call for Personal Protective Equipment.

Climate Solutions are Health Solutions

Coronavirus and the climate crisis: Common causes and shared solutions

Medium

"While at first blush these two current crises are not necessarily related to one another, there are a series of climate change-coronavirus connections that are worth examining, as they reveal several common causes, synergistic impacts, and shared solutions."

Coronavirus Holds Key Lessons on How to Fight Climate Change

Y ale E360

When the COVID-19 pandemic is past, societies may adopt some important measures that would lower emissions, from more teleconferencing to shortening global supply chains. But the most lasting lesson may be what the coronavirus teaches us about the urgency of taking swift action.

Melanie Allen and Erin Rogers on Funding Diverse Climate Leaders

G MMB

Part of an interview series with leaders working at the intersection of climate change, health and equity. This month: co-directors of the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice.

Nonprofit Solar One helps renters and low-income New Yorkers access solar energy

Yale Climate Connections

Solar One is helping to implement community solar projects in low-income areas. By subscribing, people can get their electricity from a shared solar project without an up-front investment.

Local Climate Action Persists in Alaska

C limate-XChange

Anchorage, the largest city and state capitol, recently adopted a climate action plan, which strives for the city to reduce carbon emissions by 80% from 2008 levels by 2050, and sets an interim reduction goal of 40% by 2030.

Climate Change is Harming Our Health

How climate change and wildlife influence the coronavirus

Axios

One fact: A study of the 2003 outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Asia found that “people exposed to the highest level of air pollution were twice as likely to die from the disease as those who were not,”

Some Communities are Being Harmed First and Worst

The coronavirus is deadly enough. But some experts suspect bad air makes it worse.

The Washington Post

Experts note that damage to the lungs from pollutants that result from combustion -- inadvertently by those in regions with poor air quality -- may increase the risk of respiratory tract infections from viruses such as the novel coronavirus. Poor air can also cause lung inflammation that could worsen the symptoms of covid-19.

Watch Now

If you missed last week's webinar, check out the recording. Dr. Aparna Bole of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Dr. John Balbus with the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences led a discussion on how evidence on health and climate change can be used by localities across the U.S. to implement community-based health and climate solutions, including in the context of COVID-19.

WATCH

Upcoming Webinar

The Skoll Foundation and Health Care Without Harm have organized an online session, “Coronavirus and the climate crisis: Mobilizing health for common solutions." This free 90-minute session will begin at 10:30 a.m. ET / 7:30 a.m. PT March 31. Explore opportunities to strengthen our health systems and create a future based on resilience, health equity, and climate justice.