Tell GOP Leaders: Climate Change Is a Health Crisis

Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is saying what too many Republicans in power still refuse to admit: climate change is a health crisis, and ignoring it puts people in danger.

Frist is not a climate activist. He is a physician, a former Republican leader, and someone who helped lead the United States Senate. When he says climate change is hurting human health, today’s Republican leaders should listen.

Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson are helping lead a Congress that has repeatedly treated climate action as a partisan threat while backing fossil fuel interests and undermining clean energy progress.

That is reckless. Extreme heat is sending people to emergency rooms. Wildfire smoke is making it harder to breathe. Floods and storms are destroying homes, schools, farms, and small businesses. Rising temperatures are worsening air pollution, increasing some disease risks, straining hospitals, and making daily life more dangerous for seniors, children, outdoor workers, people with disabilities, and families who cannot afford to rebuild after the next disaster.

This should not be controversial. Doctors, scientists, public health experts, and climate researchers have been warning for years that the climate crisis is already harming people’s health. Now even prominent voices from inside the Republican Party’s own history are making the same point.

Senator Thune and Speaker Johnson do not have to agree with every climate policy to admit the truth. But they do have a responsibility to stop pretending this crisis can be ignored.

Congress should hold hearings on the public health harms of climate change, protect clean energy progress, reject fossil fuel giveaways, and advance legislation that cuts pollution and prepares communities for worsening heat, fires, floods, and storms.

Please sign the petition to tell Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson: stop playing politics with our health and act on the climate crisis.

The petition to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson reads: Climate change is a public health crisis, not a partisan talking point. Listen to doctors, scientists, and leaders from your own party who recognize the danger. Stop obstructing climate action, hold hearings on climate-driven health threats, protect clean energy, and pass legislation to cut fossil fuel pollution and protect our communities.
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Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/06/climate/bill-frist-climate-change-republican-politics.html