at a Walk and Bike to School
event in 2006.
(Photo © J. Maus)
Two of the state’s top health officials are calling for Oregonians to get out of their cars — not just to save the planet, but to save themselves.
Oregon’s top doc, State Epidemiologist Mel Kohn, and Lillian Shirley, director of the Multnomah County Health Department, were both mentioned in an Oregonian article today about their efforts to make public health a larger part of the climate change dialogue.
Kohn told Oregonian reporter Don Colburn that, “If we get people out of their cars, not only do we reduce pollution, but we also get them walking.”
Colburn also wrote that,
“Persuading people to walk or bicycle instead of driving is what Lillian Shirley, director of the Multnomah County Health Department, calls a ‘three-fer.’
It improves personal health by helping people control their body weight. It improves community health by reducing traffic, noise and dirty air. And it improves global health by reducing greenhouse gases that pollute the air and trap the Earth’s heat in the atmosphere.”
Kohn is a member of the Governor’s Climate Change Integration Group. That group issued a report in March that encouraged the state to invest more money in biking infrastructure as a key way to reduce greenhouse gases and Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).