EVENTS

You’re invited! The events below are open to everyone (not just physicians).

We are experiencing unprecedented times. Together we can respond by educating ourselves, working on advocacy projects, and making our voices heard. Join us!

Below find these events and related resources!

Jan 30 – March 6: Urban Wildfire Response and Recovery Webinar Series
Wednesdays in February: Climate Change and Human Health (CCHH) Series
March 1 – 4: Our Planet, Our Health: 2025 Climate Action Convention
Watch the Recording: Autonomous Armageddon: Nuclear Weapons and AI
Reading: current news to help you keep up
Resources: Health & Safety re Wildfires

WATCH Online!

Indoor Air Quality in Homes: An Educational Series
ECHO Series: Global Nuclear and Environmental Threats Critical to Climate Change and Human Health
Book Discussion: Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in SF
Building Electrification: New Studies, Advocacy, and How to Electrify Your Home, recording coming soon.

Movie Nights: Films that share the horrors left out of Oppenheimer—First We Bombed New Mexico; Dark Circle; and Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island, and more!

Committee Meeting Dates

Thursday, February 13: Nuclear Weapons Abolition committee
Wednesday, March 12: Environmental Health committee
To join a committee, please email info@sfbaypsr.org.

Urban Wildfire Response and Recovery Webinar Series

Hosted by UCSF

January 30 – March 6, online
Thursdays, noon PT
REGISTER HERE

The University of California is sponsoring a six-part webinar series for the UC community and the public focusing on the physical health, mental health and social impacts of wildfires, providing a blend of scientific information and practical skills, and highlighting environmental justice issues.

The series is sponsored by the UC Center for Climate, Health and Equity (CCHE) and its Climate Mental Health Council, the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, the UCLA Center for Healthy Climate Solutions, the Sustainable LA Grand Challenges and UCSF Alumni Association.

January 30: Crisis Response for Kids: Keeping Children Safe During and After Wildfires
February 6: Psychological First Aid and Communal Support for Acute Stress
February 13: Community Impacts and Models of Community Recovery
February 20: Wildfire Impacts on Brain & Cognition
March 6: Policy and Wildfires

Climate Change and Human Health (CCHH) Series

Hosted by ECHO Institute: US National Hub at the University of New Mexico
Sponsored by PSR, Yale, Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, 350, and more.

Environmental and Social Determinants of Health: How to Stay Engaged in Uncertain Times

Wednesdays, February 5 – 26, 2025
11am – noon PT
REGISTER HERE

In February the focus is centered on New Mexico, but the lessons learned are helpful for other locals.

February 5: Climate Change, Energy, and the Residential Environment: Perspectives on Disparities and Equity
February 12: New Mexico and the Environment & Indigenous Communities and New Mexico
February 19: Microplastics and Superfund Sites in New Mexico
February 26: Climate Change Threats in NM and the Southwest & the State of Public Health in New Mexico: with Brian Campbell, PhD, Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility

Our Planet, Our Health: 2025 Climate Action Convention

Event coalition includes: PSR, ALA, APHA, ecoAmerica, Kaiser, Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, NAM, Planetary Health Alliance, and many more.

March 1 – 4, 2025
Washington DC, in-person or online
REGISTER HERE

If you are in the SF Bay Area and are planning to attend, please let us know so we can invite you to our SF Bay PSR gathering at the conference. Email info@sfbaypsr.org with the subject line: “Attending Our Planet, Our Health conference.”

Join PSR National and other leading climate and health organizations in Washington, DC, for one of the largest events ever focused on planetary health and climate action. Hosted at the National Academy of Medicine building on March 1-3 and the Planetary Health Alliance Hopkins Bloomberg Center on March 4, this pivotal gathering will bring together leaders, experts, and advocates committed to driving progress toward a healthier, more sustainable, and just future.

Through a series of dynamic sessions — offered in person and online — we will examine the state of our planet’s health and the necessary steps to achieve a sustainable future. Attendees will gain insights into cutting-edge research on the links between ecological drivers and health outcomes, explore strategies for building resilience and equity in the face of climate challenges, and learn how to advocate effectively for policy change. Attendees will also have the opportunity to earn CME/CE credits.

Session topics will include:

Misinformation and the fossil fuel industry
Organizing for change on a local and state level
Plastics and health
Collaborating with frontline communities

Autonomous Armageddon: Nuclear Weapons and AI

Hosted by ICAN

WATCH the RECORDING HERE

This recorded webinar explores the alarming dangers posed by the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into nuclear weapons systems. Hosted by three Nobel Peace Prize-winning organizations dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons, featuring expert speakers, including:

– Representative of Nihon Hidankyo, 2024 Nobel Peace Prize
– Professor Geoffrey Hinton, 2024 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics
– Connor Leahy, CEO of Conjecture (AI safety research)
– Dr. Ruth Mitchell, neurosurgeon and Chair of IPPNW, 1985 Nobel Peace Prize
– Melissa Parke, Executive Director of ICAN, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize
– Moderated by Professor Karen Hallberg, Secretary General of Pugwash Conferences on     Science and World Affairs, 1995 Nobel Peace Prize.

Together, they discuss the general and specific risks AI presents to nuclear command and control systems, the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear war, and ongoing initiatives to mitigate these threats.

JANUARY 2025 READING

It’s hard to keep up with the news these days. We are working to make that a bit easier for you by sharing a selection of the articles we are reading. Also, please share these articles far and wide—together we can help combat misinformation. 

SF Chronicle Letter to the Editor, by SF Bay PSR Board Member Dr. Bret Andrews: Blame Big Oil Regarding the article: There’s one key villain in the L.A. wildfires. Any student of history knows who it is

NY Times Op-Ed by PSR-LA leader Dr. Bob Dodge: Pulling Back from the Nuclear Brink

Bulletin of Concerned Scientists: Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight: 2025 Doomsday Clock Statement

Independent Media Network: The California wildfires and the unmentioned threat of nuclear radiation

HEATMAP: The Los Angeles Fires Accelerated the Looming Natural Gas Crisis.  All American cities are at risk.

NPR: Here’s how climate change fueled the Los Angeles fires

Guardian: Climate triple whammy boosted risk of LA fires, study shows

NY Times: This is who should foot the bill for the Los Angeles fires

Inside Climate News: The Supreme Court Let Lawsuits Against Oil Companies Proceed. This Is What It Means

The Hill: Trump packs EPA with chemical, oil industry alumni

NY Times: Trump Signs Orders to Promote Fossil Fuels and End Climate Policies
And the following article explains how states are responding:
Guardian: How US states are leading the climate fight – despite Trump’s rollbacks

WHO: Health community calls for urgent action for clean air ahead of WHO conference

Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health: Press Release: Leading Healthcare and Public Health Organizations Call for Federal Government to Fast-Track Rules to Protect Workers from Worsening Extreme Heat

HEALTH and SAFETY RESOURCES

Indoor Air Quality in Homes:
An Educational Series for Nurses and the Public

Hosted by California Nurses for Environmental Health & Justice

We recommend the entire series but particularly want to highlight this session:

Improving Indoor Air Quality

With SF Bay PSR/ANHE Fellow Crystal Loucel, RN, and Barbara Sattler, DN, DrPH

WATCH HERE and MORE INFO

This webinar expands on the Introduction to Indoor Air Pollutants in Homes webinar. This session will equip nurses with practical actions they can implement at home to improve indoor air quality. Additionally, an indoor air quality home assessment tool designed for use in patient’s homes will be shared. This tool is especially relevant for nursing specialties such as public health, home health, case management and other roles where nurses commonly enter the patients living space.

Global Nuclear and Environmental Threats Critical to Climate Change and Human Health: 2024

Hosted by Climate Change and Human Health ECHO Program, University of New Mexico (UNM)

Given the decades-long global threats of nuclear weapons and power, environmental health exposures from chemical solvents and superfund sites, and resulting environmental injustice, these sessions are a primer for health professionals, public health officers, first responders, and community-based educators interested in learning from nationally and internationally known experts.

This series may be from last year, but it is still very much worth watching!

WATCH RECORDINGS, click on the titles below:

1. The Global Nuclear Threat and Nuclear Landscapes in the United States: the first session with Dr. Robert Gould.
It is outstanding!

2. Health Impacts of Radiation with Dan Hirsch (The talk starts 6 minutes into the video.)

3. Environmental Justice and Nuclear Harms Panel, with Tina Cordova, MSC, BSC; Doug Brugge, PhD, MS; Marylia Kelley; Ryan Edgington, PhD; Jacqueline Cabasso

4. Environmental Exposures: Environmental Risk in Your Neighborhood,  with Michelle Hunter—and Nuclear Superfund Sites in New Mexico, with Myrriah Gomez

5. Identifying the Source of Chemical Solvents and Their Health-Related Impacts, with Michelle Hunter—and Microplastics are Here with Matthew Campen—recording coming soon.

6. Environmental Justice and Toxicities Panel—recording coming soon.

Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco

Hosted by City Lights Bookstore in conjunction with SF Bay PSR

Did you miss this event?
WATCH the RECORDING HERE

Lindsey Dillon discussed her new book!

With comments by Karen Pierce of the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, SF’s oldest environmental justice nonprofit.

Toxic City: Redevelopment and Environmental Justice in San Francisco
Published by University of California Press

Toxic City presents a novel critique of postindustrial green gentrification through a study of Bayview Hunters Point, a historically Black neighborhood in San Francisco. As cities across the United States clean up and transform contaminated waterfronts and abandoned factories into inviting spaces of urban nature and green living, working-class residents—who previously lived with the effects of state abandonment, corporate divestment, and industrial pollution—are threatened with displacement at the very moment these neighborhoods are cleaned, greened, and revitalized. Lindsey Dillon details how residents of Bayview Hunters Point have fought for years for toxic cleanup and urban redevelopment to be a reparative process and how their efforts are linked to long-standing struggles for Black community control and self-determination. She argues that environmental racism is part of a long history of harm linked to slavery and its afterlives and concludes that environmental justice can be conceived within a larger project of reparations.

Building Electrification: New Studies, Advocacy, and How to Electrify Your Home

Ask experts questions about electrifying your home to make it healthier and more climate-friendly!

Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Recording coming soon!

Learn about new research, upcoming regulations on new water and space heaters, how to protect your family, electrify your home, and advocate for a just transition to all-electric homes in CA and beyond.

After industry and transportation, buildings are a top emitter of greenhouse gases. In California, 25% of greenhouse gas emissions are from buildings and 15% are from homes. Electrification of buildings is a critical step toward decarbonization, improved health, and health equity.

Fossil Fuel (“natural” gas) appliances and heaters are proven to increase indoor air pollution and exacerbate conditions such as asthma. The health harms from indoor pollution are compounded by the high outdoor air pollution levels in California, per the American Lung Association’s State of the Air 2023 report. Also, while 98% of Californians live in counties with a failing grade for at least one air pollution measurement, a person of color is three times more likely to live in a county with failing grades in all measurements.

    • Dr. Bret Andrews, SF Bay PSR board member, will share the latest health and scientific studies on indoor air pollution that is caused by burning fossil fuels in our homes and info about local and state air quality regulatory agencies plans to electrify home appliances.
    • Nurse Crystal Loucel, SF Bay PSR/Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments fellow will review how environmental justice communities are overburdened by air pollution and how building electrification can improve health equity, and she will provide a healthy home checklist.
    • QuitCarbon will answer all your questions about how to transition your home to a healthier, climate-friendly, electric home. QuitCarbon offers free home electrification plans and support to save you time and money.
    • We will also cover our recent advocacy efforts and how you can help to promote an equitable and just transition to electric buildings in California.

text for space

Dr. Bret Andrews is a former Associate Chief of Neurology at Kaiser Permanente, Oakland and now works part time there. He focuses primarily on advocacy for climate health policy and presents to physicians and policy leaders on climate health. He is a co-founder of NICHe, Neurologists Interested in Climate and Health, and a board member of San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility.

text for space

For over a decade Crystal Loucel has served as a bilingual and bicultural Public Health Nurse for the Latinx community within the San Francisco Bay Area. Born and raised in Southern California to Mexican immigrants, she obtained her Master in Public Health from Loma Linda University in 2009 and a Master of Science from UCSF’s School of Nursing in 2014. She has been a Certified Diabetes Care & Education Specialist and a Health & Wellness Nurse Coach since 2019. Crystal currently serves on the National Board of Directors of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses and Co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Committee. In 2023, she was awarded year-long fellowships with SF Bay PSR through the Alliance of Nurses for a Healthy Environment as well as an Emerging Diversity Leaders through AcademyHealth. In her current role, she works as a UCSF Clinical Research Nurse for a study of co-transplantation of parathyroid and islet cells for insulin independence of patients with Type 1 diabetes.

QuitCarbon’s free, expert guidance makes it simple and affordable to get fossil fuels out of our homes. We’ve helped thousands of homeowners with planning, installation, and rebates on  upgrades like heat pumps, mini-splits, induction cooking, and EV chargers. QuitCarbon is the only ENERGY STAR® partner providing free assistance with clean energy upgrades.

text for space

Cooper Marcus is the Chief Quitter and CEO at QuitCarbon. QuitCarbon helps homeowners gain the confidence and clarity they need to electrify their homes – and helps contractors grow their businesses by being part of the clean energy transition. He believes that society’s move away from fossil fuel presents an incredible opportunity to respond to the climate crisis while improving the quality of life for homeowners, renters, and the small businesses that help maintain their homes. Cooper has led high-impact projects and products at high-growth startups and large enterprises. He recently spent 2.5 years at PG&E, guiding the development of an industry-leading wildfire risk machine learning model that is used to prioritize over $1B in annual spending on risk reduction.

MOVIE NIGHT!!!

At the 2024 Oscars, the star of Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy, dedicated his award to “peacemakers everywhere.” That is US! You and SF Bay PSR, and all our affiliated partners in the peace movement!

Here are resources for you to host your own Movie Night and discussion about nuclear weapons abolition! Check out the movies below that so eloquently tell the horror stories that were left out of Oppenheimer.

For your discussion:

  1. Find resources here about Oppenheimer and what was left out.

  2. Find here a New York Times interactive piece that sounds the alarm about the rising risks of nuclear war.

Oppenheimer the film!

Watch online at streaming services.

Oppenheimer is focused on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American physicist who was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb. It debuts just one week after the 78th anniversary of the Trinity explosion, the first-ever detonation of a nuclear bomb over Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The film provides a valuable opportunity to educate the public about the dangers nuclear weapons pose to health and humanity, from the environmental health impacts of nuclear weapons production and testing to the growing threat of nuclear war.

What horrors did Oppenheimer leave out? Watch these award-winning movies!

First We Bombed New Mexico

An award-winning, anti-nuclear film by Lois Lipman, featuring PSR Awardee Tina Cordova, Leader Tularosa Basin Downwinders

WATCH the TRAILER HERE
LEARN MORE and FIND a SCREENING HERE

First We Bombed New Mexico is the untold story of Trinity, the world’s first nuclear bomb detonated in New Mexico one month before the bombing of Hiroshima.

It is a story of government betrayal with tragic consequences.

Thousands of New Mexicans – mostly Hispanic and Native American – were exposed to catastrophic levels of radioactive fallout, never warned, never acknowledged and never helped afterwards. Generations of cancers followed.

Inspiring New Mexico Hispanic cancer survivor, Tina Cordova has catalyzed a movement seeking compensation for families – mostly Hispanic and Native – who suffer multigenerational cancers tied to that bomb – and who continue to be ignored.

This documentary is witness to the people’s narrative for voices not heard.

* * *

Dark Circle

An award-winning, anti-nuclear film by SF Bay PSR member Judy Irving, and Christopher Beaver and Ruth Landy

WATCH HERE
READ MORE
MORE STREAMING OPTIONS HERE

It’s been 75 years since the start of the Atomic Age, with the U.S. nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, but its trail of destruction has never ended.

Dark Circle covers both the period’s beginnings and its aftermath, providing a scientific primer on the catastrophic power of nuclear energy while also relating tragic human stories detailing the devastating toll radioactive toxicity has taken on people and livestock—focusing in large part on Rocky Flats, Colorado, whose plutonium processing facility infamously contaminated the surrounding area.

Documentary Grand Prize winner at Sundance, Academy shortlisted for Best Documentary, and Emmy winner, Dark Circle is no less potent today than it was 40 years ago. The new 2K HD Restoration done at FotoKem was assisted by AMPAS and supervised by co-director Judy Irving.

“Dark Circle is one of the most horrifying films I’ve seen, and also sometimes one of the funniest (if you can laugh at the same things in real life that you found amusing in Dr. Strangelove). Using powers granted by the Freedom of Information Act, and sleuthing that turned up government film the government didn’t even know it had, the producers of this film have created a mosaic of the Atomic Age. It is a tribute to the power of the material, and to the relentless digging of the filmmakers, that the movie is completely riveting. Four Stars!” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

* * *


Silent Fallout

LEARN MORE
SCREENING SCHEDULE

This award-winning film by accredited Japanese director Hideaki Ito tells the untold stories of the victims of nuclear testing in America—and the account of one mother who risked her career to expose the dangers of radiation poisoning.

Silent Fallout is more than a film. Our team is working hard to spread the word about radiation poisoning and nuclear contamination in the US and beyond—and we need your help to do so.

text for space

* * *

In the Dark of the Valley

A film featuring PSR-LA’s Dr. Bob Dodge and Denise Duffield!

SCREENED on MSNBC
LEARN MORE at In the Dark of the Valley WEBSITE

READ MORE at MSNBC

In the Dark of the Valley is the first feature film to focus on the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a former nuclear and rocket-engine testing site near Los Angeles. The film is an exploration into the site’s long history of cover-ups and negligence by site owners Boeing, NASA, and the Department of Energy. It also tells the harrowing story of how a community of mothers have dealt with the struggles of childhood cancer and their new found life of environmental advocacy.

* * *

Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island

Another award-winning, anti-nuclear film!

text for space

Starting March 12, 2024
Available to stream on Apple+ and Amazon
READ MORE and WATCH TRAILER

March 28, 2024, marks the 45th Anniversary of the Three Mile Island meltdown—the worst commercial nuclear power accident in U.S. history.

A resonant story about a battle of wills, hubris, and energy – atomic, maternal, moral, and feminist. At the prompting of an ecofeminism professor turned visual journalist, the four original “concerned” mothers, a two-woman legal team and a reporter, now all much older, wiser, and bolder, break open years of corporate silencing and nuclear industry doublespeak, and tell their stories about the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident, the worst commercial nuclear reactor meltdown in U.S. history. And though this disaster took place in 1979, the life and death implications continue in the spiritual, physical, and political DNA of the community, its residents, and their descendants.

Save-Our-Climate Movies!

YOUTH v. GOV: An independent, award-winning documentary about Juliana v. United States

WATCH on Netflix

Climate Psychiatry Alliance co-founder, Lise Van Susteren has been the forensic psychiatric consultant on this historically significant, groundbreaking constitutional CLIMATE case brought by 21 youth plaintiffs.

For over 10 years, Our Children’s Trust’s legal actions seek systemic, science-based climate mitigation actions by governments, demanding that our leaders tackle the roots of the climate crisis rather than just the branches of its impacts.

OCT has represented and supported youth plaintiffs in climate litigation around the globe–including Juliana v. United States, Held v. Montana, & La Rose v. Her Majesty the Queen–as they advocate for their right to a stable climate.

* * *

Big Oil’s Last Lifeline: A 3-part docuseries sounding the alarm on the petrochemical industry’s impact on Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities.

WATCH HERE

Everyday, the oil, gas and petrochemical industry writes off Black, Brown and Indigenous communities as “sacrifice zones.” The industry violates laws with impunity and rationalizes the unconscionable – they dump cancer-causing pollution into communities of color and try to cover it up.

Big Oil’s Last Lifeline takes us to the frontlines of the U.S.’s epicenters for petrochemical production: West Virginia, Houston, and along the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

* * *

The Power of Big Oil, a PBS Frontline Special

WATCH on KQED HERE

We highly recommend PBS’s Frontline show, “The Power of Big Oil.” This in-depth, three-part series examines the fossil fuel industry’s history of casting doubt and delaying action on climate change. It traces decades of missed opportunities and the ongoing attempts to hold Big Oil to account.

* * *

Racial Equity Reading Group Discussions

You’re invited to learn more about issues of racial equity, particularly as they relate to the fields of public health and medicine. The discussions are open to anyone (not just health professionals) seeking to deepen their personal understanding of issues related to systemic racism and strengthen their commitment toward creating a more just, equitable, and healthy world.

Our hearts go out to all those who have lost loved ones by gun and police violence. This discussion series is also part of our ongoing commitment to address the public health emergencies of gun and police violence, particularly toward African-Americans who are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people.

NEXT DISCUSSION & READINGS, TBA

SF Bay PSR Committee Meetings

Environmental Health Committee

NEXT meeting will be on Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
7:00 pm, via Zoom
Meetings are held on Wednesdays, every other month.

EHC members continue to work energetically during the pandemic on wide-ranging collaborative efforts to engage health professional students and institutions to address the unceasing threats of our climate to our health. READ MORE.

Divestment/Investment Task Force

Next meeting: email intern@sfbaypsr.org to receive meeting info
7:00pm, via Zoom
Meeting are usually held on the fourth Monday, every other month
Meeting ID: 864 2653 3538
Passcode: 410416

SF Bay PSR has joined forces with other NGOs and institutions to support a broad movement pushing for individual and institutional divestment from the fossil-fuel industry and investment in the alternative energy sector. READ MORE.

Nuclear Weapons Abolition Committee

Next meeting will be on Thursday, February 13, 2025.
7:00 pm PT, via Zoom
Meetings are held on the second Thursday, every other month.

NWAC is composed of health professionals and others working locally to influence public awareness, civic engagement, and national policy to build a nuclear weapons free world. Toward the latter, we frame our work through our Back from the Brink campaign and its policy platforms. READ MORE.

To join a committee please email info@sfbaypsr.org

Watch ARCHIVED Events HERE

Check out PSR National’s EVENTS listing HERE!

Like our NEWS, EVENTS, and ACTION ALERTS?

Your gifts help us to keep you informed!

PLEASE GIVE HERE! Thank you!!!