BY NIDA KHAN
It only took two weeks to forget what a lifetime of health felt like. Three years ago, I developed nerve pain in my hands and feet—one of the most challenging symptoms of having hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Once my baseline for pain changed, so did my ability to conceive of having ever felt differently. The burning and stinging sensation that crawled up my arms and legs was constant, though mild, and soon became another thing to forget. Despite my attempts to live as if nothing were different, my chronic pain touched everything in my life. Like shifting all your furniture two inches to the left, I lived in an uncanny valley of having a life that was the same and yet dramatically different. The only other analogous experience has been witnessing the climate crisis. We, as a species, are witnessing a similar baseline shift. Before our eyes, the climate conditions that have existed for our entire lives, our entire written record, are changing. It’s just enough to be disorienting, to have some normalcy and then none at all.
This is not the only overlap between climate change and disability. Climate change will exacerbate existing health vulnerabilities and potentially create new ones. As the planet becomes more inhospitable, more and more people will face experiences that rhyme with the disabled experience. As someone who has a chronic illness, the same skills I use to manage my health could also be employed to cope with climate challenges. Whether it be navigating dread over an uncertain future or adjusting to conditions that make it harder to be/stay alive, the parallels between the two make sense. In some sense, the personal tragedy of getting sick feels like the world changing into a hostile environment, just on an individual scale. Now it is going to be all of us.
Here is where inequality must be considered, as disabled people are disproportionately impacted by climate change. We are two to four times more likely to die or be injured in an extreme weather event1. Existing systemic inequities, such as inaccessibility, are also likely to get worse. Disabled people must be considered and included in the conversation around mitigating climate change. Not just when there are enough resources to be generous, but at every step along the way.
It is crucial not to flatten the entirety of disabled people, which is considered the largest minority group at 16% of the world’s total population2, as purely victims. In an article titled, “Beyond Vulnerability: Disability, Epistemic Agency, and Climate Action”, Dr. Sarah Bell, health and disability geographer, highlights disabled people as epistemic agents that “may possess overlooked knowledge and experience that could improve climate change … decision-making.”3 In the same article, Bell quotes researcher Pauline Castres’ point that ‘disabled people are “experts” in “collaboration, creativity, collective resilience and resourcefulness.”’ This has been evidenced in the community organizing undertaken by disabled people following natural disasters, such as sharing masks and air filters following wildfires in California or generators to refrigerate insulin in Puerto Rico.4
Disability also requires an inordinate amount of creativity and innovation. For instance, my chronic pain has pushed me to be inventive with how I move about the world. There is also a degree of watchfulness, especially for those with chronic illnesses, and intentionality about how to cope with the ripple effect of being disadvantaged in the first place. Similarly, the negative impacts of climate change will beget a pain of their own. The allostatic load of dealing with ‘eco-anxiety’ has already begun to impact communities. In a 2021 Lancet study, up to 59% of 16 to 25-year-olds interviewed described themselves as being “very or extremely worried” about climate change5. The damaging impacts of stress are well-documented and even correlated with the development of auto-immune conditions.6
Climate change may even change how many people identify as disabled. Increased temperatures can lead to stroke, exhaustion, and even wildfires that produce air pollution, which is associated with chronic respiratory and cardiovascular illness. Many people think disabled people don’t deserve to live. Or that our lives are a sign of luxury. But if climate change is threatening all of our lives, it would be far too fatalistic to decree human life as fundamentally doomed. After all, disability is the one minority group anyone can join, and many people do in their lifetime. To live with a chronic illness is to balance acceptance with hope and fortitude. Every current moment is potentially the best your health will ever be, it being a depreciating trend. But you still need to live.
Nida Khan is a junior in Morse College.
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References
- Reed, R. Disability in a Time of Climate Disaster. Harvard University Center for the Environment (2023). Available at: https://www.environment.harvard.edu/news/disability-time-climate-disaster. (Accessed: 9 March 2025)
- World Health Organization. Disability and Health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health (2023).
- Bell, S. Beyond Vulnerability: Disability, Epistemic Agency, and Climate Action. Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School, https://petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2023/07/17/beyond-vulnerability-disability-epistemic-agency-and-climate-action/ (2023).
- Berne, P. & Raditz, V. To Survive Climate Catastrophe, Look to Queer and Disabled Folks. YES! Magazine, https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2019/07/31/climate-change-queer-disabled-organizers (2019).
- Collier, S. If climate change keeps you up at night, here’s how to cope. Harvard Health Publishing, https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-climate-change-keeping-you-up-at-night-you-may-have-climate-anxiety-202206132761 (2022).
- Harvard Health Publishing. Autoimmune disease and stress: Is there a link? Harvard Health Blog (2018). Available at: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/autoimmune-disease-and-stress-is-there-a-link-2018071114230. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.
Yale Global Health Review 