Mindful Climate Action is an educational and behavior change program designed to help people decrease their carbon footprints while enhancing their personal health and happiness. Our interdisciplinary team, consisting of physicians, scientists and environmental advocates, has spent several years designing the Mindful Climate Action (MCA) program.
The MCA team has published five peer-reviewed papers. We started with a description of the health threats that climate change poses, and then described our mindfulness-based approach towards improving personal health while lowering carbon footprint. The paper by Maggie Grabow et al. portrays the results of our first feasibility/demonstration project. An article by Tom Bryan describes the development of a dietary intake environmental impact calculator. Most recently, a paper by Bruce Barrett focuses on the health and sustainability co-benefits of transitioning towards a more plant-based diet.
- Climate Change, Human Health, and Epidemiological Transition
- An Environmental Impact Calculator for 24-h Diet Recalls
- Mindful Climate Action: Health and Environmental Co-Benefits from Mindfulness-Based Behavioral Training
- Mindfulness and Climate Change Action: A Feasibility Study
- Imagining Eco-Wellness: A Scoping Review of InterventionscAimed at Changing Individual Behaviors to PromotecPersonal Health and Environmental Sustainability
- Health and Sustainability Co-benefits of Eating Behaviors: Towards a Science of Dietary Eco-wellness
Teaching Videos
For the first pilot, UW scientists came to the class and gave mini-lectures to the students. We have now made videos of those talks, which you can view here:
Educational Resources
- Carbon Footprint 101
- Air Quality and Health
- Water Conservation
- Healthy & Sustainable Diets
- Active Transportation
- Energy Conservation
- Ethical considerations and compassion for vulnerable populations
- Reducing purchasing and consumption
Other Resources
- Planetary Health
- Eating Healthy for the Planet
- Health Benefits of Nature
- Climate Emergency: Feedback Loops
- Quiz: Test Your Climate Change IQ
- “Climate 101” with Bill Nye
- MCA Presentation to NAPCRG Virtual Congress (November 2020 by Bruce Barrett, MD, PhD)
- Mindfulness for Climate Action – Lisa Mai and Bruce Barrett, MD, PhD
Learn More
If you would like more information about the program please contact Bruce Barrett, MD, PhD at bruce.barrett@fammed.wisc.edu or Mary Checovich at mary.checovich@fammed.wisc.edu.
MCA 8 Week Program
Mindful Climate Action trainings consist of eight weekly, 2 to 2.5 hour group sessions, complemented by daily mindfulness practice focused on concepts, experiences, and behavioral choices relevant to carbon footprint and climate change. The Mindful Climate Action program will help people drive less, walk and bicycle more, reduce household energy use and overconsumption, and eat less meat and more plant-based foods.
The goal is to improve health and happiness while reducing carbon footprint.
This behavioral training wellness program combines mindfulness-based meditation practice with college-level education on climate change, energy use, and carbon footprint. Mindfulness research has substantially grown over the last decade, indicating that mindfulness interventions have great potential to effect behavior change, but the connection between mindfulness and carbon footprint has yet to be tested.