ABSTRACT
This chapter looks across the evidence and advice shared throughout the book to distill five key messages for action to protect animal health in the face of the climate crisis. The chapters show that everyone can play a role. One needs not be a climate expert to work with others to protect and preserve well-established determinants of animal health. One does not even have to be certain before acting. There are many avenues for advancing knowledge on the mechanisms of harm, creating strategies for harm reduction, and finding effective solutions to animal health threats. The authors have shown the need to challenge the status quo not only in how we understand the effects of climate change on animal health but also how we translate that knowledge into health-protecting actions. Preserving the gains in animal health made over the past century, and preventing backward momentum, requires substantial re-imagining of how to inspire and sustain the organizational and individual changes needed to concurrently care for the health of biodiversity, societies, and ecosystems. Despite the dire forecasts for climate change, the lessons unveiled in this book can provide a hopeful path to the future we desire.
