Critical Conversation: Health Case for a Fossil Fuel Advertising Ban

Event Description

Health professionals are increasingly aware of the health consequences of fossil fuel-driven climate change and fossil fuel air pollution. Given the urgency and severity of these health impacts, the medical community has a responsibility to examine not only the clinical impacts but also the upstream commercial and political drivers of these harms. Among the emerging strategies under consideration is the restriction of fossil fuel advertising—a measure that draws inevitable comparison to tobacco control policies. But how valid is this analogy? Does it help us understand the role of corporate influence in perpetuating health harms, or does it risk oversimplification? In this discussion, we will critically evaluate the evidence for and against fossil fuel advertising bans, with particular attention to the mechanisms through which such bans might influence health outcomes. We will consider how these mechanisms compare to tobacco advertising restrictions as well as ad restrictions on alcohol, junk food, and baby formula and explore whether such a policy could serve as a legitimate public health intervention.

Speakers

Dr. Samantha Green is a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and at Inner City Health Associates. She is the president-elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (currently on leave). She is the co-director of Temerty Medicine’s Taking Action on Planetary Health certificate program, and co-chair of the CanMEDS 2025 planetary health committee. Samantha has collaborated with CASCADES on the climate conscious inhaler prescribing primary care playbook and course, and she is currently engaged in an academic project that aims to educate case managers and psychiatrists on the risks of extreme heat for people living with schizophrenia.

Dr. Leah Temper is a an Ecological Economist and Political Ecologist specialized in knowledge co-production and environmental justice based at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and McGill University, Montreal. She holds a degree in communications science, a Masters in Economic History and a doctorate in Ecological Economics. She is the founder and co-director of the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (www.ejatlas.org), an initiative mapping ecological conflicts and spaces of resistance around the world. Her current project ACKnowl-EJ (Activist-academic Co-production of Knowledge for Environmental Justice, www.acknowlej.org) examines how transformative alternatives are born from resistance against extractivism.

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