BILL FRIST

Working across the aisle requires talking about the human impacts of climate change

- SIMMONE SHAH

TO TENNESSEE REPUBLICAN WILLIAM FRIST, who began his career not in politics but in medicine, taking on the climate crisis was a natural next move after stepping down from the U.S. Senate in 2007. “It comes back to the same thing: improving the well-being of people by focusing on their health,” says Frist, who was first elected in 1994 and served as majority leader from 2003 to 2007.

It was only logical, then, that last year he partnered with the Nature Conservatory to establish the Senator Bill and Tracy Frist Initiative for Planetary and Human Health, which aims to bridge public-health solutions and the climate crisis. Frist says focusing on communicating the health impacts of climate change—which range from an increase in mental-health crises to heightened risk of respiratory and cardiovascular disease—is all about showing people that climate is not a partisan issue.

TIME: You have called for climate change to be recognized as a public-health crisis. Why is it important to reframe the way we look at climate change?