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Archive for Health professionals

Climate change: a great threat to health, but not as generally conceived

by CAHA
June 2nd, 2015

by Professor Colin Butler
via Croakey

Prior to the 2009 Copenhagen climate change conference the Lancet published a 41 page article called “Managing the health effects of climate change”. The text postulated that “climate change is potentially the biggest global health threat in the 21st century” but the executive summary was unambiguous: “Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”. Later this month, in the lead up to the Paris climate change summit, the Lancet is to again publish a major report on climate change and health. I had no role in either, though I edited a recent book on the subject.

A WHO-led study found that in 2000 the burden of disease (BOD) of climate change caused about 5.5 million lost disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), mainly due to climate change-related undernutrition, with minor contributions from infectious diseases. This sounds significant, but was less than 0.4% of the global BOD in 2000. In contrast, HIV/AIDS, the leading cause of lost DALYs in the “baseline” scenario for 2030, contributes about 12% of the total – or about 30 times as much as climate change in 2000. Climate change is a risk factor, not a disease, so it is likely to cause an increased BOD for several health conditions. However, each of those conditions (such as undernutrition) has several causes; attributing the fraction that climate change is responsible for is bound to be disputed. Tobacco smoke, closely followed by childhood underweight, was found to be the leading risk factors in an updated BOD study published in 2013, each causing about 8% of the total burden, or about 20 times as much as that of climate change in 2000.

The claim that climate change will emerge as the greatest threat to global health this century is striking and surely calls for strong evidence, if to be taken seriously. But though some health workers do take it literally, my contention is that most don’t. Outside health, even fewer do. I suggest several explanations.

The first may lie with the Lancet paper itself. It is vague, repetitive, and in part overstated. At one point it comments “a 13-m rise [in sea level] would cause the flooding and permanent abandonment of almost all low-lying coastal and river urban areas. Currently, a third of the world’s population lives within 60 miles of a shoreline and 13 of the world’s 20 largest cities are located on a coast. More than a billion people could be displaced in environmental mass migration.” That sounds plausible, except that neither the IPCC nor any other authority suggests any such extent of sea level rise is likely this century. Few if any peer reviewed articles suggest more than 2 metres of sea level rise this century is plausible. A perception of exaggeration may reduce the impact of this paper, contrary to the authors’ intention.

The Lancet paper identifies six main health effects from climate change: (1) changing patterns of disease and morbidity, (2) food, (3) water and sanitation, (4) shelter and human settlements, (5) extreme events, and (6) population and migration. However, no attempt is made to rigorously quantify the health effects for any of these. I can understand why, but this risks creating a perception of “hand waving”.

Another reason for the comparative lack of impact of this paper is that although its authors are consciously inter-disciplinary, the consensus in many other disciplines is far more conservative. This is exemplified by the issue of conflict. The possibility that climate change may contribute to violent climate was first raised in the health literature in 1989 (in a Lancet editorial), but has rarely surfaced since. A recent paper, by 26 leading gatekeepers to the political science literature confirmed the resistance of this discipline to this idea, although, outside political science, the idea is gaining more currency. The 2009 Lancet paper also reviews the literature at that time concerning food security and climate change. While not quantifying the risk, the message is consistently more downbeat than that of the IPCC reports, though the 2013 IPCC food chapter is less optimistic than its predecessors. If disciplinary specialists do not share the anxiety of the Lancet authors then why should generalists?

There is another reason that neither health workers nor the wider community takes the Lancet paper’s claim seriously: general incredulity. Conceding that our species is capable of critically undermining the environmental and social determinants that make civilisation possible appears to stretch our species’ collective cognitive capacity. While many scientists (such as Will Steffen in this excellent recent lecture) and an increasing number of lay and business people (including Elon Musk) do understand this – and are rightly apprehensive, about “business as usual” the understanding that most of the world’s population has of climate science seems not much better than of evolution a century ago. Adding to this difficulty, of course, are powerful vested interests that deliberately confuse and cloud public understanding and, to an extent, inherent scientific conservatism.

The final explanation I’d like to raise here is of causal attribution, also related to cognitive biases. The late Professor Tony McMichael coined the term “prisoners of the proximate” to encourage his epidemiological colleagues to think more deeply about cause. Of course, McMichael was not the first to do this; causal theory is as old as philosophy. However, despite this vintage, many people, including scientists, get stuck with their preconceptions, and many have trouble conceding not only that there may be additional causal factors, but that these may co-exist with, rather than supplant their current causal preference. This tension is obvious concerning conflict. Military theorists are happy to conceive climate change as a “risk multiplier” for conflict, but not (yet) political scientists.

Climate change can indeed be conceptualised as the most important risk to health this century, but it is only one element in a risky milieu. Lowering the risk from climate change requires reducing the risk of many of its co-determinants of civilisation health. Among these, the most important factor may be complacency.

Source: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2015/06/02/climate-change-a-great-threat-to-health-but-not-as-generally-conceived/

image source: WWF

image source: WWF

Categories Climate, Health, Health professionals, Public health, Uncategorized
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Electronic networking does work!

by CAHA
May 28th, 2015

A report from the ‘Environmentally sustainable practice in hospitals and community settings’ seminar 15 May 2015

Janet Roden, Professional Officer in the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWN&MA), and Peter Sainsbury, Director of Population Health in South Western Sydney Local Health District, met in 2014 on a Global Green and Healthy Hospitals webinar organised by CAHA Convenor Fiona Armstrong.

Out of that meeting the two of them organised an ‘Environmental Health Seminar’ attended by 50 health professionals at Liverpool Hospital on 15 May 2015 – a first in NSW for collaboration between a local health district and the NSWN&MA on environmental sustainability.

The focus of the seminar was on environmentally sustainable practices in hospital and community settings and the 50 health professionals present heard a tremendous array of knowledgeable speakers, all of who have runs on the board promoting environmental sustainability in their own workplaces.

Debbie Wilson, Sustainability Officer with the Counties Manukau District Health Board in New Zealand, focused in her keynote speech on outlining the activities of the Global Green and Healthy Hospitals network and the environmental initiatives they have introduced in Manukau. In the afternoon, Debbie talked about the identification and management of toxic chemicals in health services.

Other speakers included Chris Hill talking about the initiatives taken to promote environmental sustainability at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane; Terrona Ramsay and Aileen Thomas describing the very innovative approaches adopted to make the small regional health service at Kooweerup in Victoria greener; Michelle Skrivanic and Alison Brannelly talking about the initiatives nurses can take in large hospitals, for instance reducing and separating waste in operating theatres; and Matt Power from St Vincent’s Health Australia describing how health services can improve energy efficiency. And somewhere amongst all that we found time for lots discussion with the audience, much of it focussing on the practicalities of (and problems associated with) encouraging health services to become more environmentally sustainable.

All in all, a very practical and enjoyable day … and all because of professional speed dating.

Click on the links below for podcast recordings of the presentations:

  • Debbie Wilson (GGHH)
  • Chris Hill
  • Michelle Skrivanic & Alison Brannelly
  • Debbie Wilson (Safety and Quality)
  • Matt Power
  • Terrona Ramsey & Aileen Thoms
Categories Behaviour change, Climate, Environment, Health, Health professionals, healthcare, Hospitals, Medical, Nursing, Sustainability, sustainability
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Are you going to stand back and let the coal industry determine our future? Or are you going to fight for it?

by CAHA
November 14th, 2014

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As you know, the G20 Leaders Summit is on this weekend in Brisbane and world leaders are gathering to talk about issues ranging from development, employment, taxation, infrastructure, investment and trade.

But not climate change.

Meanwhile the coal industry is at the G20, working to secure greater subsidies and less regulation of their deadly product. Coal causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year, largely from exposure to air pollution from coal fired power plants in developing nations.

Leading climate and energy scientists from around the world say any further expansion of coal is incompatible with avoiding dangerous climate change. Coal must be quickly substituted for zero emission technologies, and the majority of fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground.

However the Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared “coal is good for humanity” and “coal is essential for the prosperity of the world”.

The Qld Premier Campbell Newman recently claimed those opposing Australia’s coal exports are “condemning people in China, but particularly in India, who live in poverty, condemning them to that poverty.”

He went on to say: “To take 1.3 billion people in India out of poverty is going to require significant energy, and coal particularly is what they’re after.”

India doesn’t want our coal

This might come as something of a surprise to the people of India, wrote Indian energy policy analyst Shankar Sharma in an open letter to the Qld Premier last week:

“This statement, if reported correctly, indicates to me that you did not have the benefit of effective briefing by your officers.

Not only is it “highly irrational to assume that everyone in 1.3 billion is poor,” writes Mr Sharma, but “it is surprising that it seems that you have not been briefed on the social and environmental aspects of burning large quantities of coal in a densely populated and resource constrained country like India.”

The Indian Energy Minister Piyush Goyal has just told the World Economic Forum they will be investing US$100bn in renewable energy in the next five years.

Coal isn’t the answer to energy access. Access to electricity for poor people in the developing world can be provided much more cheaply and cleanly with renewable energy, with none of the risks to health posed by fossil fuels, or the associated greenhouse gas emissions.

The coal industry plan to expand, regardless of the damage they cause

Coal industry leaders know their days are numbered. That’s why they have engaged Burson-Marsteller, the PR company which handled the PR for the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India and formerly made a living spruiking the benefits of tobacco.

Now they’ve helped Peabody Energy and others set up the Advanced Energy for Life campaign, aimed at influencing world leaders to help them “fight energy poverty” and suggesting that without access to coal, the developed world will forever be consigned to poverty. In an extraordinary display of hubris, they even claim “coal is key to human health and welfare, along with a clean environment.”

As they make plain in this video, their goal is to secure policy commitments from world leaders at the G20 that support the expansion of coal.

We can’t let this happen!

As health and medical professionals, we can’t just stand back and allow the coal industry to wreck the planet and cause the deaths of thousands of people in this callous and calculated pursuit of profit.

The industry is on the attack – just last week, when CAHA President and Australian National University climate and health researcher Dr Liz Hanna responded to the sobering findings of the latest IPCC report by pointing to the dangers of Australian coal exports, Minerals Council CEO Brendan Pearson responded by suggesting Dr Hanna was “unable to distinguish between ideological prejudice and scholarship”!

What can you do?

Write a letter to the editor or an opinion piece for publication in one of the major newspapers or online publications expressing your concerns about the unfettered expansion of coal in Australia and the risks it poses to people’s health and the climate.

Contact details:

Courier Mail use this online form

Brisbane Times use this online form

The Australian [email protected]

Sydney Morning Herald [email protected]

The Age use this online form

The Adelaide Advertiser use this online form

The Canberra Times [email protected]

The West Australian [email protected]

The Hobart Mercury use this online form

Northern Territory News use this online form

Croakey (health blog at Crikey) [email protected]

Climate Spectator [email protected]

Renew Economy [email protected]

The New Daily [email protected]

Hit the airwaves

ABC Radio Brisbane 1300 222 612

4BC 13 13 32

ABC Radio National 1300 225 576

Get cracking on social media

  • Twitter – tweet the Premier @theqldpremier and let him know your thoughts on the matter (use these hash tags: #climate #coal #climate2014 #renewables #G20)
  • Facebook – share these infographics here here and here and some of the links below

Need more information?

Here are some links to recent reports:

  • Lagging Behind: Australia and the Global Response to Climate Change (The Climate Council)
  • The fossil fuel bailout: G20 subsidies for oil, gas and coal exploration (Overseas Development Institute / Oil Change International)
  • Fossil fuel exploration subsidies: Australia (Overseas Development Institute / Oil Change International)
  • Energy access (Carbon Tracker)
  • Mining the age of entitlement (The Australia Institute)
  • The mouse that roars: Coal in the Queensland economy (The Australia Institute)
  • Unburnable carbon (Carbon Tracker)

Here are some useful newspaper articles:

  • Take it from us: India needs renewables, not more Australian coal (The Guardian)
  • Solar, not coal, best option for world’s poor – IEA (RenewEconomy)
  • Renewables as clean as you would expect (Scientific American)
  • ‘Coal exports a killer for thousands’, says ANU academic Elizabeth Hanna (The Australian)
  • Not so cheap: Australia needs to acknowledge the real cost of coal (The Conversation)
  • Australia, India’s dirty energy friend (SBS News)
  • Tony’s Abbott’s ‘coal is good’ line is familiar, and troubling (The Guardian)

Here are some recent health / medical journal articles:

  • A critical decade for energy transitions (Australian New Zealand Journal of Public Health)
  • Climate change: health risks mount while Nero fiddles (Medical Journal of Australia)
  • Open letter to the Hon Tony Abbott MP urging the Prime Minister to include human-induced climate change and its serious health consequences on the agenda at the G20 (Medical Journal of Australia)

Here are some resources on coal and health:

  • Health and Energy Choices Position Paper (PHAA, ANMF, SARRAH, NTN, AMSA, WHE, CAHA)
  • Joint statement on Health Effects of Coal (CAHA and Climate Council)
  • The unpaid health bill (Health and Environment Alliance)
  • Health and Energy Policy: Briefing Paper (CAHA)
  • The Human Cost of Power (CAHA and PHAA)
  • How coal burns Australia (DEA)

More useful resources on http://endcoal.org/

Categories Coal, Energy, Energy policy, Health professionals, Public health, Public policy, Research, Uncategorized
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Greening the Healthcare Sector Think Tank 14th Oct 2014

by CAHA
September 15th, 2014

Hosted by Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA) and Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA) in partnership with Global Green and Healthy Hospitals

Event Title: ‘The Health Sector as a Leader in Low Carbon Transformation’

When:  Tuesday 14th October 2014

Where: Mater Hospital, South Brisbane

Featuring case studies and experts on the following themes:

  • Building healthy and sustainable healthcare infrastructure
  • Waste not – the transformation of disposal in healthcare
  • Engaging others – making sustainability everyone’s business
  • Building a  national and global community for healthy, sustainable healthcare

Opportunities to improve environmental sustainability in the healthcare sector are rapidly expanding. There are increasingly substantive economic drivers supporting a growing cohort of health and sustainability professionals in implementing strategies in their organisations for cutting carbon, reducing waste, minimising chemicals, and greening the supply chain.

The Greening the Healthcare Sector Think Tank provides an opportunity for those working in the sector to hear first hand case studies of change, talk to experts, hear about opportunities for collaboration, and contribute to a discussion about how we can work together to accelerate progress within the health sector towards sustainable healthcare and hospital practices.

This Think Tank will allow participants to hear from industry leaders and professionals and engage in discussions about strategies to improve environmental sustainability and population health while reducing pressure on health sector budgets. Building green healthcare facilities, engaging staff for institution-wide change, reducing waste and saving money will be some of the topics covered in this dynamic and interactive event.

The Think Tank will be facilitated by leading sustainability educator and consultant Ian McBurney, and will feature snap shot presentations from professionals, followed by engaging and interactive discussions.

Beamed in live from Washington state will be Nick Thorp, Global Community Manager of the Global Green and Healthy Hospitals network. Hear about this rapidly expanding network and the innovative platform that is enabling health and sustainability professionals to connect with one another around the world.

If you are looking for tools and resources to support sustainability initiatives and want to know how to succeed through collaboration with others – look no further!

Download the program here. Register now! Click on this link to register.

 

Categories Advocacy, Carbon, Climate, Emissions, Energy, Energy policy, Health, Health professionals, healthcare, Healthy, Hospitals, Mitigate, Sustainability, Sustainable, Uncategorized, Waste, Well-being
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How to make your conference carbon neutral (or even carbon negative)

by CAHA
November 25th, 2013

Australian Medical Students Association (AMSA) take some real climate action

Henry West

Embedded image permalink

For many years the World Health Organisations (WHO) have made it clear that the health care sector should lead by example in terms of reducing climate change pollutants and by demonstrating how climate change mitigation can yield tangible, immediate health benefits.

At the recent Australian Medical Student Association (AMSA) Global Health Conference (GHC) in Hobart the challenge this viewpoint presents to us was taken up with vigor.  For the first time ever an AMSA event was completely carbon neutral and actually carbon negative.

This was no minor undertaking, as the conference was very well attended with over 500 people present; nearly 200 tonnes of CO2 were offset.  This was achieved via two internationally recognised projects coordinated by Climate Friendly, a large Australian carbon-offsetting firm.  One of the projects in particular had immediate health benefits and was of particular satisfaction to the GHC organising committee.

This project was a Cambodian one that actively replaces highly polluting indoor wood/charcoal fired cooking stoves with new far more efficient and clean ones, the New Lao Stove (NLS).  The NLS was developed by GERES, an NGO ?that has been operating in the region for many years.  More efficient than traditional stove models, the NLS uses 20-30% less fuel-wood and charcoal, thereby reducing CO2 emissions from cooking.  This has immediate and dramatic health impacts for whole families, mostly regarding respiratory health, in conjunction with the large CO2 mitigation.

For AMSA to be taking positive action in this way, by providing budgetary means for events to be offset and also personnel to ensure that reductions in impacts are made in the first place is a testament to their commitment to both global health and also playing their part in addressing the climate emergency we are facing.

I encourage all to consider the impact of their own events in the health care sector, whether it is in management or simple attendance.  Cleaning up our own backyard allows us to encourage and assist others to do the same.

When we are in the business of health care contributing to what will likely be the greatest health threat of the 21st century is not acceptable.

Embedded image permalink

Henry West was the Environmental Officer for the AMSA 2013 GHC and is the 2013 Student Representative for Doctors for the Environment Australia in Tasmania.  He is a student at UTAS.

Categories Children, Climate, Emissions, Ethics, Health professionals, Medical, Sustainability
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Forum on Climate and Health: the Research, Policy and Advocacy Agenda

by CAHA
November 23rd, 2013

Forum on Climate and Health: the Research, Policy and Advocacy Agenda 

November 2013

This forum brought together health and medical researchers, health and medical professionals, students, environmental educators and community members to discuss the research, policy and advocacy agenda needed in Australia on climate and health.

Participants  issued a Joint Statement following the forum expressing their collective concern at the current lack of recognition of the health effects of climate change by governments, businesses and the broader community.

Click on this link to read the Joint Statement from Participants. The accompanying media release is here.

You can read a ‘storified’ report of the  Twitter stream from the event here.

Listen to this podcast from the forum prepared by Beyond Zero Radio presenter Vivien Langford.

Categories Advocacy, Allied health, Behaviour change, Climate, Emissions, Energy, Energy policy, Environment, Ethics, Extreme weather, Health, Health policy, Health professionals, health promotion, healthcare, Heat, Heatwaves, Medical, Nursing, Psychology, Public health, Public policy, Research, Social policy, Sustainability, Sustainable, Transformation
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Spreading the word

by CAHA
June 7th, 2013

CAHA has been out and about talking to students, health professional and the community about climate change.

Check out some of these presentations here:

The Art and Science of Policy Advocacy – Latrobe University May 2013

The Implications of Climate Change for Women – Australian Women’s Health Conference 2013

 

 

Categories Advocacy, Children, Climate, Emissions, Energy, Health, Health policy, Health professionals, Public policy, Sustainability, Well-being
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Climate and health ‘Clinic’ at SLF 2013

by CAHA
April 15th, 2013

A big shout out to the wonderful health promotion practitioners and students who participated in the Climate and Health Alliance’s initiative at the Melbourne Sustainable Living Festival for the second year in 2013.

Here, volunteer Sally talks about what they got up to and what the Climate and Health Clinic is about.

Categories Advocacy, Allied health, Behaviour change, Climate, Emissions, Energy, Health, Health professionals, Healthy, Heat, Heatwaves, Nursing, Public health, Sustainability, Well-being, Wellness
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Climate and health at Melbourne Sustainable Living Festival 2013

by CAHA
February 28th, 2013

Climate and health at the Sustainable Living Festival 2013

The Climate and Health Alliance hosted three very successful events at this year’s Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne – a Climate and Health Clinic; The Heat is On – a forum on climate change, health and extreme heat; and Our Uncashed Dividend – a session on the health benefits of climate action.

Professor David Karoly, Fiona Armstrong, Dr Liz Hanna and Dr Tony Bartone. By shotbykatie.

A full report, more photos and a blog featuring some of our marvellous volunteers coming soon!

 

 

Categories Advocacy, Climate, Extreme weather, Health, Health professionals, Heat, Heatwaves, Sustainability
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Have you signed the DOHA Declaration on Climate, Health and Well-being?

by CAHA
February 4th, 2013

Health Must Be Central to Climate Action

The international health and medical community have developed a joint statement on climate health and wellbeing calling for health to be central to national and global climate action.

Signatories include the World Medical Association, the International Council of Nurses, International Federation of Medical Students, Health Care Without Harm, Climate and Health Alliance, European Public Health Association, Public Health Association of Australia, Royal College of General Practitioners (UK), Climate and Health Council, OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate & Health Council, NHS Sustainable Development Unit, Umeå Center for Global Health Research, Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) and many others.

The Doha Declaration outlines why health experts are extremely worried about slow progress on climate action, and highlights how the health co-benefits of emissions can build support for ambitious climate strategies.

If you want to support this statement, sign up here: www.dohadeclaration.weebly.com

Categories Advocacy, Climate, Emissions, Energy, Health professionals, Uncategorized
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  • Climate mitigation – the greatest public health opportunity of our time
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