Get more involved

Help us with our advocacy work. In the last year we have:

  • initiated the development of a high profile report which outlines the health effects, largely beneficial ones, of policies and actions designed to mitigate climate change. This report is available in the Lancet.
  • written, commissioned, or otherwise catalysed several editorials, opinion pieces, and letters in the medical and national, and international press
  • as a Board provided a majority of the authors of chapters in the Health Practitioners Guide to Climate Change, published by Earthscan
  • collaborated with sister organisations in Europe, such as the Health and Environment Alliance in trying to influence the EU position on climate change
  • attracted increasingly wide international support, both through the pledge-based campaign and through encouraging membership of the Council from all countries.

In the coming year we want to build on these achievements by establishing real international influence, with a view to helping refine and implement whatever framework comes out of Copenhagen in December and negotiations thereafter.

We pride ourselves on uniting some of the most diverse health professionals from different countries or backgrounds along common aims. You need only look at our Board to see what we mean.

We would encourage you – whoever you may be – to contact us and find ways to engage with the Climate and Health Council. Whatever you do, we urge you to use the messages in our 'What's good for the climate is good for health'.

A global issue requires a global solution, and a global public health threat requires global mobilisation of health professionals to respond.

Thirty years ago, health professionals from the USA and the former Soviet Union crossed borders to found the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War movement, an international body of health professionals dedicated to action against nuclear war. Today we should initiate an equally global movement of health professionals to tackle climate change.

We are continuously seeking to establish international links with health professionals and health organisations and institutions. The movement is gathering pace and momentum: in September 2009, eighteen of the world’s most senior ranking health professional institutions co-authored a letter firmly placing them on the side of action against climate change. But more than institutions, it is you, the health professionals of the world, that are the key to success.

Be part of the global movement of health professional action against climate change.

Whatever you’re looking for – whether a way to green your doctor’s mess, or details on our global advocacy goals, or to be put in contact with our Board members, their organisations and campaigns – then please email us at climateandhealthcouncil@bmj.org.

 

Ten practical actions*

  1. Inform ourselves about the basic science of climate change, the health benefits of taking action, and the urgency of doing so.
  2. Advise our patients. Better diet and more walking and cycling will improve their health and reduce their carbon emissions.
  3. Use less energy ourselves (and reduce costs) by more insulation in the roof, walls, and floors; turning off appliances and lights; and, where possible, reducing use of goods and services.
  4. Drive the car less; fly less; walk or cycle more; use public transport; drive an efficient car; share cars; hold meetings by teleconference, videoconference, or webcasting; attend fewer international conferences.
  5. Influence food menus wherever we go — ask for local food, less meat, and less processed food; a low carbon diet is a healthy diet. Drink tap water.
  6. Advocate locally, especially in primary care, to maximise home insulation and uptake of relevant grants.
  7. Advocate for personal carbon entitlements within an equitable, fair shares global framework, such as Contraction and Convergence.
  8. Advocate to stabilise population — by promoting literacy and promoting women's access to birth control, through the International Planned Parenthood Federation or Marie Stopes International.
  9. Be a champion: put climate change on the agenda of all meetings — clinical teams, committees, professional networks. Doctors can tip opinion with chairs and chief executives.
  10. Gear up your own influence and that of all health professionals by joining the Climate and Health Council or the Health and Sustainability Network, or both.

*Taken from 'Ten Practical actions for doctors to combat climate change' J Griffiths J, A Hill, J Spiby, M Gill, R Stott BMJ 2008;336:1507. Read more.

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