Doctors urged to take climate leadership role
Military and medical experts call on doctors to use their position of trust in society to build support for action on climate change
軍方和醫療專家呼籲醫生利用他們在社會中獲信任的地位，去建立對氣候變化的支持行動
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday 5 April 2011 23.30 BST
一個香港女人摀住鼻子和嘴，試圖避免吸入路邊的污染空氣。軍方和醫療專家警告，氣候變化在世界各地對健康構成嚴重威脅。照片：邁克克拉克/法新社
Doctors must take a leading role in highlighting the dangers of climate change, which will lead to conflict, disease and ill-health, and threatens global security, according to a stark warning from an unusual alliance of physicians and military leaders.
醫生必須負起主導作用強調氣候變化的危險，那將導致鬥爭、疾病和不良健康，並威脅全球安全，根據一項嚴厲的警告，來自一個不尋常的醫生和軍方領導人聯盟。
Writing in the British Medical Journal on Tuesday, a group of military and medical experts, including two rear admirals and two professors of health, sent out an urgent message to governments around the world. "Climate change poses an immediate and grave threat, driving ill-health and increasing the risk of conflict, such that each feeds upon the other," said the authors, Lionel Jarvis, surgeon rear admiral at the UK's Ministry of Defence; Hugh Montgomery, professor of human health at UCL, London; Neil Morisetti, rear admiral and climate and security envoy for the UK; and Ian Gilmore, professor at the Royal Liverpool hospital. "Like all good medicine, prevention is the key."
週二在英國醫學雜誌寫出，一組的軍方和醫療專家包括兩名海軍少將和兩位健康教授，發出一項緊急信息給世界各國政府， “氣候變化構成一即時和嚴重的威脅，驅駛疾病和增加鬥爭的風險，因此每一人餵飼其他人”作家們說，英國國防部的醫生少將萊昂內爾賈維斯、倫敦大學人類健康教授休蒙哥馬利、英國海軍少將和氣候及安全特使尼爾 Morisetti、和皇家利物浦醫院伊恩吉爾摩教授。 “像所有的好藥，預防是關鍵所在。”
The threat to national security and health from global warming have been addressed separately in the past, but the BMJ editorial urges governments to treat them together. "It might be considered unusual for the medical and military professions to concur," wrote the authors. "But on this subject we do."
對國家安全的威脅和來自全球氣候變暖的健康在過去已被分開處理，但英國醫學雜誌社論敦促各國政府把它們放在一起。 “它可能被認為是不尋常，讓醫療和軍事專業界同意，”作者們寫道。 “但在這一主題上我們這樣做。”
The authors urge doctors to use their position of trust in society to build support for action on climate change. "Although discussion is good, we can no longer delay implementing tough action that will make a difference, while quibbling over minor uncertainties in climate modelling. Unlike most recent natural disasters, this one is entirely predictable," they warned. "Doctors, often seen as authoritative, trusted, and independent by their communities, must make their voices heard in calling for such action."
作者敦促醫生利用他們在社會中獲信任的地位，去建立對氣候變化的支持行動。 “雖然討論是好的，我們不能再拖延執行有所作為的強硬行動，而糾纏在小氣候模型的不確定性。不像大多數最近的自然災害，這一個是完全可以預測的，”他們警告， “經常被視為權威的醫生，獲信賴和獨立於社區，必須作可聽見的聲音呼龥這樣的行動。”
Prof Montgomery told the Guardian that doctors should take up the climate challenge just as they did with the harm from tobacco. "Many doctors see suffering and death first-hand on a daily basis. They recognise that prevention is far better than waiting for disease, when cure may not in fact be possible. They are also uniquely able to translate abstract harm into a vision of real suffering- just as they were with cigarette smoking and lung cancer," he said. "Now, as then, they must play their part - impressing upon their governments the immediacy and gravity of climate change and its impacts on their citizens, and those of other countries."
Prof Gilmore added that doctors could have an influence both as a body and in their individual work: "Some of the things that are good for health are also good for the climate, like exercise and a diet that is lower in meat. That's a win-win situation."
But doctors could also influence government policy, and the NHS's policy on greenhouse gases, he said: "We have a responsibility to steer the government towards more climate-sensitive policies."
Such a call is likely to be seen as controversial by many in the medical profession, and beyond it, particularly in the light of last year's "climategate" controversy in which many scientists found themselves under attack from commentators and bloggers.
While medical journals have highlighted the problems of climate change in the past, few physicians have spoken out on the issue.
The warning from medical and military leaders came as government officials from around the world met in Bangkok in the latest round of the long-running talks under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Bangkok conference, which is a preliminary session to the major meeting in Durban this December, is low-key and not expected to produce a breakthrough.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, told the conference that Bangkok was an opportunity to consolidate the gains made at last year's Cancún climate conference, when several important issues - including forestry - were broadly resolved.
"Here in Bangkok, governments have the early opportunity to push ahead to complete the concrete work they agreed in Cancún, and to chart a way forward that will ensure renewed success at the next UN climate change conference in Durban," she said. "If governments move forward in the continued spirit of flexibility and compromise that inspired them in Mexico, then I'm confident they can make significant new progress in 2011."
But several major issues remain to be resolved, she acknowledged, including the future of the Kyoto protocol and building the institutions necessary to deliver greenhouse gas emissions cuts and financing.
The BMJ's warning, carried in an editorial in the magazine, drew on several sources, including the Pentagon's 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress, which highlighted the national security aspects of climate change, and statements from the UK's ministry of defence and the foreign secretary, William Hague, who called global warming "perhaps the 21st century's biggest foreign policy challenge". The BMJ authors found that climate change would exacerbate "poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments".
But the scale of the challenge is such that the involvement of doctors and tough actions on emissions are necessary, according to the authors. "We must adapt our cities and their infrastructure to cope with these challenges through combining engineering design and public health initiatives – for example, developing resilience in clean water and drainage systems, using human and food waste for energy generation, and building roads to act as flood pathways. At the same time we need to ensure that the military can still operate effectively to sustain security in this changing environment. As with prevention, effective adaptation will require an approach that encompasses the whole of society and international collaboration."
The editorial was published ahead of an open meeting on climate change, medicine and security, scheduled to take place on 20 June at the British Medical Association in London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/05/doctors-climate-change-leadership
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