Climate change
It is obvious that individuals, however hard and focused their attempts, will not achieve enough critical mass to counteract the effects of climate change and that the problem needs to be tackled on a collective scale.
Abstract
Although not everyone agreed that climate change is a suitable topic for a general medical journal, most respondents agreed that its impact on health made it undeniably important and unavoidable.1-4 Even so, several respondents severely criticised the lack of a rigorous scientific approach in the articles, as well as their naivety or “preachiness”—and a couple challenged why the BMJ is sent out in plastic wrappers and not recyclable paper envelopes. Many agree that, in spite of the gloomy scenario outlined in the articles, doing anything at all is better than nothing—even if it is turning down the water thermostat in hospitals, as one correspondent suggests; turning off unnecessary lights; using bicycles; not buying produce flown in from abroad; restricting the number of people living on the planet by sensible means; and generally developing a much greater carbon awareness. Some remind us that the imbalance between individuals in terms of polluting the environment may not be as big as that between countries, although still substantial. Hospitals without air conditioning, heating, or car parks are cited as examples of what would not work, and, elsewhere, the 1 tonne limitation leads a correspondent to conclude that this would impose a lifestyle that would pre-date her own lifetime and that most people in the modern world just could not imagine. One UK doctor describes the obstacles he experienced in including considerations of how to save energy in plans to build a new practice. Altogether, correspondents chipped in many good ideas, but it still looks like “too little, too late.” It is obvious that individuals, however hard and focused their attempts, will not achieve enough critical mass to counteract the effects of climate change and that the problem needs to be tackled on a collective scale. How consoling, then, that one correspondent points out that, although global warming undeniably exists, every mass extinction in the fossil record was actually accompanied by global cooling.