The idea for the Healthy Planet campaign was first formed on a farm in western France by myself and Guppi Bola on a wwoofing and hitchhiking holiday. Medsin had maybe dabbled in climate change or environmental issues before, but there had been no specific campaign dedicated to what was it becoming. Guppi and I extricated ourselves from tomato-picking and bread-baking for a couple of hours and outlined some ideas.
During the first year, Healthy Planet was small, and still forming - considering the issues it would address (there's no shortage under the heading of Health and the Environment) and sussing out the terrain. Although many people who work in health are acutely aware of the important impacts of the environment on health, something about the challenge of climate change and the unsustainable lifestyles that it represents is not attractive, or too great, to be immediately appealing to everyone.
Healthy Planet had to consider how to make environmental issues seem relevant, important, subject to influence, and accessible enough for students to choose to campaign about them. A number of practical things had been put in place during the first year, such as an email list, a logo and a website page, and building on these, the member base grew a little in year two. We have learnt some lessons, but there is still plenty to ensure that these crucial health issues are understood as just that - by other Medsin members, by other health professionals, by governors and by the public at large.
Sarah Walpole, Healthy Planet founder; now an academic clinical fellow at Hull York Medical School
The history of Healthy Planet
Following HP's founding, its next national coordinator was a student called Mustafa Abbas, who along with co-authoring the UCL/Lancet Commission on Climate Change and Health, worked on various campaigns and on engaging students and developing working relationships with other organisations working on similar topics, including the NHS SDU and the Sustainable Healthcare Education Network. He set up a transnational project within the IFMSA on the same issues called Healthy Planet Transnational, encouraging a number of medical student organisations from around the world to set up organisations similar to Healthy Planet UK in their countries. You can listen to a podcast of Mustafa speaking to the editors of the Lancet Student here (unfortunately quite slow to load!) Mustafa also led an 8-month British Council/Medsin pilot project to train medical/health students up as climate leaders, whose aim would be to work towards sustainability in their local NHS context, and to learn from the experience in such a way as to make it easier for others - in the UK and abroad - to do so in the future.
After Mustafa, Brighton and Sussex medical student Maya Tickell-Painter ran Healthy Planet for a year, and focused primarily on international advocacy work - she recruited and led a team to go to COP17 in Durban, South Africa, as well as setting up Healthy Planet's first website and recruiting a national committee. In Durban, the team made the Ode to Kyoto video (which at the time of writing has over 3500 hits!), organised several stunts and talked to a number of policy makers. Back in the UK, the new committee were recruited at the start of 2012 with a national and international policy officer, and two joint education and training officers. Izzy Braithwaite, then a third year medical student at Cambridge, took over as national coordinator in summer 2012.
After Mustafa, Brighton and Sussex medical student Maya Tickell-Painter ran Healthy Planet for a year, and focused primarily on international advocacy work - she recruited and led a team to go to COP17 in Durban, South Africa, as well as setting up Healthy Planet's first website and recruiting a national committee. In Durban, the team made the Ode to Kyoto video (which at the time of writing has over 3500 hits!), organised several stunts and talked to a number of policy makers. Back in the UK, the new committee were recruited at the start of 2012 with a national and international policy officer, and two joint education and training officers. Izzy Braithwaite, then a third year medical student at Cambridge, took over as national coordinator in summer 2012.
What does climate change have to do with global health?
You might think climate change doesn’t have much to do with health or medicine. The images that often come to mine are of polar bears and extreme weather events, not ill people.
In 2009, the Lancet (a leading UK medical journal) published a report which argued that Climate Change could be ‘the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century’.
Prior to that, climate change was the theme for the 2008 World Health Day, with a resolution passed by the 2008 World Health Assembly, and Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation, called climate change “one of the greatest challenges of our time. (It) will affect, in profoundly adverse ways, some of the most fundamental determinants of health: food, air and water. … Human activities are a prime cause. Human activities can also be the solution.”
This is something that is likely to affect many of the things that health relies upon, and potentially to affect them in a very big way. It's something which – through both direct and indirect impacts - could well have at least as much impact on global health as obesity or smoking during our lifetimes. Direct impacts range from heat-waves and the impact of extreme weather events, to food and water shortages and emerging diseases. Indirect impacts are harder to attribute with certainty to climate change, but can include economic instability, mass migration and conflict. There is evidence that some of these sorts of effects are already at play.
We know that many young people care about poverty or global health, but can find it hard to see how it's related to climate change - so we aim to change that through what we do. The link has been summed up succinctly by Nazmul Chowdhury, who runs the Bangladeshi charity Practical Action:
“forget making poverty history; climate change will make poverty permanent”
This dimension is a very big part of why we think climate change matters and needs serious, urgent action. We know that human health cannot be separated from environmental health, and especially that the climatic stability in which humans evolved is immensely important for health because we all need food, clean water, livable temperatures and a safe environment in order to be healthy. Climate change will affect all of us, and it is already affecting the poorest, who are usually the people least responsible for it - see below:
In 2009, the Lancet (a leading UK medical journal) published a report which argued that Climate Change could be ‘the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century’.
Prior to that, climate change was the theme for the 2008 World Health Day, with a resolution passed by the 2008 World Health Assembly, and Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation, called climate change “one of the greatest challenges of our time. (It) will affect, in profoundly adverse ways, some of the most fundamental determinants of health: food, air and water. … Human activities are a prime cause. Human activities can also be the solution.”
This is something that is likely to affect many of the things that health relies upon, and potentially to affect them in a very big way. It's something which – through both direct and indirect impacts - could well have at least as much impact on global health as obesity or smoking during our lifetimes. Direct impacts range from heat-waves and the impact of extreme weather events, to food and water shortages and emerging diseases. Indirect impacts are harder to attribute with certainty to climate change, but can include economic instability, mass migration and conflict. There is evidence that some of these sorts of effects are already at play.
We know that many young people care about poverty or global health, but can find it hard to see how it's related to climate change - so we aim to change that through what we do. The link has been summed up succinctly by Nazmul Chowdhury, who runs the Bangladeshi charity Practical Action:
“forget making poverty history; climate change will make poverty permanent”
This dimension is a very big part of why we think climate change matters and needs serious, urgent action. We know that human health cannot be separated from environmental health, and especially that the climatic stability in which humans evolved is immensely important for health because we all need food, clean water, livable temperatures and a safe environment in order to be healthy. Climate change will affect all of us, and it is already affecting the poorest, who are usually the people least responsible for it - see below:
The world map adjusted so that relative area reflects greenhouse gas production related to climate change.
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The world map adjusted to reflect mortality related to climate change.
Source: Costello et al, 2009 “Climate Change presents the biggest threat to health in the 21st Century” The Lancet
(373;9697 pp 1659-1734)
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From crop failures to water shortages, new infectious diseases to environmental refugees and oil price rises, the next 40-60 years will see big changes. They will also be our lifetimes: not the distant future, it will be when we are growing up and living.
The choices that governments and individuals are making on climate change now could have a big impact on our future. As well as seeking to influence political change nationally and internationally. We can also act locally, for example to start building a sustainable and resilient healthcare system, and to raise awareness among our peers and the health community.
And, thanks to the internet, we can now connect up with young people across the world, regardless of where they live, who care about the same issues - to make our voices louder and to find new approaches and solutions in partnership with them.
The choices that governments and individuals are making on climate change now could have a big impact on our future. As well as seeking to influence political change nationally and internationally. We can also act locally, for example to start building a sustainable and resilient healthcare system, and to raise awareness among our peers and the health community.
And, thanks to the internet, we can now connect up with young people across the world, regardless of where they live, who care about the same issues - to make our voices louder and to find new approaches and solutions in partnership with them.
