In 2014 and 2020 articles appeared in the British Medical Journal calling on the WHO to declare a state of emergency for climate change. The WHO itself states that climate change is affecting our lives and health. It defines health as the state of mental, physical and social well-being. If what has happened this year with the floods, rains, forest fires, record-breaking temperature and heat waves, not to mention the collapse of the Arctic, are not heeded, we will be allowing the current state of the Covid19 state of emergency cloud the judgement on this more urgent issue.
Clearly Germany has realised and revised the targets it had set. When countries come out saying that they will reduce carbon by say 50% by say 2030 or 2050, this is really something to laugh at. Countries are worrying more about the economies than about the impact that climate change will make. Old people, who do not have air-conditioning or have it only in one room, are the first to suffer. Many of us remember how many old people used to die in hospitals when we did not have air-conditioners in place. Old people were given ice cream to reduce their body temperature. Many did not make it.
When we consider that over the last hundred years the population of the world has risen from around two billion to seven billion 10 years ago and another billion in just the last 10 years, we really have to wonder at how much large industry and corporations control our health and well-being.
It is true indeed that if one stops emissions, jobs will be lost and this impacts health. Covid19 has shown how true this is. People and businesses welcomed the pumping of money into the economy, such as food and clothes vouchers. But the truth about climate change is that it does not come about slowly. Like the traditional balance which remains in place until a very small weight tips it completely to one side, the same will happen with the climate. The balance will tip suddenly.
The UN report has clearly said that humans have caused climate change. It is a 3,000-page document detailing all the science and proofs that we need. It needs four packets of paper and a toner to print it all out. For politicians a summary document of less than 200 pages was made. Hopefully they (and we) will all read it carefully.
While China emits 28% of the world's CO2, it claims to be in a state of industrialisation and to be exempt from measures. But the truth is that we all must be in this together. No country is exempt, small or large. We all have problems. Those countries with rain forests need to sell trees and need the land for agriculture. Protesting and not buying products made of palm oil simply does not work. We appease our conscience but yet we continue to consume large amounts of meat, buy plastic stuff and do all sorts of things which affect our environment. The fact is we have not even gotten rid of aerosols, which are used in hair sprays and many deodorants. Since we were younger we heard about the ozone hole; we hardly hear about it anymore.
Scouts and guides, schools and government department all try to raise awareness on climate change, but they all continue (Covid19 bringing in the exceptions) to oblige parents to use cars to take their children to schools, camps and so on - apart from emissions, there is contribution to parking problems and traffic, which causes even more emissions.
But the point of all this is not to blame, it simply means that raising awareness is not enough. If I find a deodorant on the shelf it is because countries allow it and because it continues to be produced. While there the target of countries may be laudable; it is probably not realistic to prevent further climate change. We do not know when the scales will tip, but certainly they have started to move.
The solutions are not so much change in behaviour, which come about naturally when we stop producing the toxins. There are three major issues - energy production, population growth and diet.
Clearly the cows of the world are said to produce a third of emissions through their digestive tract. Meat takes a lot of green to produce. A cow has to eat grass the whole day long. This green is the only source of carbon trapping and instead we use it to produce methane - an even worse gas. Now I like my steak well done, but I am willing to sacrifice it to a minimum to have better air to breath and better health. When it comes to population growth, this has gone out of proportion. I think we have to re-think twice before we fire the chief of SMOM for handing out contraception. But contraception is a short-term problem. Studies show that couples in more developed countries have fewer children, while those in developing countries continue to have many - perhaps because they still fear disease notwithstanding the vaccinations they receive. Education plays a large role as well.
But just as if we want to survive Covid19 we have to supply developing countries with vaccines, to have better health and a population which our earth can sustain, we need to help developing countries in their infrastructure and work.
Finally, energy production. There are two main sources which science now accepts. The disasters of Chernobyl have shown that nuclear reactors are unsafe when they are not maintained well. Modern nuclear reactors are very safe indeed. Even Scientific American has changed its position on nuclear energy. It is indeed clean energy. We would rather have nuclear waste within concrete blocks than have carbon dioxide continuously being pumped into the air.
Then there is geothermal energy. This is the heat contained within the earth below the surface. In many countries it is easily available and already being used. Cornwall, in the UK (where many politicians live and probably do not know), is completely supplied by geothermal energy. The technology is simply, albeit costly to start. One digs until one finds the heated rocks; pumps water, which quickly rises to very high temperature, which in turn forces it to the surface again to turn turbines. It has been estimated that the whole of the United States can be supplied with geothermal energy at only 2% of the current cost and without any emissions.
Moreover, the world has heated up and forcing some of the conserved heat to supply energy can remove the pressure and perhaps reduce volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. This is not wishful thinking. It is scientifically discussed.
Bioethics started with Dr Popper, an oncologist, who realised that the cause of all cancer is the environment, be it from food, cigarettes or emissions and heat. He coined the word bioethics to show that health depends on the environment. Unfortunately, the word was hijacked to the limited field of hospital health care. But bioethics is about the environment; it includes things like food ethics, which deals with the quality of food we consume. If we are to live healthily, we should not focus on long-term goals, but focus immediately to invest in these two and other clean sources of energy (wind and solar are too limited), on immediately helping countries reach better standards of living (just as the EU does with the community), and indeed change our eating habits. We need not be vegetarians. But we are consuming too much meat. Not only is this not healthy, meat production reduces green areas even more than the danger posed by removing green forests. We are simply taking out the carbon stored over millennia by green forests in the form of carbon and oil and pumping it into the air we breathe.
Pierre Mallia is Professor of Family Medicine and Patients' Rights and teaches at the University of Malta. He chairs the Bioethics Research Programme of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. He also chairs the Bioethics Consultative Committee.
This article is his personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of any committee or Board he serves on.
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