Climate change: our new responsibility

Dear Editor.

Population has certainly grown rapidly: 5000 years ago, there may have been as few as 5 million people on the planet. There are now upwards of 6.7 billion, and may be as many as 9.7 billion by 2050. Even if CO2 emissions were a (low) 0.5 tonnes per person per year (as it is in many impoverished communities), this growth would have added some 3 billion metric tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere each year. The truth is, however, that humans add nearly 30 billion metric tonnes per year. It isn't just population growth that is the problem, but what those people do: and the consensus is that we need to rapidly reduce our CO2 emissions by 60-80%. This will take action at every level of our lives. In terms of food miles, 'local' can indeed be hard to define: Welsh cockles are often jarred in Holland for UK consumption. But then African- grown coffee is packed in India then shipped to the UK, and Canadian prawns in Iceland before they reach us. The embedded costs of transport ('food miles') are not small: UK food is transported 30 billion km before consumption. 19 million tonnes of CO2 are added to the atmosphere each year. We should press hard for clear environmental labeling but, meanwhile, try our best to order locally (yes to farm shops- or try 'Growing Communities'; yes to English wine, or perhaps French rather than Australian). Meanwhile, we must also address travel: one 2 mile journey each week to the shops may not seem much, but it is when lots of people do it. Driving to shops for food probably adds another 2 million tones of CO2 to the atmosphere in the UK each year: that's 1,016,000,000,000 litres, of which 203,200,000,000 litres will still be there in 1000 years time. Flying isn't the only issue we need address- but it is one. Each UK adult is responsible for about 12 tonnes of CO2 emissions (both direct, and 'embedded'). Avoiding flights can make a substantial impact on this personal total.

So, yes: discussion of population growth is somehow considered 'politically incorrect'. It should not be. It should be addressed urgently, as a clear priority. So, too should other 'whole planet' issues- such as deforestation and its impact on climate. But no-one should abandon personal action, which does make a difference- through cumulative totals, setting examples and changing the bahaviour of others, and through creating a permissive environment in which business and government can act.

Competing interests: HM is a member of the Climate and Health Council

Dear Sir

I note with dismay that you continue to mount your obsessive attack on medical education. Having initially mounted an assault on the funding of medical conferences in what appeared to be a wholly biased and unbalanced manner; you are now attacking the very principles of conferences themselves on the very questionable grounds of the medical profession’s “carbon footprint”. On this occasion you have at least provided a balance of views, but apparently unable to resist your own bias you have chosen to criticise the antagonist to your view in “Editor’s Choice”. This seems a questionable editorial practice, but what is worse is that you have fabricated a quote in order to do so. James Drife makes an excellent case in favour of conferences, with which I whole heartedly agree (it would be interesting to know how many others do), however at no point in his article did “even he say that if you’re going to fly somewhere you should do more than just attend a conference”. He makes the point that the value of conferences, over suggested alternatives, is that you gain far more education from the experience than simply attending a lecture, but he makes no suggestion that there is any necessity to do anything more than attend the conference to enjoy this educational benefit.

The alternatives suggested by Malcolm Green whilst inferior educationally are also not cost free. The technology necessary to establish the sophisticated global communications required to mount an effective global videoconference is one of the reasons why we are facing the problem of global warming in the first place! Furthermore, the cost (in all senses) of establishing hundreds of “mini conference centres” all around the world, would almost certainly be greater than the cost of providing one large centre (economy of scale), whilst all the people travelling to their local regional centre would still incur “carbon cost” granted at a lower per capita expense. However, if Professor Green is right that far more people would attend a local conference rather than having to travel round the world, any advantages in reduced cost per person would be cancelled out by the increased numbers of attendees.

All these tips aimed at reducing an un-measurable amount of carbon to “set an example” are just pointless “show-boating”, they are too insignificant to achieve anything. The medical profession would do the world a far better service by actually doing something useful and tackling the real causes of increasing carbon emissions rather than making empty meaningless gestures. The real issue is the world’s over-population, every single one of us is a little carbon producing machine and if there were half as many of us there would be half as much carbon produced – it’s as simple as that.

Not driving your car 200 yards to the local shop once a week is not going to save the world, whilst many of the other suggestions are just trendy myths. Local food is only local if you grew it yourself or at least you obtained it from your local farm. How many of us live near a farm shop? Let alone one that can actually supply ALL the products we require. Ferrying customers to “local” shops is no cheaper than ferrying their products to the customers. Thousands of individuals driving all over the place to find local suppliers would cost far more than providing a central pick-up point where they could do it all in one simple (and carbon cheap) trip – it’s called a supermarket. OK we should make these minor gestures where we can, but it is not going to save the world.

Over-population used to be an issue that the medical profession did address 20 or 30 years ago but it seems to be another one of these issues that has become politically incorrect, it’s difficult to understand why. The only country that has attempted to address the issue has been constantly berated for it; well maybe China’s solution was not perfect, but in a week where it has been announced that our birth-rate is the highest for 30 years is it not time to see if we can improve on China's initial attempt. It will certainly achieve far more than us all turning our heating down by 1 degree – and then leaving it on an hour longer because the house is cold!

Yours sincerely

Dr Michael A James MD FRCP Consultant Cardiologist

Competing interests: None declared