Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency
Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so seve...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Philippine Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Inc.
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://pjohns.pso-hns.org/index.php/pjohns/article/view/2209 |
| _version_ | 1827634664442953728 |
|---|---|
| author | Kamran Abbasi Parveen Ali Virginia Barbour Thomas Benfield Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo Stephen Hancocks Richard Horton Laurie Laybourn-Langton Robert Mash Peush Sahni Wadeia Mohammad Sharief Paul Yonga Chris Zielinski |
| author_facet | Kamran Abbasi Parveen Ali Virginia Barbour Thomas Benfield Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo Stephen Hancocks Richard Horton Laurie Laybourn-Langton Robert Mash Peush Sahni Wadeia Mohammad Sharief Paul Yonga Chris Zielinski |
| author_sort | Kamran Abbasi |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description |
Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency.
The world is currently responding to the climate crisis and the nature crisis as if they were separate challenges. This is a dangerous mistake. The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change is about to be held in Dubai while the 16th COP on biodiversity is due to be held in Turkey in 2024. The research communities that provide the evidence for the two COPs are unfortunately largely separate, but they were brought together for a workshop in 2020 when they concluded that: “Only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem...can solutions be developed that avoid maladaptation and maximize the beneficial outcomes.”1
As the health world has recognised with the development of the concept of planetary health, the natural world is made up of one overall interdependent system. Damage to one subsystem can create feedback that damages another—for example, drought, wildfires, floods and the other effects of rising global temperatures destroy plant life, and lead to soil erosion and so inhibit carbon storage, which means more global warming.2 Climate change is set to overtake deforestation and other land-use change as the primary driver of nature loss.3
Nature has a remarkable power to restore. For example, deforested land can revert to forest through natural regeneration, and marine phytoplankton, which act as natural carbon stores, turn over one billion tonnes of photosynthesising biomass every eight days.4 Indigenous land and sea management has a particularly important role to play in regeneration and continuing care.5
Restoring one subsystem can help another—for example, replenishing soil could help remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere on a vast scale.6 But actions that may benefit one subsystem can harm another—for example, planting forests with one type of tree can remove carbon dioxide from the air but can damage the biodiversity that is fundamental to healthy ecosystems.7
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T15:16:27Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4a7a9847e3cd4bc49caa779653d1d3ec |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1908-4889 2094-1501 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T15:16:27Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | Philippine Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery |
| spelling | doaj.art-4a7a9847e3cd4bc49caa779653d1d3ec2023-11-26T13:01:54ZengPhilippine Society of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Inc.Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery1908-48892094-15012023-11-01382Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health EmergencyKamran Abbasi0Parveen Ali1Virginia Barbour2Thomas Benfield3Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo4Stephen Hancocks5Richard Horton6Laurie Laybourn-Langton7Robert Mash8Peush Sahni9Wadeia Mohammad Sharief10Paul Yonga11Chris Zielinski12Editor-in-Chief, British Medical JournalEditor-in-Chief, International Nursing ReviewEditor-in-Chief, Medical Journal of AustraliaEditor-in-Chief, Danish Medical JournalEditor-in-Chief, JAMAEditor-in-Chief, British Dental JournalEditor-in-Chief, The LancetUniversity of ExeterEditor-in-Chief, African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family MedicineEditor-in-Chief, National Medical Journal of IndiaEditor-in-Chief, Dubai Medical JournalEditor-in-Chief, East African Medical JournalUniversity of Winchester; World Association of Medical Editors Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so severe as to be a global health emergency. The world is currently responding to the climate crisis and the nature crisis as if they were separate challenges. This is a dangerous mistake. The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) on climate change is about to be held in Dubai while the 16th COP on biodiversity is due to be held in Turkey in 2024. The research communities that provide the evidence for the two COPs are unfortunately largely separate, but they were brought together for a workshop in 2020 when they concluded that: “Only by considering climate and biodiversity as parts of the same complex problem...can solutions be developed that avoid maladaptation and maximize the beneficial outcomes.”1 As the health world has recognised with the development of the concept of planetary health, the natural world is made up of one overall interdependent system. Damage to one subsystem can create feedback that damages another—for example, drought, wildfires, floods and the other effects of rising global temperatures destroy plant life, and lead to soil erosion and so inhibit carbon storage, which means more global warming.2 Climate change is set to overtake deforestation and other land-use change as the primary driver of nature loss.3 Nature has a remarkable power to restore. For example, deforested land can revert to forest through natural regeneration, and marine phytoplankton, which act as natural carbon stores, turn over one billion tonnes of photosynthesising biomass every eight days.4 Indigenous land and sea management has a particularly important role to play in regeneration and continuing care.5 Restoring one subsystem can help another—for example, replenishing soil could help remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere on a vast scale.6 But actions that may benefit one subsystem can harm another—for example, planting forests with one type of tree can remove carbon dioxide from the air but can damage the biodiversity that is fundamental to healthy ecosystems.7 https://pjohns.pso-hns.org/index.php/pjohns/article/view/2209nuclear powerwaratomic energyradiationclimate changenature crisis |
| spellingShingle | Kamran Abbasi Parveen Ali Virginia Barbour Thomas Benfield Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo Stephen Hancocks Richard Horton Laurie Laybourn-Langton Robert Mash Peush Sahni Wadeia Mohammad Sharief Paul Yonga Chris Zielinski Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery nuclear power war atomic energy radiation climate change nature crisis |
| title | Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency |
| title_full | Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency |
| title_fullStr | Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency |
| title_full_unstemmed | Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency |
| title_short | Time to Treat the Climate and Nature Crisis as One Indivisible Global Health Emergency |
| title_sort | time to treat the climate and nature crisis as one indivisible global health emergency |
| topic | nuclear power war atomic energy radiation climate change nature crisis |
| url | https://pjohns.pso-hns.org/index.php/pjohns/article/view/2209 |
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