climate change and human health

2 November 2005

South Downs Health Chairman Quintin Barry says: “This is a timely moment to be looking at these issues and Sir Crispin is one of the country’s leading experts so we are delighted to welcome him to Brighton. We view our links with the Medical School as being extremely important and this is one way in which we cement our relationship.”

Professor Jon Cohen, Dean of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School adds: “It is becoming widely recognised that climate change has an enormous impact on human wellbeing, ranging from droughts to the emergence of new diseases. The Medical School welcomes Sir Crispin and we look forward to hearing his views on a subject that concerns us all.”

‘This is a subject that will touch us all, and our children and grandchildren’ - Quintin Barry DL, Chairman of South Downs Health, who introduced the speaker at the 10th Annual Discourse lecture on 2 November.

Sir Crispin Tickell, GCMG KCVO, opened by observing that ‘a periodical visitor from space would see more climate change in the last 200 years than in the last 2000; and more in the last 20 than the last 200’. While we could look back 8000 years at human impact on the environment, beginning with large scale deforestation, the more recent industrial revolution was a particular turning point.

Sir Crispin spoke of how population growth, land degradation, waste, resource depletion and water pollution must all be seen together. ‘If our society is to survive, we have to see differently – and behave differently.’

The tipping points are happening globally, from the Siberian peat bogs drying out and releasing methane to the melting of the ice on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Results include an increase in vectorborne disease where temperatures have increased, alongside the rodent-carried illnesses associated with flooding. Malaria increased five-fold after an El Niño event. Milder winters have certain positive effects on health, but the warmer temperatures also cause more skin cancer, heat-related deaths and food poisoning. Species extinction will reduce the ‘natural services’ that we take for granted: coral reefs where fish spawn, or creatures that break down waste.

While those who have taken the Hippocratic Oath are often concerned with health at an individual level, we have to break free of ‘conceptual sclerosis’ and think more widely about solutions such as reusing more waste and cutting subsidies on fossil fuels.

‘Hurricane Katrina has already had an electrifying effect on attitudes. We are the only species that could help, but our future is not assured. The human experience could become just an episode.’