Sustainability, Public Health and Health inequalities! - and current - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Sustainability, Public Health and Health inequalities! - and current policy imperatives

Gary McFarlane Director CIEH N. Ireland

Sustainable principles

The Main Determinants of Health

150+ Years of public health

Sustainable systems – the relationships

The Economy Human Society

The Bioshere

Source: Forum for the Future

The times they are a changin…..(???) Bob Dylan

Consumption!

Number of planets needed to sustain countries at current consumption levels

Source: New Economics Foundation, April 2006

India 0.4 China 0.8 Brazil 1.2 Russia 2.4 Germany 2.5 France 3 UK 3.1 US 5.3 1 2 3 4 5 6

The extent to which we depend on others!

Source: New Economics Foundation, April 2006

Global population

1800

• 1 billion

1930

• 2 billion

1960

• 3 billion

1999

• 6 billion

2050

• 9-27 billion

Population is currently increasing by 7 million per month

The environmental consequence of our unsustainable lifestyles – climate change!

This generations broad street pump? The greatest public health threat of our time?

Environmental Impacts?

Pollution – types and causes

• combustion
• noise
• emissions

Air

• discharges
• deposition
• leaching
• abstraction

Water

• spillage
• Illegal dumping
• Old industrial sites/mines/quarries/oil and gas

Land

Resource Depletion

• RENEWABLE

can be replaced by natural processes at a rate comparable to, or faster than, the rate of consumption

• NON RENEWABLE

cannot be produced, re-grown, regenerated, or reused on a scale to sustain the rate of consumption

Biodiversity – a question of balance

• the number and variety of species

in an area

• ecosystem – the interrelationship

between species and their environment

Climate change

• ‘greenhouse effect’ – a natural

phenomenon

• greenhouse gases (GHGs) – trap heat

and warm atmosphere

20

Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by over 30% due to human activities

360 340 320 300 280 260 C02 (ppm) 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 Carbon Dioxide

Degree by degree

(The “incident” pit!)

2 degrees 3 degrees 4,5,6 degrees

Degree by degree! 1 – 2 degrees

• Significant biodiversity impacts
• Heatwaves in europe
• Major impacts on food production
• Water

Conclusion – survivable, but with significant impacts

3 Degrees

• Drought and famine in the tropics and
• subtropics. Conflict (food wars!)
• Massive population shifts
• Australia on fire!
• Storm surges in Europe

BUT MOST CATASTROPHIC OF ALL – the complete obliteration of the Amazon

4 Degrees

• Continuing sea level rise forces millions

more people onto the move.

• Collapse of china’s food system
• Australia – virtually unihabitable with

nowhere left that will support agriculture

• UK – summer temps of 45 degrees

SIBERIAN ROULETTE

5 Degrees

• No ice sheets; no rainforests; and much
• f coastal areas gone – an

unrecognisable planet!

• All out War (for habitable land)
• The return of the hunter gatherer
• A “cull” of the human race – billions of

deaths

6 Degrees

• Methane explosions and subsequent

fireballs from the ocean floor

• Hydrogen sulphide poisoning
• Mass extinction
• The obliteration of Homo sapiens?

Choosing our future

Degree Change Action needed CO2 Target 1 degree Avoidance probably not possible 350 ppm (todays level around 384 ppm) 2 degrees Peak global emissions by 2015 400 ppm 3 degrees Peak global emissions by 2030 450 ppm 4 degrees Peak global emissions by 2050 550 ppm 5 degrees Allow constantly rising emissions 650 ppm 6 degrees Allow very high emissions 800 ppm

Climate change – a health warning!?

PREDICTED INCREASES IN:

• cold related deaths.

(20,000 per yr)

• Heat related summer deaths

(2800 per yr)

• Food poisoning

(10000 per yr)

• Skin cancer

(5000 cases per year)

• cataracts

(2000 per year)

• Increase in insect and water borne diseases.
• Increased risk from disasters

(gales; coastal flooding)

It looks like war and it is! – although they are not soldiers but rather health workers fumigating the streets of Kolkotta against the number

• ne enemy, the malaria mosquito. Increasing temperatures speed up

parasite development in the mosquito increasing the chance of transmission

FACT: Blue tongue disease, previously unheard of in the British Isles, is now caused by ticks previously unrecorded there……what will countries inherit in the future due to vector changes?

Current knowledge suggests that climatic changes since the 1970s may already be causing over 150,000 deaths annually.

World Health Organisation

In 2003 there was a summer heat wave in Europe – on average the temperature was 2.3 degrees C above the “norm.” In Paris, in August 2003, over 10,000 people, most of them elderly or marginalised, died! A “2 degree world” is highly likely – even if we manage to achieve an 80 -90% reduction in Carbon emissions by 2050. SO - If we don’t it will be more than 2 degrees (3? 4?.....6 if we keep

• n as we are)

The consequences?

UNTHINKABLE

Demographics

• More older people (living younger lives!)

2021

• 12 million over 65
• Fewer under 25s
• Immigration (and refugees)

Indicative population potentially displaced by current sea-level trends to 2050. Extreme > 1 million people displaced High 1 million to 50,000 people displaced Medium 50,000 to 5,000 people displaced

Low-lying deltas represent large populations exposed to flood risk

“Among influences which largely affect the national statistics of disease and death, few are greater than poverty.”

John Simon, Medical Officer of Health, 1897

“The wide and increasing social differential in premature illness and death should be a matter of serious public concern. Today the question is not whether the facts of these differentials are valid but rather who cares and what can be done about them”.

Sir Donald Acheson, Chief Medical Officer 1983-91

Health inequalities and climate change

Deprivation increases vunerability to climate change and climate change increases deprivation

Differential Social Impacts of Climate Change in UK: SNIFFER: January 2009

Climate change affects everyone. But not equally!

Fatalities due to weather related events 1991 - 2001

16864 14912 4515 30068 10 3 362 159 4230 690 14 1298 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 China India Pakistan Venezuala UK Ireland USA Number of deaths Extreme temp Floods

In this sense it is yet another perverse, socially unjust, consequence of an excessive lifestyle visited on those who have the least by those who have the most

OUR FOOD SYSTEM! – a case study in unsustainability, ill health, and inequity!

Lifestyle and choice

• Working mothers
• “Dashboard

dining”

• Global

foodbaskets

I’ll ask the babysitter to get a take-away for the Kids!

Global food demand will double between now and 2050 as world population reaches 9.2 billion

World Economic Forum 2010

The number of farmers within the UK is decreasing dramatically and the UK is less self sufficient in food than ever before

BBC Farm Matters 2010

The looming food crisis – security of supply and price

Examples of ecologically wasteful trade - madness? or good economics?

Product Imports (tonnes) Exports (tonnes)

Gingerbread 465 460 Fresh boneless chicken 44,000 51,000 Chocolate covered waffles 17,200 17,600 Milk and cream 10,200 9,900 Potatoes 1500 1500

Source: uktradeinfo 2005

Economics

The Economy Human Society

The Bioshere

Source: Forum for the Future

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding, economist

“Every Society clings to a myth by which it lives;

• urs is the myth of economic progress.”

Chasing Progress, New Economics Foundation

10.7 million children do not live to see their fifth birthday. Many die for want of a simple anti mosquito bed net One fifth of humanity live in countries where many people think nothing of spending $2 a day on a capuccino. More than 1 billion people survive in abject poverty on less than $1 a day. The highest level of dissatisfaction (contentment and wellbeing) and emotional distress are in the richest countries in the world like the US and UK

IPCC climate change report: averting catastrophe is eminently affordable

Landmark UN analysis concludes global roll-out of clean energy would shave

• nly a tiny fraction off economic growth

The Guardian, Sunday 13 April 2014 11.19 BST

The current policy course!?

• we need to reduce the amount of resources

we consume and the pollutants and greenhouse gases we emit – at the same time and combined with rebuilding a new economy.

• we need to adapt - our buildings; our

environment; our agricultural systems; our communities to be better prepared for change – it is coming!!

The imperatives!

• It is possible to live long,

happy lives with a much smaller environmental impact

• Countries with the same

ecological footprint can produce lives of greatly differing length and well being

• Countries similar in life

expectancy and satisfaction can differ enormously in environmental impact

The Happy Planet Index - NEF

“Reciprocal Maintenance”

– we need to look after the things that look after us!

Only when the last tree is cut;

• nly when the last river is polluted;
• nly when the last fish is caught;
• nly then will they realise that you

cannot eat money.

Cree Tribe (circa 1860)

We must learn to live together as brothers

• r else perish

together as fools.

Martin Luther King

It doesn’t matter to which god you pray. Precious time is slippin away

Van Morrison