The BMJ Opinion: For healthy people, we need a healthy planet
In this post, Josh Karliner, international director of program and strategy for Health Care Without Harm, and Mandeep Dhaliwal, director of HIV, health and development at the United Nations Development Programme, discuss a new report from Health Care Without Harm and the engineering firm Arup examining health care’s global climate footprint. The authors write, “The gains we have made in protecting and promoting human health, such as bringing hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world over the past half century, remain under threat as the planet’s basic life support systems begin to destabilize. … It’s time to think of a solution that takes this two-fold challenge of population and planetary health into account. To achieve a healthier world, the health sector must take action now to combat climate change…” (10/28).