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It is good to see the climate change emergency highlighted in this article1 and also in several other articles in the July issue of the BJGP.2 Climate change and global heating are the biggest public health disaster that we have ever known, affecting everyone on the planet. Everyone working in health can play a part in reducing carbon emissions, whether at home, changing how they work or travel, by ‘greening’ processes in their workplaces, and by putting pressure on our elected governments locally and nationally to treat this issue as the emergency that it is.
Medical journals also have a huge potential to assist change. I propose that every article has a heading and a few words about the climate impact of the issue it talks about, in particular the effect on emissions. For example, the article about unnecessary measurements of inflammatory markers in this same issue suggests that in the study population many hundreds of GP and phlebotomy appointments and many referrals could have been avoided. That represents considerable emissions from transport, disposables, heating, and lighting. This important saving in emissions should be highlighted.
Almost everything we do in health care affects the wider environment. Let’s hear about our impact and what we can do to reduce it in every edition of the BJGP.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2019
