Research in the context of the climate emergency

It was a pleasure to read the article ‘Planetary health and primary care: what’s the emergency?’¹ in this month’s BJGP. I fully support the content presented but have one addition. As rightly stated in the article, ‘we can no longer say we do not know what we are doing’; however, instead we all too often opt for not saying anything at all.

Even as a genuine threat to our very existence, with impacts already being felt globally, the climate emergency and ecological breakdown are rarely mentioned in the background or acknowledgements of research publications and presentations. When we consider the potential impact of scientific developments that aim to extend the quantity and quality of lives well into future, we must also acknowledge that, given our current trajectory, such a future may not even exist.

As such, I propose a further action that we ‘need to do now’. In line with Extinction Rebellion’s first demand, we must ‘tell the truth’: the climate emergency and ecological breakdown should be acknowledged and included as context for interpreting research results, for example, by adding content along the lines of ‘the potential impact of this research is only possible if the climate emergency and ecological breakdown is urgently addressed’. Silence has become actively misleading.

• © British Journal of General Practice 2020