Planetary Health

Planetary health care and Barbara Starfield´s legacy:

https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjgh/2021/06/10/planetary-health-care/

One Chance Left

As part of the University of Exeter's Green Futures campaign, we have brought together a sequence of new poems written by scientists, health professionals and a poet from the University of Exeter and the Met Office. Powerful poetry connects disciplines, research, communities, and emotions in diverse and challenging ways; poetry provokes questions, motivates positive change, and reveals what is most valuable.​

Find out more: https://greenfutures.exeter.ac.uk/one-chance-left/

Poetry Power: A New Energy in Climate Communications

At the Met Office COP26 science pavilion, ‘Hot Poets’ and ‘One Chance Left’ presented complementary ways that scientists, health professionals and poets can work together to communicate climate science and impacts through poetry to COP26 and the public. This event introduced the projects and featured poems from both poets and scientists.

You can watch the live stream on the Met Office – Science and Services YouTube Channel.

2. Waking up to the planetary health emergency webinars – University of Exeter 2020

The profound environmental damage we are inflicting on this planet, our common home, is adversely affecting the health of those alive today. And the damage we have already done will continue to impact on human health and wellbeing for many generations to come. The geo-biological changes we have initiated will persist for many centuries. We are already locked-in to that change. The actions we collectively take in the next few years will not only determine the future for our own species, but the future for the entire biosphere. This is a planetary health emergency.

You can now watch the webinar series below to learn about and reflect on the most pressing health challenge our species has ever faced. Engage with experts to understand what our individual and collective responsibilities should be and how even small changes may have big effects. The stakes could not be higher. The actions taken by those of us alive today will determine the future health and wellbeing for generations of humanity and the survival of many other species on our planet.

• Webinar 1: Ecotoxicology: sitting on a time bomb by Professor Charles Tyler and Water - friend or foe? How to build resilience to global threats by Professor David Butler

• Webinar 2: Round and round – can the economy be more like biology? by Professor Peter Hopkinson and What can society earn form the past? by Professor Amanda Power

• Webinar 3: Human Migration: Facing coronavirus in a refugee camp. The impact of COVID-19 on Paletinian refugees villages by Cevdet Acu and Hot air and cold feet: Is campaigning good for health? By Dr Ben Eder and Rob Abrams

• Webinar 4: Waking up to psychological aspects of the climate and environmental emergency: trauma, power, threat and meaning by Annie Mitchell and Behaving and Believing by Professor David Horrell

• Webinar 5: The Stuff of Health: thinking in a more rounded way by John Malloch and Eat well for the planet by Rosemary Martin

• Webinar 6: Systems thinking and tipping points for planetary health by Professor Tim Lenton and Delivering the world's first carbon net zero health service by Dr Nick Watts

3. Riptide volume 13: Climate Matters

Climate Matters is the Riptide Journal’s thirteenth volume and was produced and published to coincide with the launch of the ‘Waking up to the planetary health emergency’ 2020 webinar series. A burning issue of our time – the climate crisis – is the central theme of this collection of short stories, poetry, images and science writing. Many of the contributors ponder the links between our relentless drive to consume, our disrespect for the natural world and its disastrous effect on the climate and the survival of humanity. In a range of ways they question the role that capitalism plays and the need for a redefinition of what constitutes a good life. COVID-19’s appearance during the selection process means the pandemic and issues of health – both individual and planetary – play their part in the whole.

Download a pdf copy of this publication here.