The Climate Crisis is a Public Health Crisis

Individual and Local Action is NOT enough.

It requires decisive top down POLITICAL Action to bring about Systemic FINANCIAL Change (to divert the flow of money from carbon emitting industries to Clean Tech)

The Climate Crisis is not an environmental crisis or an ecological crisis or a crisis for planet earth. The Earth will be fine - don’t worry. This is a Public Health Crisis - a Global Public Health Crisis (don’t take my word for it - see WHO should declare climate change a public health emergency by Andrew Harmer and others in the BMJ). Indeed it is the most serious Public Health crisis ever faced by humanity. And in the same way that other major public health emergencies make us ‘think the unthinkable’ and ‘do the undoable’ (speedy, decisive, radical, often prohibitive, innovative action by government) - so this crisis demands the same, though on a scale never before witnessed.

For decades now governments, corporate CEO’s (and even environmental campaign groups) have sold the narrative that fundamentally this is an issue of individual choice, action and example. Consume less, fly less, drive less, go veggie, do a beach clean, plant a tree, meditate, take up yoga, get involved in a local conservation project etc etc.

All of this stuff is good stuff and makes us feel good. And as a young activist environmental lawyer in the early 1990’s I bought into the idea of ‘Think Global, Act Local’ - the slogan used prominently by Friends of the Earth. And I still like it as a motivator for personal local action. BUT The TRUTH is that none of this is anywhere near enough to actually solve this very BIG, very REAL and very IMMINENT Crisis. Indeed the corporates and their allies in governments have been very happy to spin and pedal the idea that this is a PEOPLE issue - an individual issue - and we are all in this together.

This narrative has to CHANGE.

It is NOT the people’s fault. And the people do NOT have the power to change it quickly enough. It is a MASSIVE FAILURE of PUBLIC HEALTH and FINANCIAL POLICY from successive governments. It is ONLY Governments that have the power to act with the necessary SPEED, DECISIVENESS and REACH to have a realistic chance of stopping the warming of our planet in time and in doing so PROTECT the HEALTH of its people. And if it won’t (and this is where the people do come in) then it should be REPLACED by one that will.

And we know that when governments choose to ACT they can have a massive impact. Indeed we couldn’t have clearer evidence of this than during the Coronovirus Pandemic. The Government has taken the unprecedented (but necessary) peacetime step of locking down society and ‘doing whatever it takes’ to sustain the economy. Time will tell as to where they made the correct decisions or acted far or fast enough but the fact is that this public health emergency provoked the government into throwing out the rule book and doing whatever it takes.

We have another good example in the public places Smoking Ban that was introduced in 2007. Prior to this a ban was unthinkable and for decades the powerful tobacco companies successfully lobbied against change to the status quo. But legislation was finally enacted prohibiting smoking in many public spaces. And I for one am grateful that my children have been able to grow up in a largely smoke free world thanks to this public measure. Further examples include the banning of CFC’s etc in tackling Ozone depletion etc.

The point is that despite what people may think, Governments still have the power to make far reaching radical policy very quickly if they CHOOSE to.

And what (you might ask) is the most important thing that the Government need to do? Well Governments need to act quickly and decisively to ADAPT the FINANCIAL SYSTEM to DIVERT the FLOW OF MONEY (including by the way all OUR trillions of pounds of money tied up in our pensions, savings, investments etc) from the Fossil Fuel industry to the Renewable Energy sector and the technologies that drive it. Simple eh. Well yes the concept is simple. The money is already there and the technology is already there. The execution may need the best political and financial brains to thrash it out (A good starting point is Mark Carney’s article for the IMF ‘Fifty Shades of Green’ along with the work of ShareAction) But the concept and message is simple. And only governments have the ultimate power to make this happen systemically and quickly enough.

AND there is one further thing that needs to happen and soon. A CRIMINAL Law of ECOCIDE. Politicians and CEO’s need to be ultimately accountable on the issue of mass environmental destruction (including carbon emissions). And there is nothing to concentrate the mind more than the prospect of personal criminal liability. The world can no longer afford to let politicians and CEO’s get away with initiating, funding or supporting projects that cause blatant mass environmental destruction (such as the burning of the Amazon rainforest, major pollution incidents etc) by saying that ‘it’s not against the law’. A Criminal Law of ECOCIDE (the mass destruction of the environment) needs to be enacted at international level and leaders in ALL countries of the world need to be subject this law (whether via the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and/or by some other UN or national mechanism). The CULTURE OF business and government at every level and in every country needs to change - to recognise that ECOCIDAL decisions ARE Criminal and affect the PUBLIC HEALTH of us all. For more info and a good starting point on this see the Stop Ecocide International campaign.

So the best thing we THE PEOPLE can do is to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to put pressure on the GOVERNMENT to ACT NOW. Do not let them get off the hook by telling us its our problem. We may be part of the problem, but the SOLUTION lies with government and depends on POLITICAL WILL to force a radical change in CLIMATE CAPITAL.