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Katy Cooper's Blog
Country: United Kingdom
Organisation: C3 Collaborating for Health
Blog link: http://www.3four50.com/blog/katycooper
How should we talk to environmentalists?
9th Nov 2007
I’ve been lucky enough to go to two interesting – and very different – conferences in London this week. The first, 'Environmental Futures 07: Adapting to Change', looked at the effects of climate change. The second was a conference of the Association for the Study of Obesity: ‘Tackling obesities: future choices’. What struck me was that the attendees at the obesity conference appreciated the importance of the environment to lifestyle risk factors and health – but the environmental conference saw the link to health almost exclusively in terms of heatstroke, flooding problems, the spread of diseases such as malaria and bluetongue, etc.
So, we could be latching on to the overlap between environmental issues and public health much more, to persuade the delegates at ‘Environmental Futures 07’ (and elsewhere) that chronic diseases are hugely impacted upon by the environment in which we live. Linking strongly with environmentalists will work to strengthen both cases: the health case and the environmental case. Let’s shout about this (and not just at the Oxford Health Alliance summit in February, which will look at these issues)!
I’d be delighted if 3FOUR50 members would provide input about the different ways that we can link existing environmental concerns to issues around chronic disease. Here are a few to get us started:
1. We are all worried about the impact of increasing car use on emissions. But we should also be saying that encouraging cycling instead of car use will increase physical activity.
2. High air pollution is bad for the environment – and leads to increased heart disease.
3. Allowing the asphalting-over of parks and other outside spaces will increase runoff and lead to flooding. But we should also be saying that tarmac-ed spaces replacing green space could act as a deterrent to stop children (and adults) from running about and getting exercise.
Tell us more!
Current Comments
7. There is an interesting piece in the International Journal of Epidemiology (May 2009) that compares an 'overweight' population with a 'normal' weight population, to give an estimate on the added GHG emissions (food and travel) due to the extra weight. This certainly makes more explicit the need to link the 'green' lobby more closely with and the world of public health! (OxHA has published a news Alert about this:
http://www.oxha.org/alliance-alert/2009-q2-april-june/alert.2009-04-22.2917850658/ )
Posted by Katy Cooper on 22nd Apr 2009
6. Just read a short article about how escalators are not only yet another of the myriad exercise-avoidance devices on offer to us, they are also a surprisingly big drain on the Earth's resources...:
"The estimated 50,000-odd escalators distributed randomly across the United States seem to be a needless drain. The annual electricity use for an escalator is estimated to be 26,450 kilowatt-hours. The average cost of a kilowatt-hour in the United States is 11 cents. The energy requirement for running all of the escalators is about 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours per year. This amount of power would keep almost 500,000 houses powered and costs more than $150 million."
(http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090311/OPINION16/90310071/1004/RSS05)
Posted by Katy Cooper on 12th Mar 2009
4. No CAR DAY for major cities around the world. Everyone on this particular day would have to use public transport, walk, or cycle to their destination.
5. Challenging advertising campaigns. Slogans at petrol/gas stations on the affects of using too much petrol.
Posted by Bala Civis on 7th Dec 2007
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