I have just returned from the high Arctic,
having done a circumnavigation of Spitsbergen, the largest of the islands
making up Svalbard. We called at a number of the other islands, and saw
stunning ice scenes, mountains, glaciers, and polar bears, walrus, reindeer….
Svalbard is about as far north as you can go, and is on a level with the top
of Greenland. It was a huge privilege to have the money, time and ability to
get there and to see it for myself. For me, wild places are essential to my
ability to function in the modern world and the world of work; it’s what I want
to do in my free time. I’m aware of course of what a luxury that is, and the
danger of these areas being playgrounds for the rich. The paradox often, is
that tourism destroys the wildness that we seek; I went with an
environmentally-conscious and allegedly ‘responsible’ tour operator. The
Association of Artic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO) is an international
association aiming to manage responsible and environmentally-friendly cruise
operations in the Arctic and to educate those who visit about the issues facing
this amazing part of the world. It undertakes studies to assess the impact on
wildlife, the cultures and people and environment, in the hope of minimizing
unwanted impacts.
Tourism however, is a complex area, and I’m
not going into it here. (I do supervise a PhD student looking at pro-poor
tourism in The Gambia, and that could be the subject of another blog…) Apart
from being important to me, the Arctic is essential to the health of everyone
in the world. Everyone on the planet depends on the health of the Arctic. It is
what keeps the planet cool – the ice reflects the sun’s rays off its ice, thus
acting like a giant air-conditioner. However, we know that the Arctic is
heating up twice as fast as anywhere else.
Glaciologists have noted the seventh
successive summer of a pattern of warm air circulating on the ice sheet of
Greenland, and earlier this month, over only four days, a rapid melting took
place over 97% of the surface of Greenland. NASA was so surprised at the
findings that it first questioned the instrumentation, but the results have
since been confirmed. Although conditions returned to normal by a couple of
weeks later, it was highly unusual, as was the breaking off of a huge iceberg
(about the size of Manhattan island) from the Petermann Glacier. There are periods of natural rapid thawing
occurring about every 150 years, but there is no doubt that some of the well-documented
trends are due to human-made global warming. About a fifth of the annual sea
level rise (at the moment about 3mm) is due to the Greenland ice sheet melting. The National Centre for Atmospheric Science
at Reading University in England has recently published studies carried out by
Dr. Jonny Day, which concludes that more than 70% of the decline in sea ice is
due to human activity, and could be up to 95%. They have compared the variability
in the extent of ice over its natural cycle (a cycle of cooling and warming
which occurs every 60 to 80 years), using computer simulations to see what
would have happened without the input of greenhouse gases. The frightening
thing is that as the ice melts, the effect accelerates (the ice-albedo feedback
effect), with the sea absorbing even more radiation and therefore warming
faster. Prof. Peter Wadhams from the
University of Cambridge predicts that all ice might be lost during the summer
months from the Arctic Ocean by 2016. His views are mentioned in the newspaper
article highlighted below.
The burning of fossil fuels, is of course
one of key contributors to global warming, and the Arctic is now under threat
itself from the scramble to find more fuel resources. The reduction in ice
means the area is more opened up to exploration. This article of July 21st
explores the issues:
The rush to extract resources from the
Arctic is being spearheaded by companies that already have poor records for environmental
pollution. According to Greenpeace Russia, at least 300,000 to 500,000 tonnes
of oil leaks into the Arctic Ocean every year from on-land drilling. The oil
industry has polluted major water bodies such as Lake Baikal and its
surrounding waterways, meaning that locals cannot catch fish or use water for
drinking. The key Russian-owned company, Gazprom, is now expanding north into
even more risky waters. It has established a second rig in the Pechora Sea off
Siberia this year, in an area surrounded by wildlife sanctuaries and national
parks. Greenpeace has been holding up icebreakers en route to the Arctic in
advance of the drilling ships and have also started a campaign to establish a
global sanctuary in the uninhabited area around the North Pole. The goal is to
get the UN to designate it as a protected area for the sake of the health of
the planet. Greenpeace also calls for a ban on offshore drilling and
unsustainable fishing in the Arctic. The campaign is at:
It seems clear that the Arctic is a huge
part of the problem of global warming and therefore a major part of finding
solutions. Greenpeace’s actions are therefore welcome in an age where governments
and the UN seem to be taking action too slowly, and where they have conflicting
agendas.
How the health promotion community responds
to these issues is vital. Of course, people can take action in their
personal lives, and as with any community, opinions will vary as to how
seriously to take the threats of global warming. However, as health
practitioners, our responsibilities to get involved are to me, very clear.
Jenny Griffiths in the UK is perhaps the best-known advocate on the role of
health practitioners on climate change. With three other editors, she has
produced “The Health Practitioner’s Guide to Climate Change, Diagnosis and
Cure”, a packed book of 350 pages on understanding climate change, but more importantly,
on how to take steps to tackle it. It’s a practical book explaining how we can
take action within the compass of our own work lives and practice. Health
promotion is the professional area of practice that can persuade people to take action on something as important as
climate change. Chapter 7 uses Mahatma Gandhi’s saying “Be the change you want
to see in the world” to encourage us as health workers to make changes in our
own lives, and then other chapters tackle organizational change, community
change and so on. It’s an essential book
to help to start organizing your own response to these dire environmental challenges.
Meanwhile, who or what within the epistemic
health promotion community is taking the lead on the threat to the health of
the planet? Please use the 'comments' option in this blog to add your views.
Reference:
Griffiths, J., Rao, M., Adshead, F., and
Thorpe, A. (2009) The Health Practitioner’s Guide to Climate Change, Diagnosis
and Cure. Earthscan.
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