Introducing -
IDE Committee &
Working Group Chairs 2020 - 2021
After a successful Zoom Meeting AGM held at the beginning of the month, we are delighted with the response and the commitment of old and new members for the upcoming Committee and Working Groups.
As an organisation (which is still finding its feet amongst the busy lives of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals), we encourage anyone to join us. The committee roles laid out are to ensure better communication with email & contact organisations, along with the running and maintenance of website, social media and the other aspects of IDE upkeep.
We would love for doctors, nurses and all allied health groups to get in touch around various activities, health education, active transport, interesting reads and other climate and environment related thoughts and activities ongoing in your own hospital / community and locality.
If you like the look of a group - reach out! The hardest step can be the first. You may be surprised how much you will learn about the climate crisis.
Currently, our medical education through journal clubs, grand rounds and masterclasses are online or on hold - however we would encourage further education on climate health, as WHO have outlined it as one of global health's biggest threats, while the Lancet portrays it also as our "biggest opportunity" to improve health through addressing climate change.
Our student ambassadors will be recruiting medical students during the year - please do join us in improving our health systems to ensure they are climate resiliant and as citizens that we become more environmentally focused in our lives.
|
|
Some members. of IDE Active Transport Group
From Dublin to Cork to Galway IDE are supportive and encouraging the bicycle lanes which continue to provide safe cycling for commuters. Active transport has numerous benefits, including improving heart health, weight loss and mental health benefits.
|
|
Time to Walk Our Children to School?
The workplace changes and reduced employment evident since the start of the Covid19 crisis have prompted many of us to spend more time at home. Since the onset of the school year, it is of welcome relief to note reduced traffic compared to previous times for those dropping children to school or crèche.
This Covid-era which urges working from home may also present more flexibility to consider walking our children to school. Most school gates have a “UN convoy” phenomenon at school times given the SUVs and people carriers that crowd these spaces. A recent Irish study demonstrated that parents’ cars were previously reported as causing up to 117% of air pollution outside schools. Any child walking, cycling or scooting to school is directly affected by the NO2 , CO 2 and SO 2 emitted, particularly diesel and larger cars.
The EEA’s 2018 ‘Air quality in Europe’ report showed that, while strong policies and local actions have helped decrease levels of pollution in Europe’s cities, most Europeans living in urban areas still suffer from pollutant levels that are above the World Health Organization’s recommendations for the protection of human health.
Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental exposures since they are still in development. Air pollution effects on the respiratory (such as asthma and reduced lung function) and cardiovascular system are well established but, more recently researchers are investigating the potential effects of air pollution on brain development (and cognitive
decline).
The BREATHE project (Brain Development and Air Pollution Ultrafine Particles in School Children), conducted in Barcelona estimated residential fine particulate matter exposures by land-use regression for the prenatal period and first seven postnatal years of 2,221 children. In previous publications, they reported a deceleration over a year in the
development of working memory and reduced attentiveness among children attending schools with a high concentration of traffic-related air pollution in comparison with children in less-polluted schools. Reduced attentiveness was also associated with short-term exposures to such pollutants.
The individual, local and global benefits of promoting active travel for our children are well known to us all. School Streets have been a major success in the UK and recently too in Bishopstown, Malahide and Westport. These exclusion zones help limit the traffic that is allowed to pass by schools and create a safer, cleaner route to school.
The recent efforts to create cycle lanes across Dublin bay have had considerable success, but only because of significant engagement with all stakeholders- including residents and the business community. While most of us are in agreement with the principles and benefits of active transport, a passive acknowledgement will not suffice.
Get involved!
Advocate for our children!
Engage with the local school parents’ association!
Derek T Cawley MMSc MCh FRCS
Full article and references will be uploaded to IDE Blog -
|
|
September Read
[Free access for 2 weeks only]
Tessa Khan is an international human rights and climate change lawyer and co‐director of the Climate Litigation Network (CLN), a project of the Urgenda Foundation.
Mary Robinson is chair of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, who work together for peace, justice and human rights. Mary was the first female president of Ireland (1990–1997) and is a former United Nations high commissioner for human rights (1997–2002).
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/newe.12203
"The challenges facing the world might seem unsurmountable, but though the pandemic has caused disruption in all walks of life I remain an optimist – I believe there are lessons on global cooperation we can draw from the pandemic. While Covid‐19 has demonstrated the dangers of sidelining the science, it has also provided us with examples of what can be achieved when we work together. The only sustainable solutions to both the coronavirus pandemic and to the pressing global climate crisis are ones where the world works together."
We would also like to thank the Nelson Foundation for following IDE on Twitter this week! Be sure to follow us for all the up to date IDE activities across the country - @irishdocsenv
|
|
|
"To walk through a forest uncharacteristically barren of snow in wintertime, or through a hospital ward dominated by older and chronically ill patients, is to witness two of the greatest challenges of our time: the degradation of the Earth’s ecosystems and the shift in human disease towards that driven by our lifestyles and our surroundings. Both challenges are inseparable: climate change, ecosystem destruction, massive losses in biodiversity, a warming ocean, soil degradation, and pollution are wreaking havoc on our planet and sickening us." - Lancet Global Health - Human health and environmental sustainability: the 21st century's grand challenges
|
|
|
|
|
