Volume 200 - Issue 2
Climate change and diabetes: averting two linked catastrophes
Authors: Rosalie Schultz and Peter Tait
Med J Aust 2014; 200 (2): 87. || doi: 10.5694/mja13.11163
Published online: 3 February 2014
Published online: 3 February 2014
To the Editor: Zimmet draws attention to the looming catastrophe of diabetes.1 However, there is a concomitant health catastrophe - climate change, “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.2
We believe that it is not useful to argue whether diabetes or climate change is a greater threat to health. Rather, diabetes and climate change are predictable manifestations of contemporary human ecosystems:
The conjoined processes of ...
To the Editor: Zimmet draws attention to the looming catastrophe of diabetes.1 However, there is a concomitant health catastrophe — climate change, “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.2
We believe that it is not useful to argue whether diabetes or climate change is a greater threat to health. Rather, diabetes and climate change are predictable manifestations of contemporary human ecosystems:
The conjoined processes of industrialisation, urbanisation, modernisation and the rise of consumer culture have influenced both . . . food energy intake and . . . physical activity . . . From this perspective the problem is primarily one of a systemic change in our way of living, rather than a consequence of defective individual behaviour.3
Obesity, with its pathological consequences, including diabetes, and climate change have “similar environmental aetiology, based in modern human lifestyles and their driving economic forces”.4
Our lifestyles and the economic forces behind them are driven by fossil fuels rather than agricultural or other renewable sources of energy. As a result, we perform less physical activity, and greenhouse gases are emitted to support our lifestyles and the economy in which we live.3 The industrialisation of food production was made possible by fossil fuels. This has increased the volume of agricultural output and reduced costs, enabling increased consumption of energy-rich, nutrient-poor food.5 Rising rates of obesity, diabetes and greenhouse gas emissions are an inevitable result.2,3
Therefore, effective control of diabetes and climate change at the global population level requires common strategic action.4 This includes:
increasing local food production;
designing cities and transport systems for sociability and physical activity; and
regulaton of corporations to support rather than undermine health and sustain rather than damage the environment.
These strategies will increase physical activity, improve nutrition and reduce our level of fossil fuel use.2
Governments, corporations and the professions must lead societal action to avert the looming catastrophes of diabetes and climate change. Individual clinical and household responses will complement and follow effective leadership. We as health professionals must work strategically and collaboratively to both prevent diabetes and reduce the potential impact of climate change.
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- Zimmet PZ. Can we avert a diabetes catastrophe in Australia? Med J Aust 2013; 199: 225-256. 0_CBBGCEGI
- Costello A, Abbas M, Allen A, et al. Managing the health effects of climate change: Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission. Lancet 2009; 373: 1693-1733. 0_i1142884
- McMichael AJ. Will considerations of environmental sustainability revitalise the policy links between the urban environment and health? N S W Public Health Bull 2007; 18: 41-45. 0_CBBCGBHB
- Egger G. Dousing our inflammatory environment(s): is personal carbon trading an option for reducing obesity – and climate change? Obes Rev 2008; 9: 456-463. 0_i1142888
- Franck C, Grandi SM, Eisenberg MJ. Agricultural subsidies and the American obesity epidemic. Am J Prev Med 2013; 45: 327-333. 0_i1142890