Climate Conversations

In this episode of Climate Conversations, former and current Operations Officers of Irish Doctors for the Environment, Dr Ola Løkken Nordrum and Orlagh Gaynor, come together to discuss the power of storytelling in shaping climate action. Orlagh shares a climate fiction story she wrote for a live storytelling event, offering a glimpse of a hopeful future that could be realised if our leaders took bold, brave action today. We reflect on the inspiration behind the story and the need for a shared vision of hope to aim towards, alongside the uncomfortable lifestyle changes and ambitious action required to break the status quo. Because when it comes to safeguarding our future, business as usual cannot continue.

In this episode of Climate Conversations we discuss all things sustainability in healthcare with three international leaders in the field: Dr John Bonning, past president of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Dr Rosa McNamara - Clinical Lead for the National Clinical Programme for Emergency Medicine in Ireland and Dr Ola Nordrum, HSE Healthcare sustainability fellow and past Operations Officer for Irish Doctors for the Environment charity. We discuss how sustainable healthcare can deliver the triple wins of improved patient care, lower costs and lower emissions. Which, in an era of rising demand, shrinking budgets and worsening climate chaos, is no longer optional, but essential. A must listen for all healthcare workers looking for a viable path forward in these tumultuous times.

Professor Karyn Morrissey, Co-author of the Lancet Commissions Countdown on Climate Change and Human Health since 2016, sits down with IDE's Dr Lisa McNamee to talk about why an economist is interested in climate change.

Karyn is Professor in Environment and Marine, at the University of Galway. She is an economist and econometrician by training who uses her skillset to study the economic drivers of, and socioeconomic and health impacts of climate change, particularly in our oceans and coastal environments. Here Karyn has linked her work on public health and marine and coastal economics to understand the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on the marine environment on society, and the changes needed to make human-marine interactions more sustainable.

Edited by Dr Jan Steiner

Interviewer Dr Lisa McNamee

Dr Niamh Shaw is an explorer, scientist, performer and European Space Agency education champion. She talks to IDE's Dr Lisa McNamee about how the lessons from spaceflight and Antarctica can teach us about sustainability on Earth and about her inspiring, squiggly career to date.

This month on Climate Conversations we have a special episode: emergency medicine doctors Callum and Johnny work on resuscitating not just one patient, but the entire planetary ecosystem.

Planet Earth has come to the Emergency Department in a critical condition and there's no time to waste. With dangerous levels of air pollution, rising global temperatures, escalating extreme weather events, threats to global food and water security and a rapidly closing window to act - this is a health emergency, beyond any doubt.

The episode features a special guest , the outstanding Professor Hugh Montgomery. Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at University College London and co-chair of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, Hugh is leading the healthcare world on climate action.

And for those listeners who don't have a healthcare background, fear not, because although we are using the analogy of a sick patient to frame this episode the subject matter is all climate related.

Enjoy!

Paul Handrick from The Bee Sanctuary of Ireland is a fantastic wildlife and wild spaces advocate, a genuinely nice person and a prolific tweeter/public educator on Irish bees and wildlife. The Bee Sanctuary is truly unique, the only one in the world.

You can find out more at: https://savingbees.ie

You can follow his work at twitter:

https://twitter.com/the_beeguy?lang=en

You can read about his journey here:

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2023/08/06/the-wicklow-couple-who-have-created-the-worlds-only-wild-bee-sanctuary/

But probably best to go and see him on his farm!

Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI), in collaboration with the HSE and the Irish College of GPs, is running a GreenTech in healthcare call for innovative products and services that promote environmental sustainability in primary and secondary healthcare.

GreenTech in healthcare represents a growing movement within the global health industry to adopt environmentally sustainable technologies and practices, aiming to improve health outcomes while minimising ecological footprints.

Eimear Galvin and Roisin Breen join Lisa to discuss this exciting call.

Eimear is HIHI Manager, based at Trinity College Dublin and St James’s Hospital. Eimear leads the delivery of the national HIHI Knowledge Network, which is designed to support industry innovators and accelerate innovation in the Irish health system. Roisin Breen is a physiotherapist working on climate change and sustainability issues with the HSE, leading the implementation of the HSE’s Climate Action Strategy.

See https://hih.ie/engage/greentech/greentech-call/ for more information... and to make your submission!

Baby Feeding Law Group Ireland (BFLGI) is a volunteer organisation that advocates the protection of the right to good health of all infants, young children, mothers, parents, and families by addressing practices that commercialise infant and young child feeding, threaten breastfeeding and undermine good health.

You can find out more about the Baby Feeding Law Group Ireland at their website:

⁠⁠https://bflgireland.ie/⁠

And to mark National Breastfeeding Week, check out this article, endorsed by BFLGI, with top tips to improve breastfeeding rates:

⁠www.echolive.ie/corkviews/arid-41486915.html⁠

Dr Aoife Long has a PhD in renewable gas policy from UCC and is a member of the Baby Feeding Law Group. Her own challenges with breastfeeding led to her looking into the sustainability of breastfeeding, which ultimately became part of her research.

Dr Sarah Brennan is a GP specialising in women's health and breastfeeding. She is co-chair of the Baby Feeding Law Group, on the European Association of Breastfeeding Medicine board, and a University lecturer currently on sabbatical.

Sarah and Aoife tell us about the co-benefits for health for both the baby and mother and the climate benefits.

You can see an example of Aoife's novel research here:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965262103465X

See a fantastic personal piece on the importance of breastfeeding from the point of view of a clinician and mother:

⁠https://www.medicalindependent.ie/comment/prof-gabrielle-colleran/why-breastfeeding-support-matters/⁠

Finally, DeSmog recently published an article detailing how the industry is consistently influencing policy:

⁠⁠https://www.desmog.com/2024/09/25/mapped-ireland-powerful-farming-lobby/⁠

Alan is a retired psychiatrist living in Tipperary. He is the secretary of Hedgerows Ireland and believes that our hedgerows have never been more important as we face urgent and mounting climate and biodiversity challenges. His group is allied to a range of other stakeholders, including farmers, beekeepers and birdwatchers who share a common interest in these vital landscape features. 

For more information visit ⁠https://hedgerowsireland.org/⁠

How does sheltered housing, private nursing home care and single handed GP practice relate to climate change?

Can keeping care in the community, endorsing general practice with schemes to retain GPs rural areas and on islands be a form of carbon capture? Is the model of care described here the missing link in the perennial trolley crisis and demographic cliff edge we face as we head towards 2050?

In this episode of Climate Conversations we talk to Dr Jerry Cowley who has been championing rural healthcare and care closer to home for his entire career as a Co. Mayo GP. By keeping his patients cared for in their own communities, he has not only protected local hospital services, he has allowed patients to live with dignity and in familiar environments, all the while bolstering the resilience of the community in which he works.

Jerry is much more than a GP as his bio below details. Please enjoy this conversation and see if you can relate his frustrations with corporate care, an uneven playing field, hospital overcrowding to how we might deal with escalating healthcare emissions, the trolley crisis and climate change.
Dr Jerry Cowley was a single- handed family doctor in rural general practice in Mulranny, Co. Mayo for the last 43 years. He retired from the GMS on 01/01/2024 but has stayed on -call for St Brendan’s Village in Mulranny.  He is a member of the ICGP and the RCGP. He is an honours law graduate as well as a qualified barrister. He is a co-founder and former chairman of the National Federation of Group Water Schemes and a former Vice-President of the Irish Council for Social Housing. He was an Independent TD for County Mayo from 2002 to 2007. He founded and led the successful campaigns for a Mayo Orthopaedic Unit, as well as for a National Irish Helicopter Emergency Medical Service, and for better cancer services including the extension of the Breast Check program to the West and South of Ireland. He has been a strong advocate of providing local rural services to retain local populations, and is the founder and former chairman and now Life President of the “not-for-profit” registered charity Safe Home Ireland (National Repatriation Centre for Ireland) which has to date with the support of the Irish government’s Emigrant Support Program assisted the permanent repatriation of 2250 long term Irish emigrants to return to a place as near as possible from where they left originally after years of emigration. He also is the founder and chairman of St. Brendan’s Village which is another “not-for-profit” charity and recognized as a model of good practice worthy of replication of supporting older people to stay in the place where they have spent most or all of their lives and have the support of family and friends. He is founder and chairman of the Rural Island & Dispensing Doctors of Ireland which held its 36th Annual Conference in Ballinasloe Co Galway  in October 2023 and co-hosted World Rural WONCA with the ICGP and School of Medicine UL in June 2022. He is fully supported by his beautiful wife Teresa (the better half of his brain) and his family of five children as well as the local community. His other passion is traditional Achill yawl racing (all of 26 foot long with one lug sail and no engine) which is the original of the wooden sailing boat species. He received the Dr Fiona Bradley AUDGPI award in 2014. He was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Medicine, honoris causa, by the University of Galway in November 2022 in recognition of his lifelong commitment to supporting rural communities