Over 200 Health Journals Ask WHO to Declare ‘Global Health Emergency’ Citing Climate Change

Small figurines are seen in front of the World Health Organization logo in this illustration taken on Febr. 11, 2022. Dado Ruvic/Reuters

More than 200 health journals have simultaneously published an editorial calling on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the “climate and nature crisis” as a global health emergency, even as many scientists challenge the environmentalist propaganda.

“The world is currently responding to the climate crisis and the nature crisis as if they were separate challenges. This is a dangerous mistake,” said the Oct. 25 editorial, as published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). “The World Health Organization should declare the indivisible climate and nature crisis as a global health emergency.” The editorial claimed that climate change is set to “overtake deforestation and other land use change as the primary driver of nature loss.”

The “indivisible planetary crisis” will result in shortages of land, shelter, food, and water, thereby worsening poverty and leading to mass migration and conflict, it said.

“Rising temperatures, extreme weather events, air pollution, and the spread of infectious diseases are some of the major health threats exacerbated by climate change.”

Furthermore, the report claimed that (a) pollution has damaged water quality and triggered an increase in waterborne diseases, (b) there has been a “striking loss” of genetic diversity in food systems, which threatens access to good nutrition, and (c) thousands of species are coming into close contact due to changes in land use, increasing the exchange of pathogens and opening up the path for new diseases and pandemics to emerge.

In December last year, the UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties (COP) agreed on the effective conservation and management of at least 30 percent of the world’s land, coastal areas, and oceans by 2030. However, “many commitments made at COPs have not been met,” the editorial stated.

“This has allowed ecosystems to be pushed further to the brink, greatly increasing the risk of arriving at ‘tipping points’—abrupt breakdowns in the functioning of nature,” it said. “If these events were to occur, the impacts on health would be globally catastrophic.”

“The three preconditions for WHO to declare a situation to be a public health emergency of international concern are that it is serious, sudden, unusual, or unexpected; carries implications for public health beyond the affected state’s national border; and may require immediate international action. Climate change seems to fulfill all those conditions.”

In addition to BMJ, other publications that are among the 200 journals publishing the editorial include The Lancet, JAMA, The National Medical Journal of India, MJA, and East African Medical Journal.

The editorial comes as more than 1,800 scientists and professionals from across the world recently signed a joint World Climate Declaration stating that “there is no climate emergency.” The declaration was published by the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL), an independent foundation operating in the field of climate change and policy.

The declaration pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said. “Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.”

The declaration rubbished the idea that carbon dioxide (CO2) is damaging the environment. Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide, it said.

Flourishing Nature

Claims of climate change harming the environment have been challenged by many experts. In a Sept. 29 article at CLINTEL, Joanne Nova, a graduate of Molecular Biology, pointed out that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—the largest reef system in the world—has now seen “two bumper years of record high coral cover.”

Climate change alarmists used to highlight the declining coral cover as a sign of environmental damage caused by the changing climate.

In 2012, the coral cover in the Great Barrier Reef was so poor that it was less than half of the recent numbers. But since then, the reef has rapidly grown despite claims of rising CO2, supposedly warmer oceans, and rising sea levels.

A green turtle on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, on July 13, 2021. Melanie Sun/The Epoch Times

Another narrative spread by alarmists is that climate change is triggering the melting of ice in Greenland. In a July 3 CLINTEL article, guest author Jorgen Keinicke pointed out that temperatures in Greenland reached a maximum in 2010, with the mass loss of ice peaking in 2011/2012.

“The melting in the following 10-year period is remarkably lower than that of the previous decade,” it said. “Since 2010, it has been colder in Greenland and the yearly mass loss has correspondingly been reduced. NASA shows that the speed of the sea level rise has also been lower since 2016.”

In addition, the BMJ editorial’s claim that there is a “nature crisis” and “nature loss” is suspect since data from NASA shows that the world’s green cover has actually increased over the past decades.

In an April 2019 post, NASA said that “the world is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago,” citing data from its satellite surveillance.

“The greening of the planet over the last two decades represents an increase in leaf area on plants and trees equivalent to the area covered by all the Amazon rainforests. There are now more than two million square miles of extra green leaf area per year, compared to the early 2000s—a 5 percent increase,” it said.