Planetary health versus travel

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 66, No. 2, March 2024, Page 38 Letters
By: Douglas J. Courtemanche, MD, MS, CRCSC

At the bottom of the first table of contents page of the November 2023 issue of the BCMJ is a list. The list documents six things the journal is doing to minimize its environmental impact.

On the back cover of that issue is an advertisement for a medical conference: Antarctica 2025: Unconventional Conventions. I see this as a climate misadventure. Organizers, speakers, and participants should consider how their participation contributes to the disruption of the climate.

With reports that the last 12 months have been the hottest ever recorded and October 2023 being 1.3 °C hotter than any October on record,[1] everyone should not just question the value of an Antarctic travel conference but also repudiate this activity.

It is time to stop this type of planet-killing tourism disguised as CME.

Primum non nocere.

I suggest BC physicians refuse this type of CME.
—Douglas J. Courtemanche, MD, MS, CRCSC
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References

1.    Hansen J, Sato M, Kharecha P. Groundhog Day. Another gobsmackingly bananas month. What’s up? 4 January 2024. Accessed 24 January 2024. www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2024/Groundhog.04January2024.pdf.

Douglas J. Courtemanche, MD, MS, CRCSC. Planetary health versus travel. BCMJ, Vol. 66, No. 2, March, 2024, Page(s) 38 - Letters.


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