Jill Belch

Professor Jill Belch OBE is a Scottish academic who specialises in vascular medicine.

Jill is Past President of European Society of Vascular Medicine, Division of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School.

This interview took place on 17 February 2023.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

00:22 When did you become aware of the impact of climate change on health?

02:03 What is the impact of climate change on health in Scotland?

03:28 What is the global impact of climate change on health?

05:29 What changes do you expect to see in the future?

06:47 What do you think about your government's response?

11:14 On an individual level - what can practitioners do?

13:51 What are the obstacles preventing change?

15:19 What sources of reliable information would you recommend?

16:34 How do you deal with the challenge of those who are not engaged?

19:14 Any final thoughts?

Transcription

Interviewer:

So yes, if we could just start off with you just saying your name and a little bit about where you work and what you do, please.

Jill Belch:

Sure. Yeah, my name is Jill Belch. I'm a Professor of Vascular Medicine at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School in Dundee.

Interviewer:

Perfect. Thank you. So do you have any thoughts on when you became aware of or when you became interested in the subject of the connection between climate change and health?

Jill Belch:

Yes, it really was in the 1980s. In those days we were called environmentalists. I mean, now we're called activists, but in those days we were environmentalists. And it was in the 80s when I started to read the science and I became actually quite anxious about what I was reading. And the more I read, the more I felt that there was evidence for problems. At that point, I have to say, I was more horrified for the planet and for biodiversity. And it probably wasn't, strangely, until the 1990s that the actual impact of what was happening and will happen struck me as being pretty awful in terms of health and health inequalities. So it took me a decade. And it's very interesting because I even noticed that in people nowadays, about 10 years ago, we're beginning to see about climate change, and it's only now that the health elements are coming to the fore. So yeah, I mean, I was in the 80s and 90s, I was out there demonstrating against fracking and all the rest of it. But it really was in the 90s when we, when I, started to be more concerned about the effects on health and it was actually then that I started to do our research on air pollution, climate change and the effects on health.

Interviewer:

Thank you. So of course, this is a global issue and we'll get on to that. But I wondered if we could start locally. You mentioned that you are, you work, in Dundee. What is the impact of climate change on health, you know, in Scotland or in the UK? You know, what's the more local impact, would you say?

Jill Belch:

Okay, well, locally we're seeing different plants arriving that could not have survived before. So there is definitely a shift in temperature. We're getting algae on our lochs and fish deaths, which we did not get before. I travel a lot in the UK with my research and I'm very aware that the biting insects that, for example, were in the Mediterranean, brown flies, for example, are now reached London and obviously will come further up. We're damper and the rainfall is gradually increasing in the winter and that's leading to mould in a lot of our social housing. And finally, our own study shows an increase in hospital admissions during wet winter for heart disease, respiratory disease, when the days of pollution are occurring. When the pollution is up at illegal highs, we're getting more hospital admissions. So that will probably increase as we get wetter winters.

Interviewer:

Thank you. So I wondered if you could explain a little bit about the global impact of climate change on health. So outside the UK, you know, what sort of impacts people are seeing.

Jill Belch:

Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty horrific already. And sadly, it's in the poorer countries that we see. So for example, the ghastly floods that we saw in India and Pakistan are awful. And it's not just the floods, it's the fact that that floods their sewage and the whole place is awash with sewage and you get sewage related diseases like cholera starting up which we thought we had hoped to see the end of. We know that there is an increase in malaria favorable conditions because of climate change. And I don't know if you've seen the statistics and that is that 90% of our population are likely to be at risk of malaria by 2080 because of the change in temperatures. And it's not just wildfires or floods, but it's strange things that we hadn't even considered. So for example, Salt Lake in America, it'll be gone in 5 years. And the bottom of the lake is full of heavy metals like mercury and they're going to be blown up into a dust bowl and they will affect Salt Lake City. So there's all sorts of things that we could have predicted, but there's also things that we just don't know that are going to come up and bite us.

Interviewer:

Thank you. So you've sort of partially already answered my next question, but I'll bring it up just in case you have more to say. So following on from that, what do you think the changes are going to be that we're going to see? How is your work or people's health in say Scotland or the UK going to be affected in 5, 10, 20, 30 years time? I realise that's a horrible and almost impossible question because it's predicting the future, but what do you think is going to happen in terms of the impact?

Jill Belch:

I think if we don't rapidly cut fossil fuel emissions, I think there will be a breakdown in society maybe 30, 40 years from now. If you look at what's going to happen in Africa, it's estimated there's going to be 450 million climate refugees. So where are you going to put them? If they come up into Europe, What's going to happen? Are you going to have armed resistance? Are we going to have wars? I actually think the future could be extremely grim. The Global South is really struggling and they're going to move to the Global North. Who would blame them? Is the Global North going to accept them or is there going to be fighting? I feel quite sad about what's going to happen because we are not focusing on stopping temperature rise at 1.5, which is now looking pretty impossible.

Interviewer:

Thank you. So we've talked a bit about the impact of climate change on health. I wondered if we could move on now to talking about action - as in what can be done. So I wanted to ask, first of all, what are your thoughts on your government's response to the threat of climate change and thinking both the Scottish Government and the UK government as well?

Jill Belch:

Okay, so if we look, first of all at the UK government, I will state strongly that they have acted very poorly. I have said this before and I will say it again. I think that by returning 91% of the fossil fuel windfall tax to actually open up more fossil fuel fields is, I believe, ecocide. The current cabinet has nobody responsible for climate change on it was moved out when Sunak made his new cabinet. They're going to use coal for the steel plant when everybody else in Europe is moving to green hydrogen. They removed subsidies for home insulation and for electric cars. They destroyed a growing green industry with Cameron's Green, and I won't say it, but it begins with CR and it has two letters after that comment. They're allowing sewage to run rife in England and the overflows are getting worse because of climate change. Moving on to Scotland, I mean, luckily Scotland's water is nationalised and we don't have that sewage problem. Within Scotland, we have the best pollution laws in Europe, lowest required levels. The problem is there's a disconnect between the government's laws and enacting them at council level. Scotland is hopefully just about to bring in passive house law where all our houses will have to have solar panels, heat pumps and appropriate insulation as well as drain away drives. But that's moving very slowly and I understand that suppliers will have bought in, you know, gas boilers and things and we have to do it at a slower pace than perhaps we would like, but we really do need to do this. My main concern is the bonfire of the EU laws. There's 4,000 of them and many hundreds of those relate to the environment. And unfortunately, they cost landowners money to actually implement them. And if there's a bonfire of those, I foresee that we will be in further difficulties. I think that - we're doing a lot of tree planting, which is good. And we're doing - the idea of the 20 minute village or town is good. It will stop emissions, which of course, as you know, produce greenhouse gases and particles which melt the ice, the Arctic ice. And so those are good. But the strange thing is that there are politicians who actually are in place in senior positions in the UK government who actually don't give credit to climate change and who actually stand up and say that we're taking away people's freedom if we have 20 minute towns and villages, which is absolutely bizarre because there's not going to be a fence around them. And of course, it's not just been shown to be greener because of cars, it's been shown to be better for humanity. They're happier in communities. So until the governments realize that growth is not the be all and end all, and that one can have a static situation where we can actually all live happily and gets rid of fossil fuels, then I think we're on a hiding to nothing. Fossil fuels will ultimately kill the earth and kill us. And I'm amazed that our government has still not legislated against it. As you know, Scotland has said that they will not exploit the oil fields, but the UK government is currently selling off hundreds of permissions for drilling.

Interviewer:

Thank you. So you’ve obviously talked about the governmental level. I'm curious, you know, there might be people watching this who are physicians or who are other types of medical professionals who care about this issue or who've begun to think about this issue and would like to be proactive. So is there any advice you can give to people? What can individuals do and especially medical individuals?

Jill Belch:

I mean, I think we can do a huge amount. I really do. There's two aspects. One, generally, climate change and all the issues. And the second one is actually greening the NHS. We have a real problem with drug pollution. Obviously, it comes out in the urine. It's discarded down toilets. And that's causing a real problem in terms of biodiversity and poison. So there's a lot that we can do within the NHS. We can try to buy sustainably, we can try to buy locally, to cut emissions and we can have our own environment made sustainable as much as we can. For example, solar panels on the roofs of hospitals, very feasible, they have huge big roofs and we need to be very energy aware. So there's a lot we can do within the NHS. How can we, what can we do more globally? Well, research into areas of climate change. That's really crucial because we do need the evidence base for climate change and how it's affecting us. And interestingly, I just happened to look up in Google and in 2022, there were 17 1,000 articles that mentioned climate change. And between 1980 and 1990, so that's 10 years, there were 17,600. So the amount of research has gone up tenfold, hundredfold, thousandfold. And that's fantastic to see. And I think that that's really what we can do. But I also think if the profession is a respected profession, then our voice is often heard at government level. And I think we do need to make an effort to go and speak to MPs, to go and talk to our rulers about elements of climate change that affect health and how we can attenuate that.

Interviewer:

Thank you very much. So you've talked here both at the governmental level and at the individual level about what we should be doing and often what we're not doing. So I was curious, what do you think are the obstacles here? Why do you think we're not further along than we are in terms of tackling these issues?

Jill Belch:

I think one of the first things is that we can't wave a magic wand and it's there. And therefore there has to be a bedding down period while manufacturers get less plastic and etc, etc. However, I don't think that's a big problem. I think the main problem is fossil fuels and I think that it's absolutely disgraceful that we haven't got more of a push towards renewables. We now, everybody says, “oh, but renewables are seasonal, you know, the wind doesn't blow”, but actually that's not true. We now have hydrogen cells which will store energy, we have batteries for storage and I think we need to move much more quickly away from fossil fuels. And unfortunately, people make money from fossil fuels. And you probably saw recently one of our major oil companies has cut their budget for renewables and is putting it back into fossil fuel because they said that demand is still there. And until we stop demand, we won't save this planet.

Interviewer:

Thank you. The next step, I suppose, in terms of addressing this is information and finding reputable information. And that's always a challenge around climate change. So I wanted to ask first, for people who want to be informed, and again, particularly people on the medical side of things, are there any resources that you find particularly reliable and trustworthy? Is there anywhere that you would recommend people go for information?

Jill Belch:

I mean, to be honest with you, I'm an avid reader of science. And so I will read the Lancet, Planetary Health, I'll read all the environmental journals and I will form my own opinions about how credible they are. I do think that scientific evidence and reading the scientific papers is the best way forward. There are a lot of good summaries, but you have to be careful that each fact that these summaries state is referenced. And I think it really is important that as medics who are used to reading scientific journals about health, get used to reading scientific journals about climate change so that when climate deniers come along, you've got the facts at your fingertips. You know exactly what to say. And obviously, they're difficult to convince. But hey, we still try to do so.

Interviewer:

That was actually going to be my next question, which is, have you experienced dealing with either climate change deniers or people who just don't see the point in doing anything about this? And is there anything you would recommend to people or any particular arguments or points that you would raise with those people?

Jill Belch:

I think the main problem is people think that technology will solve it all. And although they say vaguely in their minds that there is this terrible climate thing going on. They think carbon capture or, you know, renewables have come along and they'll be saved. And I think that is the most common perception of people who are inactive in terms of fighting against climate change. In terms of climate deniers, yes, I get them on my Twitter account and on my Facebook account. And what I do is I will put up some graphs, well referenced graphs showing the changes in global temperature, etc, etc. And then I'll do that a couple of times and then I will leave it because then they start to tell me that, you know, there's no such thing as COVID. And, you know, I just feel, well, I'm afraid you're a lost cause. There are a few things. So for example, they say, “oh, look at all this cold weather, it can't be, where is the global heating, ha ha ha”. And so you have to explain that the cold snaps are weather and climate is an average temperature over centuries, at least many decades. And there are arguments that you can give climate change scenarios, but I have to say, one climate denier came onto my Facebook page and I said, “but the science shows that”. “The science? What do you mean by this science? People who use ‘this science’, they just don't know anything. It's just a phrase”. And I'm thinking, no, no, it's not a phrase, ‘the science’. And then she challenged me to this debate online and it's going to be, and I said, okay, that's absolutely fine, I will debate you on the science. And then she said, “I said I'd debate you” and I said, “yes”. So I went onto her account and it's obviously just been set up to climate deny and there was nothing, there was no way of contacting her or whatever. So I took a photograph of it and put it up my Facebook page and she disappeared. So sometimes I'll spend a bit of time on them, but mostly I'm trying to get to that majority who think that “yes, there is climate change, but it doesn't matter, technology will save us”. And those are the ones I focus on, to be honest.

Interviewer:

No, that makes complete sense. So I have essentially run out of questions at this point. But before we finish up, I just wanted to ask, is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to have been asked, or is there anything else you would like to say on this subject?

Jill Belch:

I don't think so. I mean, I suppose my main emotion is just disbelief that we still have no reduction in fossil fuels use and that our temperatures are still going up despite 28, 29 COPs. And I feel that the governments are not listening to the evidence. And one of the ways forward is for the actual people that live in these countries to start pushing their governments to actually do something about it and to use their vote wisely and to look at the climate policies of the people that they vote for.