Summer Edition 2024 3 Welcome to the Pulse summer 2024 In this issue of the Pulse , we focus on climate and health in response to Professor Colin Doherty’s ‘call to arms’ at the full School meeting in December 2023. Through the articles we have captured some of the breadth of School action, research and teaching taking place in the climate and health sphere. The call to action on climate takes place in the broader context of our university leadership prioritising sustainability and climate action. The June Provost staff update had Vice-President for Biodiversity and Climate Action, Professor Jane Stout, detailing the extent of College-wide activity taking place in this space. Professor Jane Stout is leading on the Trinity Sustainability Strategy and a very tangible result of this strategy is the appointment of the Education for Sustainable Development fellows and their new Trinity module as well as the TCD Climate Action Road Map. Sustainability and climate action are now embedded in our new university governance structures with a firm commitment that in the future all students no matter what they study will receive a high-quality education in sustainable development. The reason for Trinity’s mobilisation is simple – the world is warming and human-made industrialisation is the key driver of rising temperatures. In 2016, the vast majority of governments world-wide committed to the Paris Climate Agreement – to stop global temperature rising by more than 1.5 degrees. Yet it is now expected to exceed 1.5 by 2030. All of this impacts on our health and well-being and in particular climate impacts on some groups’ health more than others. These include younger and older people, people with chronic diseases, pregnant women, outdoor workers, people living in poverty and the most excluded. Recently, Italian public health professor, Walter Ricciardi, called for courageous public health professionals. I hope that we as a School of Medicine can take on the challenge laid out by Professors Colin Doherty and Walter Ricciardi – that we must all ‘literally contribute to saving the world as we have known it in the past millennia. If we fail, we will be condemned… to irrelevance. It is a challenge that we must win’. Finally, a huge thanks to all who gave their time to contribute to this issue and the editorial and production team who have guided me on my first issue as the Pulse editor: Mary O’Neill, Cait Kane, Michelle Hendrick, Dr Sarah Parker, Dr Liz Farsaci, Dr Rikke Siersbaek and Dr Katharine Schulmann. Sara Burke, Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Health Policy and Management
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