Can a book launch set the mind afire? Unlikely – sounds more a chance to get cheap copies and the author’s autograph and maybe some nice canapés. But the launch I attended this week for the ‘Health practitioners’ guide to climate change’ (Jenny Griffiths et al, published by Earthscan) was indeed inspirational. It was partly the inspired speeches – and partly the perceptive audience, specially invited so no doubt especially knowledgeable. more…

To Ramallah for the twice yearly contact with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health teaching programme in the West Bank, the first time I have visited since the Gaza war. How would this have affected our programme? What are the prospects for expansion and can we start up in Gaza? How did the nurses on the course cope with the recent paediatric life support teaching (1)? more…

A meeting in the House of Commons to discuss the health impact of climate change? Surely that would be worth 32kg of CO2 to travel from Newcastle for - since there appears to be a severely lacking awareness of this subject among our MPs, who are not well known for their low carbon lifestyles. And to have talks by the editors of both the BMJ and Lancet, together with a new Lancet report on the topic, made it seem well worth the trip. more…

As the G20 visitors flew in to their meeting on 1 April, paediatricians were gathering in York for a similar reason – to find a way of tackling the health effects of climate change. But we went one better by having a minimal carbon footprint for our meeting, despite hosting 10 countries and 20 organisations. We did it by using video conferencing, with one speaker from the US and three from the UK, and audiences from South America, the US, Canada, South Africa, and Turkey. more…

Anyone writing a piece on either Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories (the official UN title) will be exposed to a wealth comments from each side with often, little appearance of understanding the other’s perspective. This was my experience following a previous BMJ blog on 5th January. more…

The situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate. We deplore the inadequate response of the Israeli and other world governments to the humanitarian crisis. The bombing of an already severely damaged population, half of which are children with a high prevalence of malnutrition, has already led to many hundreds of deaths and disabilities. The health services are under huge strain and having great difficulty in coping owing to lack of medical supplies and power generation. more…

Arriving in Ramallah in December from a freezing UK, both the temperature and the welcome were very warm. The purpose was a regular visit to the students on the collaborative Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and Al Quds Medical school postgraduate teaching programme on child health, and to run an OSCE for the first group of graduates to upgrade them from Certificate to Palestinian Child Health Diploma. more…