![\"David](\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/columns\/icons\/david_pencheon.jpg\")
I once heard of an experiment where a subject was placed in a room – and when smoke appeared under the door, she rightly raised the alarm immediately.\u00a0 However, when the experiment was repeated with another subject, but this time with a handful of actors in the room who deliberately did nothing when the smoke appeared, it look a long time (until the room was completely full of smoke) before the subject ignored the inertia of the actors and raised the alarm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This suggests that we don\u2019t take action as readily when we see others around us not doing so.\u00a0 Is there a connection with health and climate change?\u00a0 Climate change is not one of the most important health threats \u2013 it is the <\/em>most important health threat we face.\u00a0<\/p>\n So why, despite the evidence, are we not taking action, at individual, community, national, and global levels, in ways proportionate to the size of the risks we face?\u00a0 Well, let\u2019s try and establish a possible sequence of attitudes and responses.\u00a0<\/p>\n Firstly we may be ignorant of any evidence concerning climate change \u2013 unlikely, unless we are hermits.\u00a0 Secondly, we simply may not know the size and urgency of the threat we face.\u00a0 (Most policy makers I have ever worked with have been well aware that smoking is dangerous, but few seem to have realised that half of all smokers die prematurely.)\u00a0 Thirdly, we may be aware of the evidence but simply not believe it \u2013 after all, denial must be one of the most powerful coping mechanisms we human beings possess.\u00a0 Fourthly, we may know and believe but simply not care.\u00a0 Fifthly, we may believe the evidence and care, but feel powerless to do anything significant about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whatever the reason, let\u2019s try and sort this before it\u2019s too late \u2013 the room is rapidly becoming full of smoke,\u00a0 Don\u2019t wait until everybody else acts before you do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I once heard of an experiment where a subject was placed in a room – and when smoke appeared under the door, she rightly raised the alarm immediately.\u00a0 However, when […]<\/p>\n