"In the welter of daily demands upon physicians, it might be easy to imagine that weaning the world off its reliance on fossil fuels is asking a bit too much.

But preventing sickness and averting premature death are squarely in a physician’s wheelhouse. And dramatic increases in both sickness and death are projected for the foreseeable future as the world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels results in more air pollution, infectious diseases, malnutrition, wildfires, extreme heat and increasingly powerful weather events.

So combating climate change is clearly part of a doctor’s job description, argue a pair of articles published in last week’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. If there’s a failure to act, well over 250,000 people around the world will lose their lives each year between 2030 and 2050, according to estimates from the World Health Organization."

Melissa Healy reports for the Los Angeles Times January 23, 2019. [2]