Carbon Literate qualified….what does that mean and why did I bother?

Last year I took formal steps to complete a Carbon Literacy course. I didn’t do it to learn about climate change….that’s what its about basically….or know for myself how to address the issues and understand its effects. I did it to underline to colleagues in the MOD and the other sustainable healthcare networks I was engaged with, that I had a tick in the box to say he knows some stuff about this topic. Close colleagues already understood the I had knowledge on the topic but I thought maybe this qualification would give people who didn’t, the trust to ask me formally about the issue and if I could help.

I became a formal Carbon Literate Healthcare Clinician via the Carbon Literacy® organisation. This meant I became accredited Healthcare Professional….. check out the certificate!…. The education entailed learning the science behind climate change, social equity & climate change, what you can do to act on climate change and strategies and skills for communicating action on climate change.

Up till then I had been working for the MOD in this area alongside my physiotherapy role for over 6 years and had quite an intense understanding of the science and consequences to society. I had no formal qualification in that said science but as a person engaged in the assessing the effects of the current and expected risks, I thought better get something on paper relating to the topic I was now embroiled with. Someway to show my experience as I knew it (climate change and ecological breakdown) and I were never going to leave each other alone no matter what I did and maybe I wasn’t not going to be with the military forever.

From the first time I heard a scientist talk on the subject and recognising his palpable anxiety about what it was telling him and how he was urgently trying to convey the facts into real life scenarios for us in the room, I knew it was going to be part of my life and potentially change it. I didn’t understand most of what he said but smarter people who worked in more scientific fields and I respected did and they were spooked…. that really got my attention! From then on I was fascinated/terrified… each is a good driver it seems to make me do some serious study! This led me into researching the area, talking directly to MOD scientists, Risk Assessors, Climate Change, Ecological, Sustainability, Food security experts, Artic survey team, etc etc etc…. Being in the MOD gives you a chance to walk through many doors the average Joe never gets.  When I had what I felt I needed, I started engaging with the MOD senior commanders, luckily at just at the right time. There were rumbling of setting up a MOD team to look into climate change and risk more seriously, and to boot with a Lieutenant General as it lead. As that happened I was fortunate enough to be in the right places at the right time and was privalaged to be invited into the Net Zero campaign.  As the team built in the MOD and drew in civil servants from various government departments, NGOs, professors, universities, met office officials and conversed with overseas military teams, who that had been on the forefront for longer than we had, I found what I was saying and writing about being payed attend to…….All with no qualification about climate change…. I had actually been given the title of Defence Primary Healthcare Climate Change lead.   BTW…. I do have a qualification that was relevant to the works I was engaged with, just so you know the MOD aren’t completely mad to let me run around in this field.

I felt there was a undeniably importance to get some kind of formal acknowledgement and wanted to show that taking a professional approach to learning about climate change and how we can take practical steps to address the issues in our everyday lives was useful. By me doing something…. which turned out to be completing the Carbon Literacy course….. I could talk about it others and explain it was a good way into learn about this complex issue.

I undertook the course with the Physiotherapy Declares network, an organisation I help found. We work with the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, other and Universities to educate fellow professionals and students on about how climate change will affect healthcare and what we can do to stem and prepare for the effects.

We love a qualification in the medical world and rightly so. When a certain government minister said ‘people have had enough of experts’ I’m pretty sure he wasn’t about to have surgery! So qualification I got. This for the first time allow me to put in my little email title box something that spounded a bit formal.

The 2 years before completing the course I was already thinking after the final full stop went on a certain piece of work (MODs report for COP22) that we needed to make a drastic change, we needed to walk the walk more as the saying goes…. but definitely didn’t at that point know we would be in Scotland and running our own business a little over a year after gaining the qualification!

I am very glad I did the formal training as it definitely helped when setting up the clinic to understand how to identify the parts of the business we could easily make positive affect to reduce our carbon footprint. Then in other parts we could not effect as dramatically how it help us account for our impact and be creative in strategies to off set.

The one of the best bit of the years I worked on campaigns related to climate change for the MOD, was the opportunity it gave me to gain unabashed appraisals of the seriousness of the situation we are in, how we need to strain as hard as we can to mitigate our impacts, plan for the inevitable effects upon ourselves, our communities and as a healthcare professional the patients we have the fortune to care for.

Education that being Carbon Literate gives: it provides us with bedrock of knowledge to be an advocate for sustainable practice. This helps us look at everything we do in clinic, from the items we buy, what we prescribe, companies we associate with and business we refer to.

The causes and effects of climate change and ecological destruction on health are significant and it is our job as healthcare professional to do all we can to engage with the predicament.

The Project’s published definition of Carbon Literacy is:

“An awareness of the carbon costs and impacts of everyday activities and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions on an individual, community and organisational basis.”

More than just small personal changes, Carbon Literacy highlights the need for substantial change and supports you, as an individual, to have a cascade effect on a much wider audience – whether it’s in your workplace, community, school, university, place of worship, or another setting.

A Carbon Literate citizen understands how climate change will affect them and the people around them, both geographically and sectorally. A Carbon Literate citizen has acquired the knowledge and skills to develop their own responses to lowering their carbon footprint, and the carbon footprint of others, whilst having the confidence to share their Carbon Literacy.