As I sat with a mug of foaming Bournvita, watching the Just Stop Oil protesters gluing themselves to the M25 on the news, a recent review of the latest online SEE summit on my lap, I thought about the excellent work ABDO are doing with regard to sustainability and environmental threat.
Exactly one year ago, as the last COP climate conference began, I wrote in this column; ‘the only discussion in the news relating to the ongoing environmental collapse is of how best to restrict environmental campaigners. It is as if many people have yet to realise that we are already past a point of no return and are well into a damage limitation phase.’ Looking up at the TV again, it appears that little has changed.
Perhaps more worryingly, my thoughts last year provoked some readers to write in, suggesting that my doom-mongering was unwarranted and questioning the science supporting climate change. I found this genuinely surprising, but feel this lack of concern might explain the apparent inertia in addressing the future threat to us all. Instead, I agree with the four-step plan put forward by Antonia Chitty during the ABDO summit: ‘Pick one thing to work on, take action every week, find local support, tell someone what you are doing.’ Without such individual action plans, will anything have changed by this time next year?
It is enough to make you lose sleep. And, as a new study in the BMJ has established, ‘individuals with suboptimal sleep patterns, that is characterised by snoring and daytime sleepiness or insomnia and short/long sleep duration, were at increased risk of glaucoma.’ In fact, the paper suggests that people with risk factors for glaucoma should have their sleep assessed and, where found to be unsatisfactory, ‘sleep intervention’ recommended.
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