Abstract
The good health of living organisms, both human and non-human, is first and foremost a synthesis of the environmental conditions to which they are exposed. However, many health threats are looming on the horizon: accelerated transmission of infectious diseases by vector organisms whose ranges are expanding as a result of new climates (the tiger mosquito, vector of dengue fever, is now present in more than 78 French départements), consequences of extreme heat waves on the human organism (almost 60,000 deaths in Europe in the summer of 2022), the risk of releasing ancient pathogens trapped in permafrost, increased famine and malnutrition in the most vulnerable regions, not to mention the chronic effects of anthropogenic pollution on people's health.
Yet there is a striking paradox at: in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments were able to mobilize hundreds of billions of euros in just a few weeks, confine entire populations and transform healthcare systems. In the face of climate disruption, whose health consequences are already measurable and will only worsen, responses remain slow, fragmented and inadequate. Why do immediate health threats trigger radical reactions that the equally deleterious ecological crisis fails to do?
This round table, moderated by students from Sorbonne University, will examine the real health costs of climate change, and look at the levers that could be used to transform this awareness into political action, with the same urgency as that deployed in the face of pandemics.
