Environment, Climate and Cardiovascular Health: What We Know, What We Need to Know and What We Need to Do

Climate change is now considered the biggest threat to the human population of the 21st century, and we are faced with a situation where environment, climate and health are interconnected. Human health is reliant on planetary health. In Australia, the Black Summer bushfires (2019–2020) burned more than 24 million hectares of Australian bushland. Recent datasets of satellite imagery of burned areas, observations of climate and weather, and simulated fuel loads have since been confirmed to be part of a clear trend of worsening fire weather and ever-larger forest areas burned by bushfires. Intense fires in the Amazon also captured global attention in 2019 for the destruction of natural ecosystems and smoke production in the region. Both bushfires raged through the colloquial ‘lungs of the world’ in 2020, with widespread regional public health consequences, including premature death related to smoke pollution. When the Call for Papers for this Special Edition on Environment, Climate and Cardiovascular Health went out in 2021, we could not know what the next disaster in our region would be. Then, in Australia in 2022, we experienced severe and widespread flooding. These and other extreme weather events are anticipated to continue and indeed increase in response to climate change. As 2023 begins, the contributions in this Special Edition of Heart Lung and Circulation share a common message—we know a lot, we need to learn a lot more, and there is lot (more) we can all do to prevent, ameliorate, and manage the cardiovascular effects of these environmental and climate disasters.