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Editorial
Climate change and lung health: the challenge for a new president
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  1. Nicholas S Hopkinson1,
  2. Nicholas Hart2,
  3. Gisli Jenkins3,
  4. Naftali Kaminski4,
  5. Margaret Rosenfeld5,
  6. Alan Smyth6,
  7. Alex Wilkinson7
  1. 1NIHR Respiratory Disease, Biomedical Research Unit at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College London, London, UK
  2. 2Lane Fox Respiratory Service, St Thomas’ Hospital Guy's & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust London, London, UK
  3. 3Centre for Respiratory Research, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
  4. 4Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
  5. 5University of Washington School of Medicine Seattle Children's Hospital, Seattle, Washington, USA
  6. 6School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
  7. 7Department of Respiratory Medicine, East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, UK
  1. Correspondence to Corresponding author Dr Nicholas S Hopkinson, NIHR Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College, The Royal Brompton Hospital, Fulham Road, London SW3 6NP, UK; n.hopkinson{at}ic.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2017-209978

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    This is a story from recent history that we believe incoming President Trump urgently needs to hear. In 1985, a huge and growing hole in the planet's ozone layer was identified. Ozone in the stratosphere blocks some of the sun's ultraviolet radiation from reaching the Earth's surface, thus protecting its biosphere (which includes humans) from DNA damage that would otherwise occur. The hole was caused by the action of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in refrigeration and as aerosol propellants.1 Margaret Thatcher is admired by many on both sides of the Atlantic, including President Trump2 as a strong politician, a person with clear beliefs on which she acted; the ‘Iron Lady’ as Donald Trump has described her on Twitter. A scientist by background, Thatcher appreciated the magnitude of the threat immediately, throwing her weight behind international efforts to address this. Working with Ronald Reagan, within 2 years the 1987 Montreal Protocol was signed to phase out the production and use of CFCs. Despite this, because CFCs persist in the atmosphere for more than a century, the ozone layer will not recover completely until 2060. A failure of leadership at that time would have been catastrophic. CFCs are also powerful greenhouse gases and without the Montreal agreement the world would already …

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