There is an irony in the unethical imbalance between those developed countries responsible for the vast majority of Green House Gas emissions, and the victims of the resultant climate change, who are largely members of the developing world. The WHO have demonstrated, by comparison of cumulative Greenhouse Gas emissions against the deaths per million people (that are attributable to climate change), that those countries that have historically contributed to global warming will not be those that suffer most from it.

I have outlined in red the United States, China, Russia, and the European Union due to their emissions of the majority of greenhouse gases whilst the poorer nations in black that have more poorly established healthcare systems amongst other disadvantages that cause them to be struck harder in health terms. I have depicted two faces here; the face of Africa is young, upset and vulnerable, and the face of South Asia is elderly, frustrated and frail. This is my way of showing that the extreme age groups of children and the elderly, and those with health disadvantages (such as Asthma) or disabilities are at far higher risk to the medical consequences of climate change.

I have also tried to express emotions such as helplessness, anger, anxiety, and uncertainty, through the frown lines, the tears and the glazed eyes. This is to touch on the deeper personal and usually non-visible consequences of dealing with the disease, death and disruption. I feel it is imperative for health care professionals to have an awareness and appreciation for those worries that aren’t scientifically or medically diagnosable, but are hidden within a person’s subconscious. As Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change stated, “Rising temperatures and ozone will lead to an increase in the burden of respiratory disease, ranging from airway injury and inflammation to acutely decreased lung function.”

I have represented South America by this damaged lung. The black plastic represents the chemicals and biotoxins inhaled, the brown textured background show the cracks of disease forming, and the ripped boarder highlights the feeling of constriction and the struggle to breathe.
There was strong reference to stress and stress-related disorders in many of the texts I read when researching this project. Although the stress response is not always a negative reaction, the type of stress arising from the mental and physical disruption of a natural disaster for example, is very likely to be associated with illness and decline of normal capabilities. This is because the type of people worst affected by these events are already the more vulnerable and are likely to lack resilience, hence their stress responses which generate feelings of suffering could be termed distress. A large part of the stress response is emotional; hence I have painted these negative emotions through the different facial expressions. Distress can be defined as having a damaging catabolic effect on your system even if only experienced for a short period of time. I have tried to highlight the presence of psychological distress and mental illness in individuals and communities that are already suffering the manifestations of physical disease.