Dear Sir,
Once again I enjoyed an AMEE conference, this year in pretty but rainy Trondheim. As usual, AMEE maintains its place at the cutting edge of medical education, with each conference building on the successes of the previous one. However, this year, the organisers missed a trick! The Times newspaper (August 23 2007, p. 36) explained how the moose, 120,000 of which live wild in Norway, is damaging the earth's atmosphere with its “burping and farting”. Apparently, in one year, each moose expels the methane equivalent of 2,100 kg of CO2, similar to 13,000 km of car travel or “the equivalent of 36 flights between Oslo and Trondheim”. If the social events had included a moose shoot, and each participant had disposed of one moose, this AMEE could have claimed to be the first carbon-neutral, fully environmentally-offset medical education conference. A challenge for next year in Prague, perhaps.
Dr John Pitts
Severn & Wessex Deanery
Highcroft, Romsey Road
Winchester, Hampshire SO22 5DH, UK
Email: [email protected]