Yesterday I stepped down after six years as the chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. The Alliance brings together 54 organisations of health professionals, including most of the royal colleges, to do what we can to counter the climate and nature crisis. We work to mitigate the crisis, promote adaptation, and explain the benefits that flow to health from the changes we need to make—for example, driving less and walking and cycling more, and adopting a diet that is largely plant rather than animal based. My time as chair might be summarised as failing to achieve much in mitigation (last year was the hottest on record and saw the biggest ever emission of greenhouse gases) but a success in growing and energising the Alliance.

I made clear that I didn’t want a present on leaving as I, like most of us in Britain, already have too much stuff. But Elaine, whom I worked with, had the brilliant idea of asking people to write me a poem. The result was 30 poems, none of which will ever make it into an anthology (apart from this one) but which have given me much pleasure and amusement. I love too that people have been stimulated to create.

Some of the “poets” had the idea of using ChatGPT (2024–), and the one below is one of the results. ChatGPT has moved on since I first asked it to write a poem, but it still has a long way to go to catch Keats or Yeats. Nevertheless, I thought that I add it to my Cairn

A poem for Richard by Chat GPT

Written for the occasion of him stepping down as chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change

A steady hand, a searching mind, 

A voice that urged the world to find 

Compassion not as fleeting grace, 

But care that dignifies each face. 

From journal halls where knowledge grew, 

You steered the BMJ anew;
A quarter century’s thoughtful guide,
With truth and candour at your side. 

In Bangladesh, your work took flight, 

Where health was fragile, hope was light; 

You lent your strength, your listening ear, 

To science’s call, to need sincere. 

Patients’ own voices you upheld, 

Insisting their stories must be well-telled; 

That records, power, choice, and say, 

Belong to them in every way. 

And still you asked the hardest things: 

What value death, what peace it brings? 

A co-chair, thinker, clear and wise,
You probed the truths we oft disguise. 

Then came the climate’s urgent call, 

The health of planet, one and all;
You rallied doctors, gave them scope, 

To speak of danger, act with hope. 

Now as you pause, but not stand still, 

(For restless minds have work to fill),
We honour how your course was steered, 

With wisdom vast and vision clear. 

So, Richard, may this next new stage 

Bring joy that grows with every age; 

For though you leave this chair today, 

Your voice, your spirit, lights the way.