Colin Butler

Dr Colin Butler is a Director of the Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health and Insight (BODHI) ^[1] and Associate Professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health, ANU. He is a former Senior Research Fellow of the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University. His work lies at the intersection of globalisation, health and sustainability.^[2] Globalisation includes social, economic, cultural and environmental changes, at scales from the microscopic to the planetary. His main research interest lies in trying to find ways to advance sustainable global health for all, including people who are marginalized and oppressed.

His interests include agriculture, climate science, demography, development, ecology, economics, environmental change, epidemiology, ethics, future studies, general practice, global change, global health, health promotion, human rights, inequality, infectious diseases, nutrition, poverty, public health, social justice, sociology and sustainability. He is particularly interested in ecosocial systems and the relationship between human conflict, resource scarcity and human carrying capacity.

He formerly worked in rural general practice in Tasmania. He holds post graduate qualifications from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and in 2002 he completed a multidisciplinary PhD at the Australian National University. This thesis ("Inequality and Sustainability") [1] argued that the unequal distribution of global political and economic influence facilitates "environmental brinkmanship" whereby the wealthy and powerful risk global environmental change of such degree that it threatens the fabric of civilisation. He was extensively involved with the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and has published over 200 letters, papers and chapters.^{[3] [4] [5]}

He has given more than 80 invited lectures, in more than a dozen countries. In 2009 the French Environmental Health Association named him as one of 100 doctors for the planet. In 2010 he was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. [2] BODHI was co-founded with Susan Woldenberg Butler in 1989. BODHI works in the field of international health, primary health care and education. It is one of the oldest Buddhist influenced aid organisations based in the West.

References

1. ^ "Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health and Insight". http://www.bodhi.net.au. 
2. ^ "The widening challenge for population health promotion.". http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/suppl_1/15. 
3. ^ http://theconversation.edu.au/what-will-a-four-degree-climate-rise-mean-for-world-health-1594
4. ^ Butler CD. Human carrying capacity and human health. Public Library of Science Medicine. 2004;1(3):192-4. http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0010055
5. ^ Butler CD, Harley D. Primary, secondary and tertiary effects of the eco-climate crisis: the medical response. Postgraduate Medical Journal. 2010;86:230-4. http://pmj.bmj.com/content/86/1014/230.full.pdf

Persondata
Name	Butler, Colin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	Albury NSW Australia
Place of birth	21 January 1955
Date of death
Place of death