Planetary Health Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves Edited by Samuel Myers and Howard Frumkin
Annotated Table of Contents Chapter 1: An Introduction to Planetary Health\ Samuel Myers and Howard Frumkin To introduce the field of planetary health, Myers and Frumkin start by situating it in this unique moment in human history. The moment is characterized by extraordinary improvements in the wealth, health, and education of people around the world and, at the same time, with an explosion in the environmental footprint of those people across our planet’s natural systems leading to climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water and land scarcity, and pollution of air water and soil—all at unprecedented scales in the history of humanity. The authors outline how this transformation of Earth’s biophysical conditions threatens nearly every dimension of human health and propose that awareness of these urgent global health threats has given rise to the field of planetary health. They then outline some of the overarching themes of planetary health that are woven throughout the ensuing chapters.
Chapter 2: Assembling Planetary Health: Histories of the Future \ Warwick Anderson, and James Dunk The field of planetary health did not spring, like Athena, fully formed out of the brow of Zeus. Indeed, it was woven of numerous intellectual threads tracing back over at least two centuries. Dunk and Anderson explore the origin story of planetary health, its intellectual debts to numerous other individuals and fields of thought, and the conditions that led to its emergence in the second decade of the 21st century.
Chapter 3: Population, Consumption, Equity and Rights \ Robert Engelman, John Bongaarts, and Kristen P. Patterson The core proposition of planetary health is that rapid growth in human population coupled with even steeper growth in per capita consumption patterns has led to an extraordinary ballooning of humanity’s total ecological footprint. The result is an accelerating disruption of Earth’s natural systems at a scale that threatens human health globally. In this chapter, Engelman, Bongaarts, and Patterson discuss these trends in population and consumption in depth and their contributions to environmental disruption. They then outline potential solutions and explore the important fact that many of these solutions have large potential cobenefits for health, happiness, gender equity, and social justice.
Chapter 4: A Changing Planet \ Chris Field, David Tilman, Ruth DeFries, David Montgomery, Peter Gleick, Howard Frumkin, and Philip Landrigan Chapter 4 provides a primer on the many ways that human activities are transforming Earth’s environmental conditions. The chapter is broken into seven sections, each authored by a different expert, or experts. The sections include: climate change; altered biogeochemical cycles; changes in land use and land cover; arable land degradation; water scarcity; biodiversity loss; and pollution of air, water, and soil. Together they summarize the many ways that human activities are transforming the biophysical conditions that underpin nearly every dimension of human health. Most of these changes are occurring at the fastest rates in the history of the human species, and in most instances, we are just beginning to understand the implications to human health and wellbeing.
Chapter 5: Food and Nutrition on a Rapidly Changing Planet \ Samuel Myers Perhaps no single sector of human activity is responsible for greater disruption of Earth’s natural systems or is more important to human health than global food production. This chapter explores the current state of human nutrition and the impacts of food production on climate, biodiversity, water scarcity, arable land degradation, land use change, and pollution. It turns then in the other direction to describe the challenges that rapidly changing biophysical conditions pose to the quality and quantity of food we can produce. Myers presents a “triple challenge” for the food system: to increase production of nutritious foods at the fastest rates in human history; to do so despite growing headwinds that constrain food production including climate change, water and land scarcity, biodiversity loss, and pollution of air, water, and soil; and to simultaneously curb the total ecological footprint of food production to preserve what remains of the biosphere. The second part of the chapter explores the extremely rich terrain of solutions that might allow us to meet this challenge including innovations in food production, reducing food waste, and changing diets.
Chapter 6: Planetary Health and Infectious Disease \ Richard S. Ostfeld and Felicia Keesing Chapter 6 explores the many ways that changing environmental conditions can alter our exposure to infectious diseases. Ostfeld and Keesing systematically explore the ways that climate change; biodiversity loss; changes in land use and cover; pollution; and changes in biogeochemical cycles can impact the risk of exposure to some of the most important infectious diseases globally. They then explore potential implications for disease control interventions and public policy.
Chapter 7. Global Environmental Change and Non-Communicable Disease Risks \ Howard Frumkin, and Andy Haines Non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—principally cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and mental health conditions, together with neurologic, endocrine, gastrointestinal, renal, allergic and autoimmune disorders—now account for the majority of deaths and suffering in both wealthy and poor countries. In Chapter 7, Frumkin and Haines describe five pathways from global environmental change to NCDs—energy, air pollution, and climate change; urbanization; food, nutrition, and agriculture; persistent environmental chemicals; and biodiversity loss. They emphasize the complex connections among these pathways, and opportunities to prevent NCDs while tackling global environmental change.
Chapter 8. Environmental Change, Migration, Conflict and Health \ Lauren Herzer Risi, Caroline Kihato, Rebecca Lorenzen, and Howard Frumkin Some of the most destabilizing impacts of environmental change are the displacement of communities and conflict among people—impacts that, tragically, can emerge in tandem. In general, environmental changes do not cause these feared outcomes alone; other factors range from poverty to poor governance to demographic changes. Chapter 8 describes the complex links among environmental disruption, migration, and conflict, from historical examples such as Pueblo peoples and the Irish potato famine, to contemporary challenges such as drought and sea level rise.
Chapter 9. Mental Health on a Changing Planet \ Susan Clayton Mental health concerns were for many years neglected in discussions of environmental change, but in recent years, especially with the open discussion triggered by youth climate activists, they mental health has gained much more attention. In Chapter 9, psychologist Susan Clayton describes how discrete environmental events such as disasters, ambient conditions such as heat and air pollution, long-term degradation and loss of beloved places, and anxiety about grim trends, can lead to mental distress and even serious mental illness. She also describes how
positive relationships with the natural world, say, through living in leafy neighborhoods or walking in natural settings, can promote mental health.
Chapter 10. Climate Change and Human Health \ Howard Frumkin Climate change—often now referred to as the climate crisis or the climate emergency—is one of the highest-profile global environmental changes. Increasingly climate change has been recognized as a critical public health challenge. In Chapter 10, Frumkin summarizes the direct effects of climate change on health (such as the effects of heat and climate-related disasters, indirect effects such as heightened infectious disease risk because of ecosystem alterations, and effects mediated by social processes such as migration.
Chapter 11. Happiness on a Healthier Planet \ John F. Helliwell and Jon Hall Good health is one, but only one, ingredient of a happy, fulfilling life. The broad concept of happiness, often measured through subjective self-assessments of well-being, has been carefully studied in recent years, across many countries and cultures. It is important for Planetary Health bemuse the transformation to a healthy, sustainable world cannot be a story of deprivation and sacrifice; it must be a story of opportunity, one that holds out the potential for greater wellbeing and more fulfilling lives. In Chapter 11 Helliwell and Hall begin by introducing the science of happiness, including how the concept is operationalized and measured, and describe the relationship between health and happiness. They then explore how the components of happiness relate to the changes needed as we decarbonize our societies. Spoiler alert: producing happiness is not resource-intensive!
Chapter 12. Energy and Planetary Health \ Ajay Pillarisetti and Kirk R. Smith Chapter 12 begins the third section of the book, “Pivoting from Threat to Opportunity.” This and the next four chapters explore the “solution space” presented by Planetary Health. In Chapter 12, Pillarisetti and Smith introduce the key role of energy in human civilization, describe the many sources of energy in contemporary society and the health implications of each, and sketch a path toward a clean, healthy energy future.
Chapter 13. Urban Places and Planetary Health \ Ana V. Diez Roux, Adriana C. Lein, Iryna Dronova, Daniel A. Rodríguez, Rosie Mae Henson, and Olga Sarmiento We now live on an urban planet, with more than half of humanity living in metropolitan areas, and the trend toward urbanization continuing, particularly in Africa and Asia. This is a dramatic change in the human habitat. In Chapter 13, a team led by Diez Roux describes patterns of urbanization, the impact of cities on natural ecosystems, the impact of environmental change on cities, and the effects of these complex processes on human health. They also describe strategies for cities, involving neighborhood design, transportation, food and other elements, that are both healthy and environmentally sustainable.
Chapter 14. Controlling Toxic Exposures \ Philip J. Landrigan, Terrence J. Collins, and John Peterson Myers An important aspect of the Anthropocene, and especially the three quarters of a century since the end of World War II, has been the development, massive production, and widespread dissemination of chemicals. These range from naturally-occurring substances such as asbestos and lead to previously nonexistent molecules such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, and plastics. In Chapter 14, Landrigan, Collins, and Myers describe the growth of the chemical industry and the implications of dangerous chemical exposures, both for ecosystems and for human health. They also describe a new approach, green chemistry, which incorporates Planetary Health principles into the design and use of chemicals.
Chapter 15: A New Economics for Planetary Health \ Will Evison and Sam Bickersteth In Chapter 15, Evison and Bickersteth explore economic theory as it pertains to planetary health. They explain the significant shortcomings of traditional economic theory and, in particular, its blindness to the ecological degradation often associated with economic activity. The authors offer a critique of Gross Domestic Product as a measure of progress and propose alternative metrics that are in closer alignment to planetary health while better capturing human wellbeing. The authors go on to explore several branches of economic thinking and discuss their contributions to three critical elements of a discussion of the economics of planetary health: conceptualizing the relationship between people and planet; governance and policy for planetary health; and business solutions for planetary health. They conclude with a discussion of approaches to measuring and valuing both natural systems and human health.
Chapter 16: The Business of Planetary Health: From Economic Theory \ Will Evison and Sam Bickersteth Chapter 16 focuses on two key areas. First it explores how governance and policy must evolve if we are to deliver on planetary health. Next, it turns to how the creativity, dynamism and vast resources of the private sector can be harnessed to the same end. In both cases, it draws heavily on the theory presented in Chapter 15 to explain the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. After describing a “blueprint for planetary health businesses,� it closes with three case studies of businesses, in different sectors and at different scales, which are designed both to be profitable and to support planetary health.
Chapter 17: Planetary Health Ethics \ Alexander Foster, Jennifer Cole, Ivica Petrikova, Andrew Farlow and Howard Frumkin Ethics is fundamental to both health and environmental thinking. The Anthropocene raises a host of thorny ethical problems, from the inequitable impacts of environmental harms across human populations, to the practice of transferring harms onto future generations. In Chapter
17, a U.K.-based team of young scholars introduces principles of both biomedical and environmental ethics, and proposes a set of ethical positions for Planetary Health.
Chapter 18: A Bright Future for Planetary Health \ Samuel Myers and Howard Frumkin In this concluding chapter, Myers and Frumkin describe an aspirational future world in which human population has stabilized, the energy system is decarbonized, and human beings are living on Earth with a dramatically reduced ecological footprint—a world where every passing decade brings more room for the rest of the biosphere. They draw from the rich library of solutions in the previous chapters to explore how a Great Transition to such a world might be achieved. Finally, they emphasize that technological solutions alone will not be enough. Shared visions that drive hope and optimism, a deeper, more robust human relationship with the natural world, and social organizing toward collective action will also be critical elements of the Great Transition.