Saving The Planet Could Save Your Life

Thursday, July 16, 2015 - 13:50 in Earth & Climate

EarthNASA/NOAA GOES ProjectLooks like public health isn't good enough anymore. A new report from a commission headed by the Rockefeller Foundation and the medical journal The Lancet says that we need a new way to look at human health--one that takes the environment into account.The new field, called planetary health, looks at the intersection between the natural world and humans. Often, that intersection is a head on collision that ends badly for both parties. The commission's report goes beyond a similar report issued by The Lancetlast month which looked at the effect climate change had on public health. Instead of just looking at climate, this new, interdisciplinary area of study focuses on all the ways that humans interact with their environment.In the past century alone, poverty has declined and life expectancies have gone up, biodiversity has plummeted, fresh water supplies have been depleted, forests have...

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