If rivers can be granted legal rights (see my Blog #2) what about other natural features and ecosystems such as forests? It’s an idea first suggested nearly fifty years ago by Christopher Stone, an American law professor in his classic essay ‘Should Trees have Standing?’ If revisited perhaps it could help us revalue forests and all their inhabitants. It might
Read moreSeals are known to be attracted by the sea around windfarms; researchers found that tagged individuals in the North Sea traced out ‘a striking grid pattern’ in their daily movements, swimming directly from one wind turbine to the next – hunting for fish. As with other physical structures in the sea, from mangrove roots to coral reefs, wind farms appear
Read moreWith all this talk about the bad things inequality does, such as harming and killing us, I am occasionally asked what inequality is good for since we have so much of it. Is there some good in having a few people being so incredibly wealthy and the rest of us making do with the droppings that trickle down? It used
Read moreJuly 21, 2022 in PHW Vol. 8, No. 29 By Stephen Bezruchka UPSTREAM AT THE SOURCE… An allegory that has been told for many decades distinguishes upstream from downstream factors. Imagine, if you will, three people standing alongside a river on a brisk afternoon. They suddenly hear a cry for help from someone caught in the river’s fast-moving current. Our
Read moreBEZ’S BLOG #4Political Determinants of Health Credit: Hawai’i Department of HealthLast month we looked at evidence that economic inequality and social spending are the critical factors in producing health in a society. These issues make health a political construct. This is not a new idea. It was voiced by the Greeks eons ago. It appears regularly since the famous statement by
Read moreThe Ubiquitous Health Impacts of Socioeconomic Gradients June 16, 2022 much air can you blow out in one second. You can measure it non-invasively by blowing into a spirometer, a tube that measures how much air passes though in the first second. People with bigger lungs can blow out more air in one second so the number has to be
Read moreEdward Milner June 9, 2022 A recent news item in the UK publicised the claim that the construction of 120,000 new homes was delayed because of a ruling by Natural England (the Government’s biodiversity agency) because pollution to local wetlands would result unless major changes were made to the builders’ plans. For a moment I was quietly astonished; environmental protection
Read moreOur bodies are just trillions of cells stuck together, and these cells are integrated into communities forming our organs. Your brain, heart, blood, kidneys, lungs, pancreas and skeleton are all specialized cellular systems. What do they need to be healthy? If a group of heart muscle cells are deprived of oxygen or glucose because of a clotted artery, they die
Read moreEdward Milner May 12, 2022 The Magpie River in northern Quebec has been granted full legal rights of a person. You might think this was an amusing peculiarity in a remote corner of the vast Canadian north, having little relevance to the rest of the world. I suggest you would be wrong. In fact, the Magpie joins the Klamath in
Read moreApril 14, 2022 As the latest IPCC report takes the headlines, the equally urgent biodiversity crisis is once again pushed down the agenda below the Ukraine War, the cost of living crisis, and global heating due to uncontrolled carbon emissions. UN Biodiversity Conference – now, finally due to take place in Kunming China in a few weeks’ time – constantly
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PLANETARY HEALTH WEEKLY 