Our health depends on more than doctors, medicine, and hospitals. Clean air, safe water, healthy food, and a safe place to live also matter. Changes in nature can affect our health in many ways. Planetary health, explained in simple words, means understanding how the health of people and the health of Earth are linked. Planetary Health Weekly helps readers keep
Read moreClimate change, environmental degradation, and pollution are more than just global problems; they are public health crises affecting billions. They form a constellation of cosmic proportions. The prognosis for a smooth future gets worse every day, with 100 million tons of CO2 added to the already full-up Atmosphere, along with the other greenhouse gases. As the global atmospheric temperature rises,
Read moreI know I am among friends, so forgive the informality. Editor David, thank you for the opportunity to share a few ideas for a brand new 2024! I am writing from Pilot Projects, a Montreal based systems thinking and design company with the ambitious mission to “co-create a better world”. Our work takes the form of pilot projects that always aim
Read more(from the Planetary Health Weekly, Vol. 9, No. 46, November 16, 2023) How to understand our world today that appears to be in a genuine mess? The Planetary Health Weekly (PHW) lays out so many issues regarding global warming (or the climate crisis) but let’s consider the context in which they occur. In my 4th blog in April 2022, I
Read more“The Plughole Problem – Part A” Milner on Biodiversity As you may have noticed there’s been a good deal of hullabaloo about plastics in the environment recently, with various meetings and conferences aiming to produce ‘a binding international plastics treaty’. All very laudable and at the least attracting attention to the worldwide problem of plastic waste that affects virtually all
Read moreCollagen, in powdered form is one of the developed world’s most popular health supplements – a business worth an estimated $4.7 billion in 2022. Recommended by several leading lifestyle influencers a daily dose is claimed to work wonders for hair, skin, nails and joints. In addition, due to its ‘excellent blending properties and ‘smooth flowability’ it is increasingly used as
Read moreHI KETAN!! and thanks so much for all your work on the climate crisis, and in particular for the piece I just read about carbon offsets. It’s great and very much appreciated. I sense that you do most of this work as a ‘volunteer’ which would be like me, a retired prof of health management, global health and ecology. I
Read moreIf 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
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