Planetary Health: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves

Human health depends on the health of the planet. Earth's natural systems--the air, the water, the biodiversity, the climate--are our life support systems. Yet climate change, biodiversity loss, scarcity of land and freshwater, pollution and other threats are degrading these systems. The emerging field of planetary health aims to understand how these changes threaten our health and how to protect ourselves and the rest of the biosphere.

Interdisciplinary in nature, Planetary Health explores how accelerating environmental change affects each dimension of human health. It then turns to the rich terrain of solutions, reimagining our cities, our food systems, our energy sector, the chemicals we use, even our economics and our ethics. The result is a comprehensive and optimistic introduction to a field that is being adopted by researchers and universities around the world.