Earth System Science: Can the death of polar bears make you ill?
The ESSP welcomes today a brand new project… in addition to ones on carbon, water and food security, they now have a tops-it-all programme on human health.
There are a handful of centres around the world that already look at the interactions between climate change and health. The difference here will be an even broader remit. No longer just concerned with how rising temperatures will shift pests from one place to the next, or how monsoon patterns affect mosquito booms and malaria outbreaks, researchers will also be looking at how biodiversity loss affects health. That’s a mind bender. If fish die out then I suppose the answer is clear – that means less protein and vitamins for someone somewhere. But what if we lose all our dung beetles? Or one variety of grass in Africa? Can the elimination of polar bears make us ill? We perhaps will soon know.
Comments
I would be glad if the new project on human health includes research on the effects on our mental and spiritual wellbeing brought about by being alive at a time when the planet's biodiversity and ecological health are collapsing. For myself, it makes me quite sick to think of the demise of the polar bear - and countless other species - brought about by human beings' activities. We are witnessing the erosion and diminishment of the meaning and value of life itself, with every extinction and with every contamination of biological functioning. This is bound to affect our own mental and spiritual wellbeing - with a potentially very disturbing outcome for our own long-term survival. A system science that does not include the psychic component in its research is only partly addressing realities. Health is holistic in a seamless continuity with all other elements and living beings of our planet. That is my view!
Posted by: Caroline Webb | November 13, 2006 05:56 PM