Title
Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary health
Author(s)
Whitmee, S.;Haines, A.;Beyrer, C.;Boltz, F.;Capon, A.G.;de Souza Dias, B.F.;Ezeh, A.;Frumkin, H.;Gong, P.;Head, P.;Horton, R.;Mace, G.M.;Marten, R.;Myers, S.S.;Nishtar, S.;Osofsky, S.A.;Pattanayak, S.K.;Pongsiri, M.J.;Romanelli, C.;Soucat, A.;Vega, J.;Yach, D.
Published
2015
Publisher
The Lancet
Abstract
Far-reaching changes to the structure and function of the Earth's natural systems represent a growing threat to human health. And yet, global health has mainly improved as these changes have gathered pace. What is the explanation? As a Commission, we are deeply concerned that the explanation is straightforward and sobering: we have been mortgaging the health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present. By unsustainably exploiting nature's resources, human civilisation has flourished but now risks substantial health effects from the degradation of nature's life support systems in the future. Health effects from changes to the environment including climatic change, ocean acidification, land degradation, water scarcity, overexploitation of fisheries, and biodiversity loss pose serious challenges to the global health gains of the past several decades and are likely to become increasingly dominant during the second half of this century and beyond. These striking trends are driven by highly inequitable, inefficient, and unsustainable patterns of resource consumption and technological development, together with population growth.
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PUB15766