Edit Path: Guide to Environmental Health
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Environmental health explores how the natural and built environments influence human well-being. Factors such as air and water quality, climate change, toxic chemical exposures, food systems, and ecosystem health can all affect physical and mental health. Pollution, environmental degradation, and hazardous substances contribute to a wide range of health risks, while healthy ecosystems help provide clean water, nutritious food, disease regulation, and other essential services. Understanding these connections can help societies develop policies and practices that protect both human health and the environments on which life depends.
Guide editor
Reynard Loki
Associate editor
Source
Earth Food Life Project
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Title
Understanding Zoonotic Diseases: How Humans Get Sick From Nonhuman Animals
Commentary
Human health and animal health are closely connected, with many diseases affecting both humans and animals. As our world becomes more developed and interconnected, the space between wild animals and humans is shrinking, which increases the risk of disease transmission. Additionally, humans are relying more on animals as a food source. This combination of factors has led to the emergence of new diseases, with about 75 percent of newly discovered human diseases originating in animals in the last three decades, according to the World Health Organization.
Title
Why Healthy Forests Mean Fewer Pandemics
Commentary
When humans destroy forests to create land for human use, whether it’s for farming, mining, logging, infrastructure development, or urban expansion, biodiversity is diminished. And as some species go extinct, the ones that remain and even flourish in degraded forest ecosystems—like bats, rats, and birds—are those that are more likely to be hosts for deadly viruses that can jump to humans. New human illnesses are primarily zoonotic in origin. More than 300 new diseases surfaced in humans between 1940 and 2004, and more than 70 percent of them originated from wildlife.
Title
Across Africa, Water Conflict Threatens Security, Health, and the Environment
Commentary
Water is a finite resource on our planet. We can only rely on what we have, which translates to about 2.5 percent of drinkable fresh water. Of that amount, only 0.4 percent currently exists in lakes, rivers, and moisture in the atmosphere. The strain of this limited supply grows by the day and as this continues, the detrimental impact will continue to be felt in places least equipped to find alternative solutions—in particular, the African continent. More than a third of the planet’s population living without access to clean, safe water live in sub-Saharan Africa. And nearly two-thirds—some four billion people—live in water-scarce areas. With this number set to steadily rise, the United Nations predicts that around 700 million people across the world might be “displaced by intense water scarcity” by 2030.
Title
Climate Change Is Boosting Plant Pollen Production, Which Means More Seasonal Allergies
Commentary
With climate change shifting weather patterns and causing an early, more extended pollen high, we could all be sneezing more than usual. According to Dr. Kathleen May, president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, exposure to pollen repeatedly for extended periods may cause symptoms in people not previously prone to allergies.
Title
Plastics Impact on Human Health
Commentary
In 2019, the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks published a statement that identified 14 emerging health and environmental issues. Right near the top of that list was plastic waste. The committee emphasized the “urgent” need “for a better assessment of hazard and risk” associated with exposure to plastics of different shapes and forms.
Title
Nanoplastics Are Entering Our Bodies
Commentary
The air is plasticized, and we are no better protected from it outdoors than indoors. Minuscule plastic fibers, fragments, foam, and films are shed from plastic stuff and are perpetually floating into and free-falling down on us from the atmosphere. Rain flushes micro- and nanoplastics out of the sky back to Earth. Plastic-filled snow is accumulating in urban areas like Bremen, Germany, and remote regions like the Arctic and Swiss Alps.
Title
Why the World’s Most Popular Herbicide Is a Public Health Hazard
Commentary
Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, yet its safety remains the subject of intense scientific, legal, and public debate. This article explores concerns about the chemical's potential effects on human health and ecosystems, examines the evidence behind competing risk assessments, and considers how widespread exposure to agricultural chemicals raises broader questions about environmental health, regulation, and the precautionary principle.
Title
America Is Still Using Diquat, a Toxic Weedkiller Banned in Much of the World
Commentary
Although banned or restricted in many countries, the herbicide diquat remains widely used in the United States. This article examines the scientific evidence surrounding diquat's potential health and environmental risks, including concerns about neurotoxicity, water contamination, and occupational exposure. It also explores why regulatory approaches to the chemical differ around the world and what those differences reveal about the challenges of protecting public health from potentially hazardous environmental exposures.
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