Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-zc66z Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-07T17:53:48.668Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Our Changing Planet

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2021

Andy Haines  and
Howard Frumkin
Andy Haines
Affiliation:
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Howard Frumkin
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Get access

Summary

The story has to begin during the long (in human but not geological terms) period of the last nearly 12,000 years forming the Holocene Epoch, when humanity emerged from hunter-gatherer to agrarian communities and later into growing urban settlements founded on trade, and increasingly manufacturing. The Holocene was notable for its relative climatic stability, which allowed civilization as we know it to emerge. It was interrupted only by little ice ages – significant on human scale but minimally so on a geological scale. Much can be learned from the impacts of relatively modest fluctuations in climate on human society over this period (3). These lessons help us assess the likely effects of rapid climate and other changes on health and development in the future (see Chapter 2).

Type
Chapter
Information
Planetary Health
Safeguarding Human Health and the Environment in the Anthropocene
 , pp. 1 - 33
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Deaton, A. The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press; 2013.Google Scholar
Steffen, W, Richardson, K, Rockström, J, et al. Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science. 2015;347(6223):1259855. DOI: 10.1126/science.1259855.Google Scholar
McMichael, AJ, Woodward, A, Muir, C. Climate Change and the Health of Nations: Famines, Fevers, and the Fate of Populations. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press; 2017.Google Scholar
Smil, V. Energy and Civilization: A History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 2017.Google Scholar
Harris, B. Public health, nutrition, and the decline of mortality: the McKeown thesis revisited. Social History of Medicine. 2004;17(3):379–407.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. A History of Public Health. Revised expanded edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melosi, MV. The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; 2000.Google Scholar
Steffen, W, Crutzen, PJ, McNeill, JR. The Anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment. 2007;36(8):614–21. doi: 10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[614:TAAHNO]2.0.CO;2.Google Scholar
UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division. World Population Prospects 2019. Volume I: Comprehensive Tables. New York: United Nations; 2019. Contract No. ST/ESA/SER.A/426.Google Scholar
UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation. Levels & Trends in Child Mortality: Report 2019. New York: UNICEF, World Health Organization, and World Bank; 2019.Google Scholar
World Bank. Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle. World Bank; 2018.Google Scholar
Omran, AR. The epidemiologic transition. A theory of the epidemiology of population change. The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. 1971;49(4):509–38.Google Scholar
Crutzen, PJ. Geology of mankind. Nature. 2002;415(6867):23. https://doi.org/10.1038/415023a.Google Scholar
Crutzen, PJ, Steffen, W. How long have we been in the Anthropocene era? Climatic Change. 2003;61(3):251–7. doi: 10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004708.74871.62.Google Scholar
Lewis, SL, Maslin, MA. Defining the Anthropocene. Nature. 2015;519(7542):171–80. doi: 10.1038/nature14258.Google Scholar
Lewis, SL, Maslin, M. The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene. London: Pelican; 2018.Google Scholar
Zalasiewicz, J, Waters, CN, Williams, M, et al. When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal. Quaternary International. 2015;383:196–203.Google Scholar
Whitmee, S, Haines, A, Beyrer, C, et al. Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene Epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health. The Lancet. 2015;386(10007):1973–2028. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60901-1.Google Scholar
IPBES. Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Bonn, Germany: Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; 2019. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3553579.Google Scholar
Haddad, NM, Brudvig, LA, Clobert, J, et al. Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems. Science Advances. 2015;1(2):e1500052. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500052.Google Scholar
Güneralp, B, Reba, M, Hales, BU, Wentz, EA, Seto, KC. Trends in urban land expansion, density, and land transitions from 1970 to 2010: a global synthesis. Environmental Research Letters. 2020;15(4):044015. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6669.Google Scholar
Pimm, SL, Jenkins, CN, Abell, R, et al. The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection. Science. 2014;344(6187). DOI: 10.1126/science.1246752.Google Scholar
Bar-On, YM, Phillips, R, Milo, R. The biomass distribution on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2018;115(25):6506–11. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1711842115.Google Scholar
Zarfl, C, Lumsdon, AE, Berlekamp, J, Tydecks, L, Tockner, K. A global boom in hydropower dam construction. Aquatic Sciences. 2015;77(1):161–70. DOI: 10.1007/s00027-014-0377-0.Google Scholar
Pauly, D, Zeller, D. Catch reconstructions reveal that global marine fisheries catches are higher than reported and declining. Nature Communications. 2016;7:10244. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10244.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhein, M, Rintoul, SR, Aoki, S, et al. Observations: Oceans. In Stocker, TF, Qin, D, Plattner, G-K, et al., editors. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2013. pp. 255–315.Google Scholar
Hughes, TP, Anderson, KD, Connolly, SR, et al. Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene. Science. 2018;359(6371):80–3. doi: 10.1126/science.aan8048.Google Scholar
Frainer, A, Primicerio, R, Kortsch, S, et al. Climate-driven changes in functional biogeography of Arctic marine fish communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2017;114(46):12202–7. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706080114.Google Scholar
Breitburg, D, Levin, LA, Oschlies, A, et al. Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters. Science. 2018;359(6371):eaam7240. DOI: 10.1126/science.aam7240.Google Scholar
WMO. Greenhouse Gas Bulletin: the state of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere based on global observations through 2016. Geneva: World Meteorological Organization; 2017.Google Scholar
UNEP. Emissions Gap Report 2019. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme; 2019.Google Scholar
Global Carbon Atlas. CO2 emissions 2020. Available from www.globalcarbonatlas.org/en/CO2-emissions.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, PR, Holdren, JP. Impact of population growth. Science. 1971;171:1212–17. doi: 10.1126/science.171.3977.1212.Google Scholar
Dietz, T, Rosa, EA, York, R. Driving the human ecological footprint. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 2007;5(1):13–18. doi: 10.1890/1540-9295(2007)5[13:Dthef]2.0.Co;2.Google Scholar
Rockström, J, Steffen, W, Noone, K, et al. Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society. 2009;14(2).Google Scholar
Cai, Y, Lenton, TM, Lontzek, TS. Risk of multiple interacting tipping points should encourage rapid CO2 emission reduction. Nature Climate Change. 2016;6(5):520–5. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2964.Google Scholar
Lenton, TM, Rockström, J, Gaffney, O, et al. Climate tipping points – too risky to bet against. Nature. 2019;575:592–5. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03595-0.Google Scholar
Steffen, W, Rockström, J, Richardson, K, et al. Trajectories of the Earth system in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2018;115(33):8252–9. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1810141115.Google Scholar
Drijfhout, S, Bathiany, S, Beaulieu, C, et al. Catalogue of abrupt shifts in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate models. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2015;112(43):E5777–86. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1511451112.Google Scholar
Mace, GM, Reyers, B, Alkemade, R, et al. Approaches to defining a planetary boundary for biodiversity. Global Environmental Change. 2014;28:289–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.07.009.Google Scholar
Fowler, D, Coyle, M, Skiba, U, et al. The global nitrogen cycle in the twenty-first century. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2013;368(1621):20130164. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0164.Google Scholar
Yuan, Z, Jiang, S, Sheng, H, et al. Human perturbation of the global phosphorus cycle: changes and consequences. Environmental Science & Technology. 2018;52(5):2438–50. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b03910.Google Scholar
Gonzalez, M, Taddonio, KN, Sherman, NJ. The Montreal Protocol: how today’s successes offer a pathway to the future. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. 2015;5(2):122–9. DOI: 10.1007/s13412-014-0208-6.Google Scholar
Strahan, SE, Douglass, AR. Decline in Antarctic ozone depletion and lower stratospheric chlorine determined from Aura Microwave Limb Sounder observations. Geophysical Research Letters. 2018;45(1):382–90. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074830.Google Scholar
Rigby, M, Park, S, Saito, T, et al. Increase in CFC-11 emissions from eastern China based on atmospheric observations. Nature. 2019;569(7757):546–50. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1193-4.Google Scholar
Solomon, S, Alcamo, J, Ravishankara, AR. Unfinished business after five decades of ozone-layer science and policy. Nature Communications. 2020;11(1):4272.Google Scholar
UNEP. Global Chemicals Outlook II – from legacies to innovative solutions: implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Geneva: United Nations Environment Programme; 2019.Google Scholar
Landrigan, PJ, Fuller, R, Acosta, NJR, et al. The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. The Lancet. 2018;391:462–512. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32345-0.Google Scholar
Persson, LM, Breitholtz, M, Cousins, IT, et al. Confronting unknown planetary boundary threats from chemical pollution. Environmental Science & Technology. 2013;47(22):12619–22. https://doi.org/10.1021/es402501c.Google Scholar
Altieri, AH, Gedan, KB. Climate change and dead zones. Global Change Biology. 2015;21(4):1395–406. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12754.Google Scholar
Obrist, D, Kirk, JL, Zhang, L, et al. A review of global environmental mercury processes in response to human and natural perturbations: changes of emissions, climate, and land use. Ambio. 2018;47(2):116–40. doi: 10.1007/s13280-017-1004-9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nadal, M, Marquès, M, Mari, M, Domingo, JL. Climate change and environmental concentrations of POPs: a review. Environmental Research. 2015;143:177–85. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2015.10.012.Google Scholar
Barange, M, Bahri, T, Beveridge, MCM, et al. Impacts of Climate Change on Fisheries and Aquaculture: Synthesis of Current Knowledge, Adaptation and Mitigation Options. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; 2018. Contract No. 627. ISBN 978-92-5-130607-9.Google Scholar
Marshman, J, Blay-Palmer, A, Landman, K. Anthropocene crisis: climate change, pollinators, and food security. Environments. 2019;6(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/environments6020022.Google Scholar
Stocker, TF, Qin, D, Plattner, G-K, et al., editors. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge University Press; 2013.Google Scholar
Sutton, MA, Oenema, O, Erisman, JW, et al. Too much of a good thing. Nature. 2011;472(7342):159–61. doi: 10.1038/472159a.Google Scholar
Global Footprint Network. Ecological footprint 2019. Available from www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/ecological-footprint/.Google Scholar
Davis, SJ, Caldeira, K. Consumption-based accounting of CO2 emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2010;107(12):5687–92. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0906974107.Google Scholar
Davis, SJ, Peters, GP, Caldeira, K. The supply chain of CO2 emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2011;108(45):18554–9. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1107409108.Google Scholar
Shearer, C, Mathew-Shah, N, Myllyvirta, L, Yu, A, Nace, T. Boom and Bust 2019: Tracking the Global Coal Plant Pipeline. San Francisco: Global Energy Monitor, Sierra Club, and Greenpeace; 2019.Google Scholar
Steckel, JC, Hilaire, J, Jakob, M, Edenhofer, O. Coal and carbonization in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nature Climate Change. 2020;10(1):83–8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0649-8.Google Scholar
Zhai, FY, Du, SF, Wang, ZH, et al. Dynamics of the Chinese diet and the role of urbanicity, 1991–2011. Obesity Reviews. 2014;15(Suppl. 1):16–26. DOI: 10.1111/obr.12124.Google Scholar
Kutzbach, MJ. Motorization in developing countries: causes, consequences, and effectiveness of policy options. Journal of Urban Economics. 2009;65(2):154–66.Google Scholar
Doumbia, M, Toure, NDE, Silue, S, et al. Emissions from the road traffic of West African cities: assessment of vehicle fleet and fuel consumption. Energies. 2018;11(9):2300. https://doi.org/10.3390/en11092300.Google Scholar
Hamilton, E, Cairns, H, editors. Plato: The Collected Dialogues. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1961.Google Scholar
Saint-Simon, H. Doctrine de Saint-Simon, Vol 2. Paris: Aux Bureaux de l’Organisateur; 1830.Google Scholar
Bonneuil, C, Fressoz, J-B. The Shock of the Anthropocene. London and New York: Verso; 2016.Google Scholar
Gomez-Baggethun, E, Corbera, E, Reyes-Garcia, V. Traditional ecological knowledge and global environmental change: research findings and policy implications. Ecology and Society. 2013;18(4):72.Google Scholar
Hamilton, C. Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; 2014.Google Scholar
Huzar, E. L’Arbre de la science. Paris: Dentu; 1857.Google Scholar
Arrhenius, S. On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground. Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. 1896;41:237–76.Google Scholar
Callendar, GS. The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. 1938;64(275):223–40.Google Scholar
Revelle, R, Suess, HE. Carbon dioxide exchange between atmosphere and ocean and the question of an increase of atmospheric CO2 during the past decades. Tellus. 1957;9(1):18–27.Google Scholar
Supran, G, Oreskes, N. Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (1977–2014). Environmental Research Letters. 2017;12(8):084019. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f.Google Scholar
WEF. The Global Risks Report 2019. Geneva: World Economic Forum; 2019.Google Scholar
Moore, JW, editor. Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Oakland, CA: PM Press/Kairos; 2016.Google Scholar
Freese, B. Coal: A Human History. Cambridge, MA: Perseus; 2003.Google Scholar
Yergin, D. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Simon & Schuster; 1991.Google Scholar
Auzanneau, M. Oil, Power, and War: A Dark History. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing; 2015.Google Scholar
Barber, DA. Tomorrow’s house: solar housing in 1940s America. Technology and Culture. 2014;55(1):1–39.Google Scholar
Jackson, KT. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1985.Google Scholar
Cullather, NT. The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, DJ. Troubled Lands: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Destruction. Washington, DC: Westview Press; 1993.Google Scholar
Dominick, R. Capitalism, communism, and environmental protection: lessons from the German experience. Environmental History. 1998;3(3):311–32.Google Scholar
Shapiro, J. Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press; 2001.Google Scholar
Schierhorn, F, Kastner, T, Kuemmerle, T, et al. Large greenhouse gas savings due to changes in the post-Soviet food systems. Environmental Research Letters. 2019;14(6):065009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab1cf1.Google Scholar
Heede, R. Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854–2010. Climatic Change. 2014;122(1):229–41. DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y.Google Scholar
Griffin, PM. The Carbon Majors Database: CDP Carbon Majors 2017. London: Carbon Disclosure Project; 2017.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Our Changing Planet
  • Andy Haines, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Howard Frumkin, University of Washington
  • Book: Planetary Health
  • Online publication: 01 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698054.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Our Changing Planet
  • Andy Haines, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Howard Frumkin, University of Washington
  • Book: Planetary Health
  • Online publication: 01 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698054.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Our Changing Planet
  • Andy Haines, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Howard Frumkin, University of Washington
  • Book: Planetary Health
  • Online publication: 01 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698054.001
Available formats
×