Abstract
I have been involved in studying and working within what is now called the Anthropocene for almost 50 years, and in all that time, not only have we failed to make much progress, but the state of the Earth’s ecosystems has generally worsened. Yet somehow we must create a world in which everyone on Earth has good health and a good quality of life—a matter of social justice—while living within the physical and ecological constraints of the one small planet that is our home; this is the focus of the new field of planetary health. Our worsening situation is not due to lack of knowledge, science and technology; in broad terms, we knew most of the challenges and many of the needed solutions back in the 1970s. Instead, the challenges we face are social, rooted in cultural values, political ideologies, legal and economic systems, ethical principles and spiritual/religious beliefs. Therefore, we have to move beyond science and technology and address these broader socio-cultural issues by engaging in economic, legal and political work, complementing and supplementing ‘head stuff’ with ‘heart, gut and spirit stuff’, and working from the grass roots up.
Highlights
In the past decade or two, both the scale and rate of the growing ecological crisis have become increasingly apparent
Earth systems, are in a zone of increasing risk for three others. This concept of planetary boundaries contributes to a new approach to economics, as and do not know the boundary of risk for three others; only in two systems we are in a safe zone [10]
Planet Report [26], which looked at inequality, there was a dramatic difference in the Ecological Footprint and Living Planet Index between high-income and low-income countries
Summary
In the past decade or two, both the scale and rate of the growing ecological crisis have become increasingly apparent. (e) the scale and rapidity of the ecological challenges we face; the ecological and social injustice inherent in our current dominant economic model and socio-cultural system; the variety and range of social change strategies we need to employ; the emotional and spiritual dimensions of the challenges we face and the responses we need; the potential and importance of local action. These are the topics I explore in what follows
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