Environmental problems threaten U.S. security

Four Commentaries on the Pope’s Message on Climate Change and Income Inequality. IV. Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, Global Environmental Risks, and the Future of Humanity.

Special Issue on Toxics and Pathogens in the Environment

Triangle of Environment, Water and Energy: A Sociological Appraisal

Planet Earth, now home to about 6.5 billion human beings, has thus far disproved the doomsayers. In 1798, Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus predicted that population would outrun food supply on the assumption that human numbers would increase at a geometric rate while food would be limited to arithmetic increases. Then, in 1968, Stanford University professor Paul R. Ehrlich issued a similar warning in his book The Population Bomb, in which he predicted that hundreds of millions of people would die of starvation in the 1970s and 1980s. Both men underestimated humanity’s resourcefulness—as well as its scientific and technological acumen—in figuring out how to provide for its growing numbers. Still, there’s little doubt that the Earth’s human carrying capacity has a limit. And growth can’t continue indefinitely without more of the significant environmental health impacts we are already seeing. In addition to documenting exactly how much growth is occurring, scientists are now interested in trends reflecting where such growth is occurring and the effect of factors such as consumption rates and migration on sustainability of the Earth’s resources.

Q&A with Betty Kibaara: Innovations that can deliver “good food” for Africa

A default assumption about the Sahel is that farmers consider food provision for the family as the sole reason for cultivation. The degree to which this ‘cultivation for food’ assumption has been embedded in the scientific literature on land use changes is signified by the fact that hardly any studies have questioned it. This article suggests that the notion of ‘cultivation for food’ tends to downplay a number of additional cultivation outcomes. By employing a conceptual framework that incorporates the concept of multifunctional agriculture, which was primarily developed for analysis of agriculture in the Global North, the study explores agricultural transitions in two villages in Burkina Faso. The analysis reveals that several household types exist, and one cannot assume that food provision is and always has been the main cultivation outcome. On the contrary, it was found that households have moved away from a sole focus on food production. Households have started to value additional cultivation outcomes like fodder production, preservation of farm identity, attachment to the village and prestige, with important differentiations between the identified household types. Hence, the paper argues that researchers and policy-makers must face the reality of new agricultural transitional pathways in the Global South.

Current consumption patterns in Costa Rica, and other countries, are often driven by misinformation and lack of knowledge about the nutritional value and sustainability of food products, which leads to unhealthy diets and loss of food biodiversity. In 2012, Costa Rica launched a multi-stakeholder initiative, The National Plan on Healthy and Sustainable Gastronomy (hereafter referred to as the Plan), to reverse this trend. Healthy and Sustainable Gastronomy (HSG) is an innovative paradigm for the sustainability of natural resources based on the consumers’ decision to prepare and enjoy food to be healthy. It is one of various approaches and solutions provided by One Planet Network, which hosts the UN Sustainable Food Systems Programme. Costa Rica’s Plan promotes a new healthy and sustainable national cuisine as a driving force to create a sustainable food system and improve the health of the population through diet. The cuisine is designed to increase the use of local, traditional and plant-based foods and aims to reduce obesity and micronutrient deficiencies. Additional benefits are food security, increased food biodiversity and tourism through gastronomic food culture. This case study explains the concept of HSG and how Costa Rica implemented it to change consumer behaviour; support local producers; achieve national goals for sustainable development; promote tourism and improve population health. Important progress has been made, but lack of information and awareness about linkages connecting food production and consumption is a major barrier. Information challenges include a lack of traceability systems and eco-labelling to build consumer trust, ongoing consumer education, and ensuring production will satisfy demand. Overall, the authors believe that Costa Rica will act as a model of HSG for other countries to follow in order to achieve sustainable food production and consumption, bridging the gap between emerging markets and Western economies. Information © CAB International 2019

Sustainability of Costa Rica’s water supply under climate change scenarios

Moving from awareness to action on preventing patient exposure to toxic environmental chemicals

Environmental pollution—contamination of air, water and soil by human activity—is the largest cause of disease and death in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 8.9 million persons die each year of diseases caused by pollution, 8.4 million (94 %) of them in poor countries (WHO 2014a, b). By comparison, HIV/AIDS causes 1.5 million deaths per year (WHO 2014c), and malaria and tuberculosis cause fewer than 1 million deaths each (WHO 2014d). In the world’s poorest countries, the predominant forms of pollution have been indoor air pollution and contaminated drinking water (PAHO 2012). Pneumonia and diarrhea are their principal consequences. By contrast, ambient air pollution, toxic chemicals, pesticides and hazardous wastes are the predominant environmental hazards in richer countries. They are linked to noncommunicable diseases—to asthma, neurodevelopmental disorders and birth defects in children, and to heart disease, stroke, and cancer among adults (PAHO (Pan American Health Organization) 2012). Toxic chemicals are increasingly important causes of pollution worldwide. Many thousands of new chemicals have been invented in the past 50 years. They are used in a vast array of products, are widely disseminated in the global environment and are detectable today in the bodies of most people. Many have never been adequately tested for safety (Landrigan and Goldman 2011). Toxic chemicals are linked to a wide range of diseases. Chemical contamination in LMICs is increasing rapidly (Laborde et al. 2015). Globalization of the chemical manufacturing industry, the recycling industry and other polluting industries is a powerful driver of this trend. These industries are relocating to poor countries where production costs are low and environmental regulations and public health infrastructure often absent. Workers and communities in LMICs are increasingly exposed to toxic chemicals, often under highly uncontrolled conditions. Examples include the Bhopal disaster in India (Mishra et al. 2009); the continuing global trade of 2 million tons per year of newly produced asbestos (Frank and Joshi 2014); the shipment into poor countries of 45 million tons per year of e-waste (Perkins et al. 2014); informal recycling of car batteries for lead scrap in third world mega-cities; and enormous releases of mercury to the environment from artisanal gold mining. The diseases caused by pollution impose great economic costs on countries around the world—direct medical costs, opportunity costs reflecting the diminished productivity of populations damaged by pollution, and costs to health care systems (Landrigan and Fuller 2015). In the United States, the annual cost of diseases in children caused by environmental pollution is estimated to be US$ 76.6 billion (Trasande and Liu 2011) and the cost of occupational diseases and injuries is US$ 250 billion (Leigh 2011). Pollution can be controlled. High-income countries have identified and controlled many of their worst problems of environmental pollution. They have developed feasible, cost-effective and replicable strategies that have reduced incidence and prevalence of the diseases caused by pollution. The most effective of these strategies, such as the This Editorial is part of the special issue ‘‘Driving the Best Science to Meet Global Health Challenges’’ edited on the occasion of the 9th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health 2015.

Costa Rica is a developing country whose citizens pride themselves on care for the environment. Environmental care is only slowly spreading to include safe and reliable water supplies. Plentiful water resources are used for energy production, industry, municipal water supply, and agriculture. The amount and quality of water resources must be understood and protected for future sustainable use. Based on interviews and conversations, some Costarricense are aware of the need for protection of natural water resources through preservation of forests; other steps toward sustainable water use are not universally valued. Streams are not the preferred source of domestic water supply due to potential water contamination; mostly from untreated sewage, sediment and agricultural chemicals. Quantity and quality of ground water supplies, the current main source of domestic water, are being investigated by scientists of Costa Rica. While 99 % of the population has access to a known supply of domestic water, only 82 % of the population has consistent access to potable drinking water. The potable water supply is smaller in rural areas. Three percent of sewage in Costa Rica is treated before release to the environment. The Rio Tarcoles water basin, underlying the largest urban area of Costa Rica, is probably the most polluted in Central America. More is spent for treatment of water-borne diseases than on water supply and sewage treatment. Other potential sources of water contamination are examined.

Ants Like Flower Nectar

Global environment and technology of plasticity: role of technology of plasticity in addressing global environmental issues

The Myth of Sustainable Development: Personal Reflections on Energy, its Relation to Neoclassical Economics, and Stanley Jevons

This special issue deals with water and food as it applies to water resources and rice production in the Mekong River Basin. The range of papers reflects not only the broad interest but also the complexity of the topic. These reports are mainly based on the research carried out by the project, “Assessment of the Impact of Global-Scale Change in Water Cycles on Food Production and Alternative Policy Scenarios”. Hence the special issue gives a brief overview of the structure, goals, outcomes, and future direction of the above project. What we do in this paper are: (1) giving an overview of the project’s structure and goals, (2) stating the five common outcomes and several more specific results, and (3) looking forward to the future direction of the project. The aim of our research is to draw up scenarios for optimum water-resource distribution and to develop social guidelines, measures, and policies to help solving food and environmental problems by developing a world water–food model that emphasizes rice production in Monsoon Asia. We have integrated all of the data gathered and the research results into a food supply and demand model combined with a water-cycle analysis. We included operational factors, such as water-cycle change, water demand, water supply, and water distribution in the model. Emphasis is placed on the use of efficient resource-management technologies for proper use of water resources in agricultural and other sectors. The water–food model has been developed as a tool for evaluating technical decisions derived under various policy scenarios.