Tony Capon: the world's first professor of planetary health

Abstract

Speaking to The Lancet from the University of Sydney, where he is the world's first Professor of Planetary Health, Tony Capon says: “Planetary health is about safeguarding the health and wellbeing of current and future generations through good stewardship of Earth's natural systems and by rethinking the way we feed, move, house, power, and care for the world.” Capon hopes his new team in Sydney can make a real difference. Safeguarding human health in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on planetary healthFar-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. Full-Text PDF