Earth Day 2021

(Photo: Montara Beach, California)

Earth Day 2021

Protecting Our Planet and Our Health

By: Allison Kozicharow; Edited by Jessie Crowdy

The COVID-19 pandemic cruelly demonstrates the vulnerability of human life and how our actions can impact the health of others. Earth Day gives us the opportunity to think about how  the health of people and animals is closely linked with the changing climate and intensifying environmental conditions.

Exactly how do climate change and the environment relate to our health?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, climate change is threatening human and animal health by increasing the following:

• Air pollution → diminished human lung function and increased asthma
• Allergens → higher pollen count and longer pollen seasons
• Diseases carried by vectors → diseases caused by ticks, mosquitoes, etc.
• Food and waterborne diarrheal disease → salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, etc.
• Food insecurity → decreased crop, livestock and fish production; starvation
• Mental health and stress-related disorders → reactions to events such as weather disasters
• Floods → extreme precipitation events and their aftermath
• Drought and water scarcity → unclean water, cholera, diarrhea
• Temperature extremes → heat strokes; cardiovascular, respiratory and cerebrovascular disease
• Wildfire frequency → vulnerability of forests, loss of habitat

Earth Day 2021 reminds us that the environment is a system, where each element affects other elements. Wildfires, for instance, create air pollution; air pollution impacts health directly and it also influences temperature; temperature extremes affect crops and the food supply; food supply shortages cause illness and starvation which, in turn, inspire migration. It is a relentless cycle of interrelated elements. These relationships form an extraordinarily complex system that appears to be approaching a critical point.

When we look at health and the environment in the same frame, scientists refer to this as One Health — the intersection of human, animal and environmental health—all as part of one interdependent system.

For this Earth Day, we should think about these interrelationships. We should recognize that human, animal and environmental health are part of the same system, and that to improve our own health, we must improve the health of the environment on which all life depends.