Planetary health in the anthropecene

Abstract

The search for material well-being began to consolidate at the end of the 18th century with a broad process of economic, socio-environmental transformation, beginning the First Industrial Revolution, the so-called Great Acceleration began. This economic development increased the quality of life by improving access to material goods, access to health and education in many regions of the world. As a product of this great acceleration, all these global changes are leading the planet to an imbalance in biotic and non-biotic systems, which have been leaving traces in biogeochemical processes, which has led to the proposal of a new geological era. after the Holocene, called the Anthropocene. Socio-ecological systems are being degraded at an accelerating rate. All of this is interconnected and interdependent, its complex causality reflected in such a way that if one part is disturbed, it has consequences on the other part, which in turn influences the first. The inflection points or planetary limits are already being exceeded, humanity should maintain itself so as not to cross the threshold that triggers an abrupt and non-linear environmental change within the continental to planetary scale systems. Environmental health and human health are parts of the same system. Zoonotic diseases represent more than 60 percent of emerging diseases today and 75% of new infectious diseases are zoonotic, passing from animals to humans, which shows the close interconnection between the health of the planet and the Human health. These are not random events, they reflect patterns of what we are doing, the destruction of the habitat of many reservoir hosts has resulted in them being more directly related to human populations. Disruption and connectivity are two of the factors that make zoonotic diseases more threatening, more severe, and less preventable. The importance of maintaining protected areas for the conservation of biodiversity and the preservation of eco-systemic services, which favors the “dilution” effect of many diseases that affect other species and that have the ability to “spill over” onto communities human. As well as facing decarbonization at all levels, protecting watersheds and urgently addressing sustainable consumption and production, and preventing and managing disaster risk.