This essay proposes ways to extend the concept of _planetary health_, in the framework of major evolutionary transition applied to the planet as a whole. I argue that planetary health can be naturally extended to a fully planetary scale, including issues related to geo- bio- techno- and noo- spheres. I show the need and importance for ethics and governance to become global and I give some examples of physiological and psychological health issues from a planetary (...) perspective. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic has shattered our world with increased morbidity, mortality, and personal/social sufferings. At the time of this writing, we are in a biomedical race for protective equipment, viral testing, and vaccine creation in an effort to respond to COVID threats. But what is the role of health humanities in these viral times? This article works though interdisciplinary connections between health humanities, the planetary health movement, and environmental humanities to conceptualize the emergence of “planetary (...) health humanities.” The goal of this affinity linkage is to re-story health humanities toward promotion of planetary health and community well-being. Wellbeing is critical because the main driver of environmental destruction and decreasing planetary health is coming from non-sustainable definitions of wellbeing. We need the arts and humanities to help reimagine the possibility of a sustainable community wellbeing. For health humanities, a basic role and narrative identity starts to emerge—we should become a planetary health humanities. (shrink)

This essay charts a conceptual history of “planetary health,” which holds that population health and the continuity of human civilization depend on the integrity—the health—of the Earth’s life-support systems. It seeks to identify settler colonial and imperial genealogies of this distinctly ecological approach to human population health and flourishing, an assemblage of systems theory and planetary thinking as well as developments in environmental sciences and theories of sustainable development. Planetary health may be (...) seen as a “third wave” of disease ecology, an emergent resource for more complex, naturalistic, and scaled-up modeling in epidemiology—the latest installment in the search for multifactorial, relational, and integrated explanations of patterns of disease. The approach required a new planetary imaginary—emerging from a series of Earth-encompassing crises, such as global heating—which enlarged and systematized ecological configurations of human health and illness. In tracing and critically situating this conceptual history, the authors offer a partial perspective on what may yet become planetary health, drawing attention to some other conceptual routes that may be taken. (shrink)

In responding to perceived crises—such as the COVID-19 pandemic—in routinized ways, contemporary bioethics can make us prisoners of the proximate. Rather, we need bioethics to recognize and engage with complex configurations of global ecosystem degradation and collapse, thereby showing us paths toward co-inhabiting the planet securely and sustainably. Such a planetary health ethics might draw rewardingly on Indigenous knowledge practices or Indigenous philosophical ecologies. It will require ethicists, with other health professionals, to step up and become public (...) advocates for environmental sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic should be seen as opening a portal to planetary health ethics or ecologized bioethics. (shrink)

There is an urgent call for nurses to address climate change, especially in advocating for those most under threat to the impacts. Social justice is important to nurses in their relations with individuals and populations, including actions to address climate justice. The purpose of this article is to present a Global Nurse Agenda for Climate Justice to spark dialog, provide direction, and to promote nursing action for just‐relations and responsibility for planetary health. Grounding ourselves within the Mi'kmaw concept (...) of Etuaptmumk (two‐eyed seeing), we suggest that climate justice is both call and response, moving nurses from silence to Ksaltultinej (love as action). We review the movement for climate justice in nursing, weaving between our own stories, our relations with Mi'kmaw ways of knowing, and the stories of the movement, with considerations for the (w)holistic perspectives foundational to nursing's metaparadigm of person, environment, and health. We provide a background to the work of the Global Nurse Agenda for Climate Justice steering committee including their role at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, 2021, and share our own stories of action to frame this agenda. We accept our Responsibility for the challenges of climate justice with humility and invite others to join us. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Many of humanity's most serious problems are global, intergenerational, and ecological, yet current institutions are poorly placed to confront such problems. In part, this institutional challenge reflects difficulties with our basic concepts and theories. Bioethics is a central area where such questions arise. Although some have argued for an environmentalized bioethics since its inception, biomedicine has thus far failed to embrace the challenge, and some accuse most bioethicists of being "asleep at the wheel" (Schenck and Churchill 2021). This paper discusses (...) the basic ethical challenge, offers the "perfect moral storm" analysis, and explores one promising new concept for bioethics, planetary health, in light of that analysis. Drawing on the foundational report of the Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission (Whitmee et al. 2015) and using climate change as the example, the author argues that planetary health has significant strengths but also some weaknesses, and that identifying both is helpful in charting a path forward for environmentalized bioethics. (shrink)

This paper offers a theoretical discussion on why the nursing profession has had a delayed response to the issue of climate change. We suggest this delay may have been influenced by the early days of nursing's professionalization. Specifically, we examine nursing's professional mandate, the generally accepted metaparadigm, and the grand theorists’ conceptualizations of both the environment and the nurse–environment relationship. We conclude that these works may have encouraged nurses to conceptualize the environment, as well as their relationship with it, mainly (...) in terms of the individual patient, and as such, nurses have not been encouraged to understand these concepts from a broader perspective. By not having the philosophical and theoretical foundations to understand the environment in relation to society, it is not surprising that nurses have had a delayed response to climate change and may not have viewed it as a professional concern. A planetary health perspective is suggested as a theoretical basis for nursing education, research and practice. Taking on a planetary health perspective could help nurses progress the profession and move healthcare systems towards supporting a climate‐resilient future. (shrink)

The article critically responds to "A Planetary Health Pledge for Health Professionals in the Anthropocene" which was published by Wabnitz et al. in The Lancet in November 2020. It focuses on the different roles and responsibilities of a physician. The pledge is criticised because it neglects the different roles, gives no answers in case of conflicting goals, and contains numerous inconsistencies. The relationship between the Planetary Health Pledge and the Declaration of Geneva is examined. It (...) is argued that the Planetary Health Pledge should have supplemented the Declaration of Geneva instead of changing it. (shrink)

This chapter delves into the museological side of ‘the way forward’ to conservation for planetary health bioethics. Specifically, it highlights the crucial role that museums play – their curatorial or exhibition interventions, conservation operations, development policies, or practices – which present or represent the vital relationship between human and planetary health. While it is not new to stress the significance of museums’ link to the environment and environmental education, it is necessary to re-examine recent cases in (...) light of the rapid changes brought about by climate change and the constant call for sustainability. We thus offer a review of some recent literature that appraises the museum’s role in bioethically considering the health of our living planet. Learning this role taps into relatively new themes such as ecomuseums and architectural heritage, or critical eco-museology. (shrink)

In this article, we aimed to evaluate the utility of critical posthumanism for nurses interested in planetary health—a growing area of study that requires a decentering of the human, and environmental justice considerations. We used Chinn and colleagues' method to describe and critically reflect on critical posthumanism, extending the theory analysis method to include a wide range of academic and video sources. We found that critical posthumanism is like a double‐edged sword: It provides a lens through which to (...) transcend human‐centric approaches to healthcare but is marred by its lack of clarity and inaccessibility. We argue critical posthumanism can be adapted to enhance its potential at the intersection of nursing and planetary health. An analysis of critical posthumanism is followed by a discussion framed by five ways of knowing in nursing, highlighting real‐world examples of how critical posthumanism can aid nurses in dealing with planetary health concerns. By exploring the intersections of critical posthumanism with nursing knowledge, we demonstrate how critical posthumanism can enable nurses to comprehend and tackle environmental issues intricately linked to human health. (shrink)

This paper shows how the Energy System Sciences provide the theoretical backbone and empirical substance we need to connect findings from across the human and natural sciences in a way that is prac...

Climate change has been called “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” This chapter outlines some central ethical dimensions of the challenge. It begins by reviewing a few of the major health impacts expected from climate change. It then summarizes some key issues surrounding the ethical importance of health, and of injustices connected to global health inequalities. Finally, the chapter explores a recent concept – planetary health – that aims to environmentalize public (...) health in order to confront climate change more successfully. The basic conclusion is that issues of ethics and justice are central to the public health challenge moving forward. One aspect of this challenge is the need for a more philosophically robust account of the ethics of public health in general, perhaps pursued through a deeper exploration and development of the concept of planetary health. (shrink)

Humans and other species depend on the planet’s well-being to survive and flourish. The health of the planet and its ecosystems is under threat from anthropogenic climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. The promotion of planetary health against entrenched degradation of nature urgently requires ethical guidance. Using an ecocentric virtue jurisprudence approach, this article argues that the highest end of safeguarding planetary health is to secure the flourishing of the Earth community, of which the flourishing (...) of humanity is but one component. The article demonstrates how law, despite its historic role in facilitating our present planetary crisis, has an untapped potential to redeem itself by promoting planetary flourishing through the creation of conditions conducive to the practice of moral virtues, which can help meet the challenges of the Anthropocene. Once given an ecocentric interpretation, the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, courage and moderation, as well as their subvirtues, can justify or produce legal structures that address everything from the human right to a healthy environment to the rights of nature. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic has dramatically shown the level of interconnectedness of the human population, the direct relation between human health and the ecosystem, as well as the enormous ethical challenges required for a global response. Relatedly, society has been directly confronted by issues of ‘Global health,’ both in terms of awareness of health conditions and health systems resiliency all around the world, as well as in terms of governance of the worldwide response and its implications at (...) national and local levels. While Global health is often used as a cosmetic label for neocolonial approaches, it is really an interdisciplinary approach consisting of the interaction between globalization and the determinants of health. Thus, it involves the ecosystem and its transformation and implies a systemic ‘One Health’ decolonized approach in the definition of its strategies. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the inequities and the limits of the current hegemonic Global health system governance; calling for ethics to provide a renewed, comprehensive, inclusive, and decolonized conceptualization of Global health. (shrink)

Abstract Environmental and public health-focused sciences are increasingly characterised as constituting an emerging discipline—planetary medicine. From a governance perspective, the ethical components of that discipline may usefully be viewed as bestowing upon our ailing natural environment the symbolic moral status of a patient. Such components emphasise, for example, the origins and content of professional and social virtues and related ethical principles needed to promote global governance systems and policies that reduce ecological stresses and pathologies derived from human overpopulation, (...) selfishness and greed—such as pollution, loss of biodiversity, deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions, as well as provide necessary energy, water and food security. Less well explored in this context, however, is the ethics that should underpin global use of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology as forms of planetary therapeutics. Nanotechnology may be particularly important, for instance, as a mechanism for improving upon photosynthesis and engineering it into human structures for localised production of carbon-neutral hydrogen based-fuel and carbohydrate-based food and fertilizer. Artificial photosynthesis, because of its unique and widespread public and environmental benefits in this period of human history, may even be termed the moral culmination of nanotechnology, assisting this planet to move beyond the Anthropocene epoch to that of the Sustainocene. This paper explores practical steps towards planetary nanomedicine involving governance of artificial photosynthesis, including a UNESCO Universal Declaration on the Bioethics and Human Rights of Natural and Artificial Photosynthesis (Global Solar Fuels and Foods ). Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0144-4 Authors Thomas Faunce, College of Medicine, Biology and the Environment and College of Law (joint Appointment), Australian National University, Acton, Australia Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. (shrink)

This essay presents central themes from my forthcoming book, The Awakening of the Global Mind. This book seeks to open a new frontier of Global Consciousness that has been long emerging in human evolution through the ages. When we step back from our more localized perspectives and expand into a more integral, holistic, and global space through the awakening of the global mind we are able to discern striking mega-trends in cultural evolution across diverse cultural and religious worldviews and perspectives (...) through time. One striking finding through this global lens is that the collective wisdom of humanity is quite clear that we make our living realities through the conduct of our consciousness: our technology of minding. And when we make ourselves and worlds through egocentric patterns of thinking we get polarized and fragmented worlds that are not sustainable. This essay joins a growing chorus of visionary thinkers and futurists which recognizes that in the 21st Century we face grave planetary crises and that our ego-based cultures are at a tipping point and not sustainable. The primary crisis on the planet now is a crisis of consciousness, and our global wisdom suggests that humanity is in a painful transformation toward a more healthful integral technology of mind that ushers in a new sustainable global civilization wherein the whole human family may flourish together on our sacred planet. (shrink)

The escalating planetary crises of human-induced climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and declining biodiversity call for urgent actions to be taken at all levels of society and by the global community. The current political strategy for a sustainable future that emphasizes economic and technological progress is insufficient to bring about the change required; an educational approach based on identities, values, ethics, and new worldviews is also needed. In this article Arto O. Salonen and his coauthors consider the (...) kind of pedagogy that could support a transformation of the human conception of reality into a form that both recognizes the connections and interactions between people, society, and the planet, and imparts an ethical orientation to action that strengthens the health and integrity of all entities. A theory of planetary social pedagogy (PSP) is based on traditional social pedagogy, which provides a theoretical framework for formal, nonformal, and informal education. PSP aims at building a deep holistic understanding of the relationship between the individual, society, and Earth by integrating the fragmented human conception and experience of reality by uniting the three dimensions of a social-ecological worldview: spatial, temporal, and ethical. Moreover, PSP is a cyclical learning process that alternates between cognitive, metacognitive, and epistemic levels of learning. The ultimate goal of using PSP is to lay the foundation for a fundamental transformation of the ideals, values, and culture that shape human behavior in ways necessary for securing a sustainable future. (shrink)

This paper investigates the ethical implications of research at the interface between biodiversity and both human and animal health. Health and sanitary crises often lead to ethical debates, especially when it comes to disruptive interventions such as forced vaccinations, quarantine, or mass culling of domestic or wild animals. In such debates, the emergence of a “Planetary health ethics” can be highlighted. Ethics and accountability principles apply to all aspects of scientific research including its technological and engineering (...) applications, regardless of whether they are considered “hard sciences”, such as state-of-the-art technology in the fields of medicine, veterinary medicine, agronomy, or environment, or “soft”, such as local or global governance, health, socio-ecosystems, and the environment. Ethical reflection in the interdisciplinary field of biodiversity and health requires the examination of relevant scientific domains, such as biology, ecology, evolution, human medicine, animal medicine, anthropology, and law, and their epistemology and representation as well as scientific pluralism, which is crucial to establish genuine interdisciplinarity. Navigating the ethics-scape necessitates going beyond the hierarchy of science by recognising that scientific knowledge has implications for both scientific and non-scientific perspectives on the study of nature. The example of a Nipah virus outbreak is used to illustrate how the so-called “modern epidemiological” approach often focuses on risk factors associated with individual behavioural characteristics or collective practices, whereas the so-called “eco-social” approach focuses on global, socio-economic, and environmental factors that are the contextual causes of the health problem affecting the community. “Modern epidemiologists” aim to “correct” individual or practice factors using a “minimal set” of ethics, whereas “eco-social” scientists have to act systemically, which requires integrated research that acknowledges scientific pluralism, avoids the hierarchy of sciences, but accepts the pluralism of ethics and values. (shrink)

This piece offers a retrospective review of a plenary speech at the 1969 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association by the leading environmentalist of the Nixon administration, attorney and judge Russell Train. Train's talk, titled “Prescription for a Planet,” can be seen as an early argument for uniting environmental health and public health as the two main determinants of both individual and population health and for the inclusion of these fields in the then‐new field (...) of “bioethics.”. (shrink)

This article pursues a Whiteheadian association of meals and cooking with an orienting concern for ecological well-being and planetary health. Process thought helps those who eat to recognize the real influences that our meals have upon the emerging world.

Social prescriptions are one term commonly used to describe non-pharmaceutical approaches to healthcare and are gaining popularity in the community, with evidence highlighting psychological benefits of reduced anxiety, depression and improved mood and physiological benefits of reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and reduced hypertension. The relationship between human health benefits and planetary health benefits is also noted. There are, however, numerous barriers, such as duration and frequencies to participate in activities, access, suitability, volition and a range of (...) unpredictable variables impeding a comprehensive approach to their use on a wider scale. From a multidisciplinary perspective, this commentary incorporates a salutogenic and nature-based approach to health, we also provide a range of recommendations that can be undertaken at the patient level to assist in shifting the acknowledged systemic barriers currently occurring. These include using simple language to explain the purpose of health empowerment scripts, ensuing personal commitment to a minimum timeframe, enabling ease of access, co-designing a script program, providing ongoing motivational support and incorporating mindfulness to counter unexpected disruptions. (shrink)

Food for Thought seeks to enlighten people about their power as individuals to shape industry and society starting from the food they eat. The reader is invited to question who is really benefiting from our present food system through a detailed science-based analysis of food production and consumption. Perussello discusses how the production and consumption of animal products go well beyond the blatant violence against non-human animals: she posits that animal agriculture is procuring a world of disease, unhappiness, injustice, and (...) environmental depletion. Our author then presents an accessible, science-based analysis of animal food production from the perspective of Food Process Engineering. She then provides insightful discussions on the health, ecological, social, and spiritual implications of our diet. This information is supported by powerful photographs taken by Animal Equality's undercover investigators in animal farms worldwide. The author elaborates on the relationship between microbial pathogens (including Covid-19), antibiotic resistance, and the consumption of animal products, rendering Food for Thought a timely reading. The book also unveils myths on "humane" and "sustainable" animal foods, such as organic milk, grass-fed meat, and cage- free eggs, demonstrating how animal agriculture is the antithesis of compassion and sustainability, regardless of farm size, production system, and geographical region. Food for Thought is ultimately an invitation to a regenerated society. This book will help vegetarians and omnivores align their actions with their values and live a happier, more fulfilling life. The unprecedented views on food production offered by this compelling reading will also empower vegans in communicating with their non-vegan peers about the importance of following a plant-based living. (shrink)

Accelerated changes to the planet have created novel spaces to re-imagine the boundaries and foci of environmental health research. Climate change, mass species extinction, ocean acidification, biogeochemical disturbance, and other emergent environmental issues have precipitated new population health perspectives, including, but not limited to, one health, ecohealth, and planetary health. These perspectives, while nuanced, all attempt to reconcile broad global challenges with localized health impacts by attending to the reciprocal relationships between the health (...) of ecosystems, animals, and humans. While such innovation is to be encouraged, we argue that a more comprehensive engagement with the ethics of these emerging fields of inquiry will add value in terms of the significance and impact of associated interventions. In this contribution, we highlight how the concept of spatial and temporal scale can be usefully deployed to shed light on a variety of ethical issues common to emerging environmental health perspectives, and that the potential of scalar analysis implicit to van Potter’s conceptualization of bioethics has yet to be fully appreciated. Specifically, we identify how scale interacts with key ethical issues that require consideration and clarification by one health, ecohealth, and planetary health researchers and practitioners to enhance the effectiveness of research and practice, including justice and governance. (shrink)

This literature review provides an overview of ethical approaches used at the intersection of climate change, the environment and health. Six ethical approaches are discussed: (i) rights- based approaches, concentrating on human rights, animal rights and environmental rights; (ii) justice approaches, discussing issues of distribution, relations, climate health justice, future generations, and interspecies justice; (iii) integrated concepts of health, such as One Health and Planetary Health; (iv) Indigenous and non-Western perspectives, introducing the significance of (...) biocultural heritage, harmonious relationships, and decolonisation movements; (v) professional responsibilities towards the environment among health workers and other professions; and (vi) ethical principles in relation to climate change and the environment. A concise assessment is provided on how each of these ethical approaches may inform policy and practice addressing climate change, environmental degradation and health. (shrink)

Our current planetary emergency is one in which we are facing significant global warming as a result of human-driven climate change. This is having and will continue to have catastrophic results for the earth’s ecosystems and for life as we know it. The Christian tradition often works actively against the seriousness of these challenges due to its eschatological outlook. Process theology, as one stream within the Christian tradition, embraces a different vision of the future that fosters engagement in current (...) concerns rather than an escapist approach. A process theological proposal is therefore offered that calls for an embodied ethic that embraces the acronym SHE. SHE stands for Sustainability, Health, and Ethics. It provides a dietary grid as a way to embody ethics to bring about societal change in light of environmental challenges. SHE is proposed against a background that argues for Christian engagement in our current global crisis. The idea of “small turnings” as a conceptual idea is adopted to help frame how the SHE grid might be understood. (shrink)

Six planetary boundaries have already been exceeded, including climate change, loss of biodiversity, chemical pollution, and land-system change. The health research sector contributes to the environmental crisis we are facing, though to a lesser extent than healthcare or agriculture sectors. It could take steps to reduce its environmental impact but generally has not done so, even as the planetary emergency worsens. So far, the normative case for why the health research sector should rectify that failure has (...) not been made. This paper argues strong philosophical grounds, derived from theories of health and social justice, exist to support the claim that the sector has a duty to avoid or minimise causing or contributing to ecological harms that threaten human health or worsen health inequity. The paper next develops ideas about the duty’s content, explaining why it should entail more than reducing carbon emissions, and considers what limits might be placed on the duty. (shrink)

The global climate crisis is an immediate threat, causing inequitable health impacts across different populations. Climate justice connects the causes and effects of climate change to structural injustices in society. Nurses and community‐based organizations (CBOs) partner in promoting justice and health equity. The purpose of this article is to describe how nurses and their CBO partners envision, perceive, and experience climate justice in the communities they serve. Participants were recruited via a screening survey sent to nursing and public (...) health organizations in the United States. This descriptive mixed‐methods study utilized participatory photo mapping (i.e., combined participatory photography, community mapping, and interviews) to capture participants’ understanding and experiences of climate justice. Recruitment methods identified eight partnerships across six states. Participants depicted how climate injustice is reinforced by colonial severance from Nature. Participants noted that state violence and corporate climate pollution degraded the public's health. Climate justice was described as a long struggle to regain spiritual relationships within Nature, fostering belonging, abundance, and protected communities of care. Planetary health and well‐being were central to participants’ experiences with climate justice. Future research could explore barriers and facilitators to addressing climate injustice and promoting climate justice in diverse settings. (shrink)

Just Ecological Integrity presents a collection of revised and expanded essays originating from the international conference 'Connecting Environmental Ethics, Ecological Integrity, and Health in the New Millennium' held in San Jose, Costa Rica in June 2000. It is a cooperative venture of the Global Ecological Integrity Project and the Earth Charter Initiative.

Just Ecological Integrity presents a collection of revised and expanded essays originating from the international conference "Connecting Environmental Ethics, Ecological Integrity, and Health in the New Millennium" held in San Jose, Costa Rica in June 2000. It is a cooperative venture of the Global Ecological Integrity Project and the Earth Charter Initiative.

The symbiotic resonance of the planetary and psychosomatic bodies was one of the most ancient religious and philosophical assumptions in ancient China. A number of contemporary scholars have explored this assumption in various branches of Chinese thought. Here, I would like to investigate this ancient assumption further in relation to the classical medical traditions, arguing that it was the medical thinkers who first attempted a systematic treatment and modeling of the macrocosm and the somatic body as a microcosm. Specifically, (...) I suggest that the mutual trust between cosmology and medicine yields a cosmological synthesis of.. (shrink)

Centuries of scientific progress have been devoted to reducing uncertainty. Newtonian physics, introduced over 300 years ago, allowed for precise prediction of planetary and tidal motion, falling bodies and infinitely more, in addition to allowing the construction of the material world. The 20th century witnessed a revolution in our understanding of organ and cellular function and dysfunction, elucidation of pathways, mediators, receptors, and molecular interactions, and breakthroughs in the characterization of replication, transcription, and translation, all of which has been (...) integral to our understanding of human physiology and pathophysiology. Clinical epidemiology has had a revolutionary impact on our .. (shrink)

The legacy of colonial rule has permeated into all aspects of life and contributed to healthcare inequity. In response to the increased interest in social justice, medical educators are thinking of ways to decolonise education and produce doctors who can meet the complex needs of diverse populations. This paper aims to explore decolonising ideas of healing within medical education following recent events including the University College London Medical School’s Decolonising the Medical Curriculum public engagement event, the Wellcome Collection ’s Ayurvedic (...) Man: Encounters with Indian Medicine exhibition and its symposium on Decolonising Health, SOAS University of London’s Applying a Decolonial Lens to Research Structures, Norms and Practices in Higher Education Institutions and University College London Anthropology Department’s Flourishing Diversity Series. We investigate implications of ‘recentring’ displaced indigenous healing systems, medical pluralism and highlight the concept of cultural humility in medical training, which while challenging, may benefit patients. From a global health perspective, climate change debates and associated civil protests around the issues resonate with indigenous ideas of planetary health, which focus on the harmonious interconnection of the planet, the environment and human beings. Finally, we look further at its implications in clinical practice, addressing the background of inequality in healthcare among the BAME populations, intersectionality and an increasing recognition of the role of inter-generational trauma originating from the legacy of slavery. By analysing these theories and conversations that challenge the biomedical view of health, we conclude that encouraging healthcare educators and professionals to adopt a ‘ decolonising attitude ’ can address the complex power imbalances in health and further improve person-centred care. (shrink)

As COVID-19 emerged as a phenomenon of the total environment, and despite the intertwined and complex relationships that make humanity an organic part of the Bio- and Geospheres, the majority of our responses to it have been corrective in character, with few or no consideration for unintended consequences which bring about further vulnerability to unanticipated global events. Tackling COVID-19 entails a systemic and precautionary approach to human-nature relations, which we frame as regaining diversity in the Geo-, Bio-, and Anthropospheres. Its (...) implementation requires nothing short of an overhaul in the way we interact with and build knowledge from natural and social environments. Hence, we discuss the urgency of shifting from current to precautionary approaches to COVID-19 and look, through the lens of diversity, at the anticipated benefits in four systems crucially affecting and affected by the pandemic: health, land, knowledge and innovation. Our reflections offer a glimpse of the sort of changes needed, from pursuing planetary health and creating more harmonious forms of land use to providing a multi-level platform for other ways of knowing/understanding and turning innovation into a source of global public goods. These exemplary initiatives introduce and solidify systemic thinking in policymaking and move priorities from reaction-based strategies to precautionary frameworks. (shrink)

Sustainability, and the related concept of climate change, is an emerging domain within nursing and nurse education. Climate change has been posited as a serious global health threat requiring action by health professionals and action at international level. Anåker & Elf undertook a concept analysis of sustainability in nursing based on Walker and Avant's framework. Their main conclusions seem to be that while defining attributes and cases can be established, there is not enough research into sustainability in the (...) nursing literature. This paper seeks to develop their argument to argue that sustainability in nursing can be better understood by accessing non‐nursing and grey literature and, for example, the literature in the developing web‐based ‘paraversity’. Without this understanding, and application in nursing scholarship, nurses will have a rather narrow understanding of sustainability and its suggested links with social and health inequalities and the dynamics underpinning unsustainable neoliberalist political economy. This understanding is based on the social and political determinants of health approach and the emerging domain of planetary health. However, this is a major challenge as it requires a critical reflection on what counts as nursing knowledge, a reflection which might reject sustainability and political economy as irrelevant to much of nursing practice. (shrink)

In an accompanying feature article, Parker argued that general practitioners should support efforts by the National Health Service to reduce greenhouse gases by avoiding metered-dose inhalers and by prescribing similarly effective inhalers with smaller carbon footprints.1 He also argued that patients are not morally justified in declining to use dry powder inhalers which do not contain greenhouse gases and when judged to be readily available and similarly effective, unless, when patients resist that option, their trust in the professional relationship (...) is undermined.1 Prescribers should, therefore, take account of factors not only concerning the benefits and costs to individual patients including the strength of the professional relationship, but broader social considerations including potential effects on climate change and planetary health. In this commentary, I present three additional factors to broaden the context of Parker’s excellent analysis. The first is that a discussion with patients on the effects of various forms of inhalers on the environment may bring to their attention the seriousness of anthropogenic climate change and open opportunities …. (shrink)

The need for a shift toward healthier and more sustainable diets is evident and is supported by universalized standards for a “planetary health diet” as recommended in the recent EAT-Lancet report. At the same time, differences exist in tastes, preferences and food practices among diverse ethnic groups, which becomes progressively relevant in light of Europe’s increasingly multi-ethnic cities. There is a growing tension between current sustainable diets standards and how diverse ethnic resident groups relate to it within their (...) ‘culturally appropriate’ foodways, raising questions around inclusion. What are dynamics of inclusiveness in migrant food practices? And what does this mean towards the transition to healthy and sustainable food? We study this question among Syrian migrants with different lengths of stay in the Netherlands. Our theoretical framework is based on practice theories, which emphasize the importance of socio-material context and of bodily routines and competences. We use qualitative methods, combining in-depth semi-structured life-history interviews with participant observation. Our findings indicate that inclusiveness takes different forms as migrants’ food practices and the food environment change. Regarding health and sustainability in food practices, understandings and competences around particularly fresh food change over time among both short- and long-term migrants, replacing making things from scratch with seasonal products with buying more processed products and out-of-season vegetables and fruits. We conclude that the performances of food practices and their configurations in food environments and lifestyles are dynamic and cannot unequivocally be interpreted as in- or exclusive, but that a more nuanced understanding is required. (shrink)

The concept of resistance in nursing has been garnering more interest in the last few years, with emerging focus on working conditions, power differentials in clinical settings, health inequities, and planetary health concerns. As a result, it's important to identify what is being resisted, and what is the purpose of the resistance carried out. In whatever way resistance is referenced in nursing, outright or not, it is our contention that it's in response to the same underlying cause, (...) barring some local and contextual variations, which we refer to as ‘the Beast’, where the real catastrophe is societal, and is ‘existential, affective and metaphysical’. It therefore seems coherent to consider this macro catastrophe from an ontological point of view, that is, from the standpoints of ‘being’ in relation to the world, which necessarily refers to specific ways of apprehending reality. In this article, we therefore present two ontologies ‐ antagonistic in every respect, to better situate resistance in nursing in a larger ecosystem. Using the Invisible Committee's book and call to action To our friends, this is our modest contribution to celebrate resistance, to help equip fellow nurses to better organise and strategize in the face of incessant growth and too often undesirable change in healthcare. (shrink)

A new context for ethics and ethics education is evident in a rapidly changing world and our threatened planet. The current focus on considerations of inter-personal ethics within an anthropocentric perspective on life should be extended to embrace considerations of global and ecological ethics within an eco-centric perspective on global and planetary health. The pathway to understanding and adapting to this new context includes promoting shifts in life styles from selfish hyper-individualism and wasteful consumerism towards cautious use of (...) limited resources within an increasingly interdependent world in which the equal moral worth of all and sustainability are valued. Critical scholarly approaches to global politics and to the global political economy could facilitate such change and encourage iterative interactive processes instead of seeking conclusive definitive ‘scientific’ solutions to all problems. Hopefully this shift in perspective could be achieved firstly through sensitization to new and increasingly challenging ethical dilemmas, and then by encouraging rational thinking and action based on global and ecological considerations rather than on false economic dogma and the distorted workings of a market civilization. Moving ahead with these activities must begin with promotion of education, learning and self-reflection to foster the widespread development of a global state of mind. Such a shift would require an expanded ethical discourse, with consideration of ethical dilemmas beyond human inter-personal relationships. These should include intra-institutional and inter-institutional relationships, as well as relational ethics between nations in a post-Westphalian world, and between humans and nature in an era now called the Anthropocene, to ensure survival on a planet undergoing entropy.The adverse effects of intense competition could be reduced by encouraging greater cooperation, linking security issues to global health and social justice issues, and using inspirational narratives and examples of moral imagination/moral leadership. These educational programs should be initiated in schools and become mandatory for all first-year College and University students. Such an agenda is feasible given human ingenuity, determination, resilience and adequate resources, but will also require political and social will as its drivers. (shrink)

Well characterized databases used for experimental purposes with extensive meta-data are essential for conducting meaningful and comparable studies. The Food-pics_extended database is one example for a widely used food stimulus database. Indeed, meta-data on low level and high level image characteristics is broad, yet fiber ratings are not included, limiting its use in diet-related studies. Therefore, we developed fiber ratings per item, based on mean values of four non-expert raters. Ratings show good reliability and meaningful ranges per food type. The (...) newly provided fiber ratings enrich the already valuable database and extend it by an important nutrient value for human and planetary health. (shrink)

Background In 1926, Fritz Jahr described bio-ethics (German: bio-ethik) as “the assumption of moral obligations not only towards humans, but towards all forms of life.” Jahr summarized his philosophy by declaring, “Respect every living being on principle as an end in itself and treat it, if possible, as such!.” Bioethics was thus originally an ethical system concerned with the “problems of interference with other living beings… and generally everything related to the balance of the ecosystem” according to the 1978 Encyclopedia (...) of Bioethics. This definition was predicated on the work of Fritz Jahr, Menico Torchio, and Van Rensselaer Potter. Methods In order to proceed with depthful analysis of the origin and major bioethical flare up, we will use critical analysis of existing literature, followed by a study trip to relevant bioethical localities (collecting photo and other documentations regarding Menico Torchio). Results While Jahr and Potter are typically given intellectual credit for developing the field of bioethics, the eco-ethical contributions of Menico Torchio have been forgotten.This article will first trace the origins of “bioethics” – now commonly bifurcated into “biomedical ethics” and “environmental bioethics.” The former was developed by Tom Beauchamp from the Philosophy Department and James Childress of the Religious Studies department at Georgetown University and is based on principlism, with a narrow focus on medical settings. The latter addresses the environmental impact of the medical industry and climate change health hazards. Second, we will present a panorama of Torchio’s significant intellectual contribution to bioethics. Menico Torchio’s concept of bioethics synthesized work of both Jahr and Potter, advocating “the need to expand our ethical obligations and embrace the most developed groups of animals, not only physically but also psychologically.” Third, we will reflect on the lasting legacy of “bioethics” on biomedical and environmental bioethics today. Thematic elements such as interconnectedness of planetary health and human health, dedication to living in harmony with nature, and emphasis on systems and symbiosis remain unchanged from the legacy of Tochio onward. Conclusion Our conclusion will underscore the necessity of understanding the connections between planetary, environmental, and human health. (shrink)

Kai Whiting, Aldo Dinucci, Edward Simpson, and Leonidas Konstantakos ABSTRACT: In Stoic theology, the universe constitutes a living organism. Humankind has often had a detrimental impact on planetary health. We propose that the Stoic call to live according to Nature, where God and Nature are one and the same, provides a philosophical basis for re-addressing ….

COVID-19 catalyzed a renewed focus on the interconnected nature of human health. Together with the climate crisis, it highlighted not only intra-human connections but the entanglement of human health with the health of non-human animals, plants, and ecological systems more broadly. In this article, we challenge the persistent notion that humans are ontologically distinct from the rest of nature and the ethics that flow from this understanding. Imposing this privileged view of humans has devastating consequences for beings (...) other than humans and for humans and impedes effective responses to crises. We situate the COVID-19 pandemic within the “polycrisis,” and argue that one component of addressing multidimensional crises must involve fully embracing a relational ontology and ethics. We discuss two approaches to relationality, one articulated by ecofeminists and the second inhering in an Indigenous Māori worldview. Two dominant approaches, One Health and Planetary Health, purport to take account of relational ontologies in their approaches to health, but, we argue, persist in casting the more-than-human world in an instrumental role to secure human health. We suggest that Multispecies Justice, which draws on ecofeminist and Indigenous approaches, affords a fully relational approach to health and well-being. We explore the implications of relationality, and suggest fresh ways of understanding humans’ connections with the more-than-human world. (shrink)

Many are calling for transformative food systems changes to promote population and planetary health. Yet there is a lack of research that considers whether current food policy frameworks and regulatory approaches are suited to tackle whole of food systems challenges. One such challenge is responding to the rise of ultra-processed foods (UPF) in human diets, and the related harms to population and planetary health. This paper presents a narrative review and synthesis of academic articles and international (...) reports to critically examine whether current food policy frameworks and regulatory approaches are sufficiently equipped to drive the transformative food systems changes needed to halt the rise of UPFs, reduce consumption and minimise harm. We draw on systems science approaches to conceptualise the UPF problem as an emergent property of complex adaptive food systems shaped by capitalist values and logics. Our findings reveal that current food policy frameworks often adjust or reform isolated aspects of food systems (e.g., prices, labels, food composition), but under-emphasise the deeper paradigms, goals and structures that underlie the rise of UPFs as a systems phenomenon, and its socio-ecological implications. We propose that a ‘leverage points’ framework illuminates where to intervene in food systems to generate multi-level changes, while the theory of ecological regulation highlights how to respond to complex multi-factorial problems, like the rise of UPFs, in diverse ways that respect planetary boundaries. More research is needed to better understand the transformative potential of ecological regulation to advance food systems transformation and attenuate whole of food systems challenges. (shrink)

I remember my immediate fascination with an edited collection, now twenty years old, Who Comes After the Subject? The title seemed to entirely displace the identity of the subject, the “of-courseness” of its uniquely human definition. Indeed, its provocation did more than destabilise the what and where of the subject, as if we might extend this complexity, albeit in attenuated form, to non-human entities. The more radical implication was a destabilisation of human identity itself—its circumscribed location—together with the progress narrative (...) that made the arrival of language, technology and agential smarts synonymous with human achievement. As contemporary concern about planetary health is galvanized around the unique power of human agency to either ruin or redeem an impassive and defenceless Nature, a “before” that lacks what being a subject affords, this article will linger over the logic that continues to sustain this story. By reworking Derrida’s “originary writing” as “originary humanicity,” a different sense of ecological involvement might be possible. (shrink)

Human–wildlife coexistence is critical for sustainable and healthy ecosystems as well as to prevent human and wildlife suffering. In this paper, an intersubjective approach to human–wildlife interactions is proposed as a lens toward human decentering and emergent mutual evolution. The thesis is developed through a secondary data analysis of a research study on wildlife care and philosophical analysis using the work of Bernard Lonergan and Edmund Husserl. The study was conducted using the theory of transcendent pluralism, which is grounded in (...) human and ecological dignity, including the dignity of beyond‐human beings. Deeper interpretation of the original data suggests that human–wildlife interactions are mutually conscious, embodied, and hold spatial–temporal dimensions. The affective realm is an integral dimension of human–wildlife intersubjectivity. These findings inform an approach toward human–wildlife relations in which human persons and the beyond‐human multitude can all flourish in dignity. (shrink)