The promise of a world without disease has been replaced by warnings of evermore virulent pathogens, created by the drugs that were supposed to save us.
Metabolic Crisis
Archive | Health threats
Healthy people, healthy planet
Defining a safe operating space for food systems in the Anthropocene
A food system revolution is urgently needed, to provide healthy diets for all while preventing irreversible damage to the Earth System.
Ecohealth
A Call for Ecological Medicine
The health of Earth’s ecosystem is the foundation of all health. Individuals cannot live healthy or happy lives in poisoned ecosystems and unhealthy communities.
Capitalism kills
Climate change health impacts: ‘compounded and overwhelming’
Lancet climate change report shows worsening health risks from heat and heatwaves, infectious diseases, and food security
Chemical killers
Herbicides undermine antibiotics, threaten medical care
Study says bacteria develop antibiotic resistance up to 100,000 times faster when exposed to the world’s most widely used herbicides, Roundup and Kamba
World Health Organization
Over 90% of the world’s children breathe toxic air every day
UN report says polluted air is poisoning millions of children. In 2016 alone, 600,000 children under 15 died from infections caused by polluted air.
Reading matters
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, October 2018, Part 2
Can the Working Class Change the World? Plagues and the Paradox of Progress. Fishing and Civilization. History of Fossil Fuel. Monopoly Seeds and the Fight to Save Food
Reading matters
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, August 2018
Six new books for reds & greens. Marxist History of Capitalism. Superbugs. Rising Oceans. Capitalism in Critical Theory. Food Bank Nations. American Oligarchy
Science
Studying the health impacts of global environmental change
Planetary Health, a new field of scientific research, focuses on the human health impacts of the growing disruption of Earth’s metabolic systems
Book review
Poisoned City: How Flint fought back
Anna Clark’s new book shows how working people in Michigan organized and fought back when neoliberal austerity policies poisoned their drinking water.
Capitalism fouls things up
What the Monsanto Papers tell us about corporate science
Internal documents released in a lawsuit by cancer victims show how the chemical giant actively subverts science to promote its products and profits.
Reading matters
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, April 2018
Six new books for reds and greens … climate change and disease … capitalist power and the planet’s future … brain, body, and environment … oceanic art and science … essential fungi and life … the political economy of water.
New books for reds and greens
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, March 2018
Six new books on the science for the people movement, health care under capitalism, the criminalizing of poverty, Yemen in crisis, the origins of everything, and communism and democracy
Reading, red and green
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, February 2018
Five important books on famines and world hunger, on Ebola and other deadly epidemics that spread from animals to people, and on the pesticide poisons in our food.
Global crisis
Heatwaves can kill 27 ways, and climate change puts 74% of humanity at risk
Two recent studies show how dangerous heatwaves can be, and how global warming will put three-quarters of humanity at risk by 2100. “We are running out of choices.”
Heat vs. humans
Lancet report: Health impact of climate change impact is ‘the major threat of 21st century’
The health of millions of people across the world is already being significantly harmed by climate change, a major new report finds.
Reading, green and red
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, October 2017
Six new books on Marx’s ecosocialist views, climate change and health, theory and action, inevitability versus contingency in evolution, new politics, and the meaning of Capital
Reading, red and green
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, June 2017
Five new books on climate change and human health, ecology and imperialism in the global south, environmental economics, capitalism and universities, and the meaning of hegemony
Environment & Health
Unhealthy environments kill 12.6 million a year
An estimated 12.6 million people died as a result of living or working in an unhealthy environment in 2012 – nearly 1 in 4 of total global deaths, according to new estimates from the World Health Organization.
Recommended Reading
Ecosocialist resources, February 2016
Reading for reds and greens: Michael Moore on Flint water; Bill McKibben and Robert Fanney on climate and the Zika virus; Richard Fidler on Venezuela; Martin Empson on jobs, climate, justice