Sustaining Life

How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-19-517509-7
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 568 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 221 mm x 286 mm, Gewicht: 2358 g

The Earth's biodiversity-the rich variety of life on our planet-is disappearing at an alarming rate. And while many books have focused on the expected ecological consequences, or on the aesthetic, ethical, sociological, or economic dimensions of this loss, Sustaining Life is the first book to examine the full range of potential threats that diminishing biodiversity poses to human health.
Edited and written by Harvard Medical School physicians Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, along with more than 100 leading scientists who contributed to writing and reviewing the book, Sustaining Life presents a comprehensive--and sobering--view of how human medicines, biomedical research, the emergence and spread of infectious diseases, and the production of food, both on land and in the oceans, depend on biodiversity. The book's ten chapters cover everything from what biodiversity is and how human activity threatens it to how we as individuals can help conserve the world's richly varied biota. Seven groups of organisms, some of the most endangered on Earth, provide detailed case studies to illustrate the contributions they have already made to human medicine, and those they are expected to make if we do not drive them to extinction. Drawing on the latest research, but written in language a general reader can easily follow, Sustaining Life argues that we can no longer see ourselves as separate from the natural world, nor assume that we will not be harmed by its alteration. Our health, as the authors so vividly show, depends on the health of other species and on the vitality of natural ecosystems.
With a foreword by E.O. Wilson and a prologue by Kofi Annan, and more than 200 poignant color illustrations, Sustaining Life contributes essential perspective to the debate over how humans affect biodiversity and a compelling demonstration of the human health costs.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chivian, Eric

Bernstein, Aaron

Fachgebiete

• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Humanbiologie
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Foreword E. O. Wilson

- Prologue Kofi Annan

- Chapter 1What is Biodiversity? By Stuart Pimm, Maria Alice dos Santos Alves, Eric Chivian, and Aaron Bernstein

- Chapter 2How is Biodiversity Threatened by Human Activity? By Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein

- Chapter 3Ecosystem Services By Jerry Melillo and Osvaldo Sala

- Chapter 4Medicines from Nature By David J. Newman, John Kilama, Aaron Bernstein, and Eric Chivian

- Chapter 5Biodiversity and Biomedical Research By Eric Chivian, Aaron Bernstein, and Joshua P. Rosenthal

- Chapter 6Threatened Groups of Organisms Valuable to Medicine By Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein

- Chapter 7Ecosystem Disturbance, Biodiversity Loss, and Human Infectious Disease By David H. Molyneux, Richard S. Ostfeld, Aaron Bernstein, and Eric Chivian

- Chapter 8Biodiversity and Food Production By Daniel Hillel and Cynthia Rosenzweig

- Chapter 9Genetically Modified Foods and Organic Farming By Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein

- Chapter 10 What Individuals Can Do to Help Conserve Biodiversity By Jeffrey A. McNeely, Eleanor Sterling, and Kalemani Jo Mulongoy

- Appendix Agencies, Organizations, Treaties, Conventions, and NGOs Working to Conserve Biodiversity

- Part A: Co-sponsors

- Part B: Treaties, Conventions, and Intergovernmental Organizations

- Part C: Non-Governmental Organizations

Über Autor(innen)

Eric Chivian, M.D., is the Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. He shared the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. He is the lead editor and author of Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War and Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment.

Aaron Bernstein, M.D., is a Research Associate at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, and Resident, Boston Combined Residency in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School/Boston University School of Medicine.