All creatures great and small

Bernstein, Aaron

doi:10.1136/bmj.l2385

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…will not suffice (Bernstein, 2019;van Beinum, 2019). We also need to change the mindsets, the narrow science and technology governance regimes that value nature, and other life forms instrumentally by their usefulness to us (Backes et al, 2011;Benatar, 2016;Ö zdemir, 2019;Ö zdemir and Springer, 2018;Springer, 2021;van Beinum, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovating Governance for Planetary Health with Three Critically Informed Frames

Özdemir

2019

OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology

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In May 2019, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services warned that ''around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.'' In September 2019, Naomi Klein, an astute writer on environmental change, described the interconnected social and ecological breakdowns on the planet in a new book. Ecological crises noted by these and other scholars speak well to the rise of planetary health as a new scholarship. Loss of biodiversity has manifold negative impacts on health, for example, rise of zoonotic infections and changes in healthy microbiome. But reducing our ecological footprints is not enough. We ought to change mindsets, the narrow science, and technology governance regimes that value nature and other life forms instrumentally by their usefulness to us. I describe three new, broader and critically informed, frames on governance for planetary health. First, I explain why we ought to acknowledge animal sentience, for example, as recognized in Article 13 of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. I describe how political determinants of health, power, and agency operate at multiple sociological and planetary loci, not only among human beings but also at human and nonhuman animal interfaces. Second, planetary health calls for a shift toward ecological and political determinants beyond a narrow anthropocentric view, while resisting the entrenched dogma of exponential growth with finite planetary natural resources. Third, for critically informed governance of emerging technologies in planetary health (e.g., glycomics, artificial intelligence, health care robots), I refer to a question highlighted recently (Frodeman, 2019): ''When Plato (more exactly, Juvenal) asked who guards the guardians, he was questioning whether any group can be trusted to look past its own interests for the common good.'' Hence, it is time we broaden the question ''Who will guard the guardians?'' beyond the scientific community, to actors in science policy as well. Policy questions cannot be limited to ''which social issues emerge from a new technology?'' but ought to include, ''who should be framing science and technology policy, and why?'' Youth leaders of the global climate movement such as Greta Thunberg and others are now rightly asking these epistemological questions that might contribute toward a new social contract on health for all sentient beings on planet Earth. While ecological changes accelerate and a new space industry is emerging, governance for planetary health will continue to be at the epicenter of systems thinking, responsible innovation and science policy in the 21st century.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovating Governance for Planetary Health with Three Critically Informed Frames

Özdemir

2019

OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology

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“…(ii) Biological resilience in human health. While ecological systems are increasingly becoming viewed as socio-ecological systems 2 , the idea that the human mind and body can be viewed as a complex ecological system is only just beginning to be recognised 123,161 . Understanding how circadian misalignment of sleep/wake cycles leads to a mismatch between abiotic cues and internal cellular functions (e.g.…”

Section: Box 3 Applying Biological Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding and applying biological resilience, from genes to ecosystems

Thorogood,

Mustonen,

Aleixo

et al. 2023

npj biodivers

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The natural world is under unprecedented and accelerating pressure. Much work on understanding resilience to local and global environmental change has, so far, focussed on ecosystems. However, understanding a system’s behaviour requires knowledge of its component parts and their interactions. Here we call for increased efforts to understand ‘biological resilience’, or the processes that enable components across biological levels, from genes to communities, to resist or recover from perturbations. Although ecologists and evolutionary biologists have the tool-boxes to examine form and function, efforts to integrate this knowledge across biological levels and take advantage of big data (e.g. ecological and genomic) are only just beginning. We argue that combining eco-evolutionary knowledge with ecosystem-level concepts of resilience will provide the mechanistic basis necessary to improve management of human, natural and agricultural ecosystems, and outline some of the challenges in achieving an understanding of biological resilience.

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“…Ecological systems are also human systems ('socio-ecological resilience') 2 , yet the idea that the human mind and body can be viewed as a complex ecological system is only just beginning to be recognised 88 . For example, circadian rhythms and sleep/rest-wake cycles are common across species and systems, and serve as processes to enhance resilience by maintaining somatic and psychological health 89 .…”

Section: Biological Resilience In Human Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding biological resilience, from genes to ecosystems

Thorogood¹,

Mustonen²,

Aleixo³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Ecosystems are under unprecedented and accelerating pressures. Much work on understanding resilience to these pressures has, so far, focussed on the ecosystem. However, understanding a system’s behaviour also requires knowledge of its component parts and their interactions. Here we present a framework for understanding ‘biological resilience’, or the mechanisms that enable components across biological levels, from genes to communities, to resist or recover from perturbations. Although ecologists and evolutionary biologists have the tool-box to examine form and function, efforts to integrate this knowledge across biological levels and take advantage of big ecological and genomic data are only just beginning. We argue that combining eco-evolutionary knowledge with ecosystem-level concepts of resilience can provide the mechanistic basis necessary to improve management of human, natural and agricultural ecosystems for better resilience.

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All creatures great and small

Abstract: Biodiversity is critical to human health

Cited by 4 publications

References 7 publications

Innovating Governance for Planetary Health with Three Critically Informed Frames

Innovating Governance for Planetary Health with Three Critically Informed Frames

Understanding and applying biological resilience, from genes to ecosystems

Understanding biological resilience, from genes to ecosystems

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