Ecosystem Crises Interactions: Human Health and the Changing Environment
About this ebook
Ecosystem Crises Interaction: Human Health and the Changing Environment provides a timely and innovative framework for understanding how negative human activity impacts the environment, and how seemingly disparate factors connect to, and magnify, hazardous consequences under a changing climate. Presenting a coherent, holistic perspective to the subject, this compelling textbook and reference examines the diverse, often unexpected links that connect our complex world in context of global climate change.
The text illustrates how eco-crisis interaction—the synergistic interface of two or more environmental events or pollutants—can multiply to produce harmful health effects that are greater than their additive impact. This concept is highlighted through numerous real and relatable examples, from the use of sediment rock in hydraulic and drinking water filtration systems, to the connections between human development and crises such as deforestation, emergent infectious diseases, and global food insecurity. Throughout the text, specific examples present opportunities to consider broader questions about the extinction of species, populations, and ways of life. Presenting a balanced investigation of the interaction of contemporary ecological dangers, human behavior, and health, this unique resource:
- Explores how complex interactions between global warming and anthropogenic impairments magnify the diverse ecological perils and threats facing humans and other species
- Discusses roadblocks to addressing environmental risk, such as global elite polluters, the organized denial of climate change, and deliberate environmental disruption for financial gain
- Describes how the production and use of fossil fuels are driving a significant rise in carbon dioxide and other pollutants in the atmosphere and in the oceans
- Illustrates how industrial production is contributing to an array of environmental crises, including fuel spills, waste leakages, and loss of biodiversity
- Examines the critical ecosystems that are at risk from interacting stressors of human origin
Ecosystem Crises Interaction: Human Health and the Changing Environment is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in courses including public and allied health, environmental studies, medical ecology, medical anthropology, and geo-health, and a valuable reference for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in fields such as environmental health, global and planetary health, public health, climate change, and medical social science.
About the author
Merrill Singer, Professor Emeritus, Departments of Anthropology and Community Medicine, University of Connecticut; Senior Research Scientist, Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention, University of Connecticut.
