Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T15:41:42.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Development, environment and health: what else we should know

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Norman Myers
Affiliation:
Green College, Oxford OX2 6HG, UK

Abstract

The Daily and Ehrlich article presents, as expected, a detailed account of the myriad interrelationships between development, global change (notably population growth and global warming), environment and disease. It is a first-class exposition of what we know, and it would be invidious to raise a critical eyebrow about it. In this comment, I take a look at what we do not know—what we know we do not know, what we ought to know, and what we do not know we do not know. Hence it is a piece that reflects speculation supreme, albeit informed (and hopefully inspired) speculation.

Type
Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © 1996, Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bloom, B.R. and Murray, C.L. (1992), ‘Tuberculosis: commentary on a re-emergent killer’, Science 257: 10551064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bull, JJ. and Levin, B.R. (1994), ‘Parasites on the move’, Science 265: 14691470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colborn, T., Myers, J.P. and Dumanowski, D. (1996), Our Stolen Future, New York: Dutton.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, P. (1993), An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, P. (1992), ‘Commentary: pestilence and poverty—historical transitions and the great pandemics’, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 8: 263265.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ewald, P.W. (1994), Evolution of Infectious Diseases, Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, J.S. (1994), The Plague Makers, New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Garrett, L. (1994), The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, New York: Farra, Straus & Giroux.Google Scholar
Guenno, B.L. (1995), ‘Emerging viruses’, Scientific American 273(4): 5663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hancock, T. and Garrett, M. (1995), ‘Beyond medicine: health challenges and strategies in the 21st century’, Futures 27: 935951.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, J.V., Bock, G.R. and Ackrill, K., eds. (1993), Environmental Change and Human Health, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
McMichael, A.J., Haines, A., Slooff, R. and Kovats, S., eds. (1996), Climate Change and Human Health, Geneva: World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization, and Nairobi: UN Environment Programme.Google Scholar
Miller, J.A. (1989), ‘Diseases for our future’, BioScience 39: 509517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchison, A. (1993), ‘Will we survive?’, Scientific American 269: 102108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Myers, N. (1995), ‘Environmental unknowns’, Science 269: 358360.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Myers, N. and Kent, J. (1995), Environmental Exodus: An Emergent Crisis in the global Arena, Washington, DC: The Climate Institute.Google Scholar
Sivard, R.L. (1993), World Military and Social Expenditures, 1993, Washington, DC: World Priorities.Google Scholar
Tickell, C. (1994), Environmental Change and Disease, Oxford: Green College.Google ScholarPubMed
UK Ministry of Health (1995), Asthma: An Epidemiological Overview, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
UNICEF (1990), Children and Development in the 1990s: A UNICEF Sourcebook, New York: UNICEF.Google Scholar
United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (1991), The 1991 Cholera Epidemic in Peru and Other Countries of Latin America, Nairobi: UN Centre for Human Settlements.Google Scholar
World Bank (1993), World Development Report: Investing in Health, Washington, DC: The World Bank.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (WHO) (1994), Tackling Tuberculosis, Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
World Health Organization (WHO) (1995), Health for All, Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar