2023-09-18 11:37:09
Our health and that of the planet are very closely linked. taramara78 – stock.adobe.com
FIGARO DEMAIN – Human well-being and that of the living are linked. When the environment sneezes, the population catches a cold. Hence the need to preserve the latter.
The answer to the question “the stock market or life?” is obvious. It is less obvious when it comes to choosing between one’s life and that of the planet. But do you really have to choose between protecting your body and the environment by buying sunscreen, for example? No, according to the National Health Safety Agency (ANSES) which is campaigning for the ban on octocrylene. This filter present in most products is potentially carcinogenic and harmful to marine biodiversity, as the scientific community has been reporting for several years.
“We are experiencing an acceleration of both climate change and the disappearance of living things. But how can we encourage change without creating despair? asks biologist Gilles Boeuf. By basing our actions on scientific studies and focusing on the areas where change is most visible, notably health.he replies.
Beneficial for health
Thus, growing and eating organic products is beneficial for the health of consumers and farmers as well as that of plants and animals. Likewise, travel by bike or on foot allows you to both improve your physical condition and help improve air quality.
If it had already been scientifically proven that living near a green space – whether a park, a meadow or a golf course – reduces premature mortality, an American study published this summer in Science Advances has just demonstrated that people whose home is surrounded by 30% greenery within a radius of 5 kilometers have a life expectancy 2.5 years higher on average than those whose home is surrounded by 20% vegetation. “Our study shows that proximity to green spaces causes biological or molecular changes that can be detected in the blood,” explained Lifang Hou, professor of preventive medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine.
Such an impact of greenery on biological age can only encourage more cities to revegetation of their squares and streets. Because if more than half of the world’s population already lives in urban areas, this should be the case for 7 out of 10 people in 2050.
Interconnected ecosystems
Our health and that of the planet would therefore be very closely linked? Much more than you think! It is to raise awareness of this interconnectedness that the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health and the United Nations created the “One Health” vision.
Considering interconnected ecosystems, it therefore assumes “an integrated, systemic and unified approach to public, plant, animal and environmental health at local, national and planetary scales”. Currently, more than twenty years after the creation of “One Health”, this concept is still translated far too little into action. However, to take just one example, “numerous epidemics that have appeared in recent years – Covid-19Zika or Ebola – have in common that they come from animals”points to Anses.
It is undoubtedly no coincidence that New Aquitaine, hit several times by avian flu, has been since the beginning of 2023 the first French region to really encourage collaboration between public, animal, plant and environmental health stakeholders. “The “One Health” concept is difficult to make operational, given the transversality it requires and because it advocates a prevention approach involving inventing new logic and new working methods,” explains the region. Didn’t Albert Einstein say that “we cannot solve problems using the same way of thinking»? So, let’s change it!
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