By Stephen Leahy*
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 3 (Tierramérica)
“When we harm nature, we are harming ourselves,” says Aaron Bernstein, a doctor at Harvard Medical School and one of the authors of the upcoming book “Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity“.
“Few people realise that our health is directly tied to the health of the natural world,” Bernstein told Tierramérica
Bernstein and Harvard colleague Eric Chivian wrote and edited contributions from more than 100 leading scientists in their new book, published by Oxford University Press and available last May.
Written for a general audience, “Sustaining Life” draws on the latest scientific evidence to make a persuasive case that the current extinction crisis, with species vanishing every day, is a serious threat to humanity equal to, if not greater than, climate change.
Pharmaceuticals, 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 rich variety of life on our planet. Continue reading
Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist 