Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It

by Paul R. Epstein, Dan Ferber, Jeffrey Sachs (Foreword)

Climate change is now doing far more harm than marooning polar bears on melting chunks of ice―it is damaging the health of people around the world. Brilliantly connecting stories of real people with cutting-edge scientific and medical information, Changing Planet, Changing Health brings us to places like Mozambique, Honduras, and the United States for an eye-opening on-the-ground investigation of how climate change is altering patterns of disease. Written by a physician and world expert on climate and health and an award-winning science journalist, the book reveals the surprising links between global warming and cholera, malaria, lyme disease, asthma, and other health threats. In clear, accessible language, it also discusses topics including Climategate, cap-and-trade proposals, and the relationship between free markets and the climate crisis. Most importantly, Changing Planet, Changing Health delivers a suite of innovative solutions for shaping a healthy global economic order in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Climate Change

368 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2011

Reviews

[Kharah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately this was an informative and worthwhile book to read, and I highly recommend it. But it took me three attempts to get through it. Not because the material was dense or poorly written but because I'm annoyed by books that are just as much about the author as the subject matter. I wanted to know more about how global climate change is affecting health, not read about the author's one-man-stand, lone-wolf, I-told-you-so battle against politics and big business (stuff that's good to know, but almost another book in itself). That combined with parts obviously included just to hit an emotional nerve, written by scientists whose forte is not hitting emotional nerves, annoyed me so much I walked away from it twice. If you aren't bothered by that sort of thing, then no worries.

My other critique is that the book relies heavily on the scare-the-crap-out-of-you approach to motivating change. If that tactic actually worked cigarette companies would have been put out of business ages ago and no one'd be fat. Being blunt about how bad things are is well and good so long as people are offered clear and effective ways to channel that anxiety and make adaptive changes. Unfortunately, the authors do a fantastic job describing how bad things are but fall short in making recommendations for how everyday folks can help. Which is also a general critique of the global climate change literature in general... Can anyone out there recommend books that do a good job of addressing changes that anyone can make that'll have a real impact on reducing carbon footprints, conserving the environment, and/or support fair trade practices? Does anyone know of initiatives were people can actually track the real-world impact made by adopting those practices?

[Bud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the 2017-18 common book for the UW School of Public Health. Dr. Epstein, a global health physician, does an excellent job in laying out current and expected changes in climate and the impacts to human ecological systems. These changes have already affected a number of different populations with increasing infectious diseases. Other impacts on health such as famine due to drought are on the rise. We can stabilize these changes but only if we change our current dependence on petroleum.

[Hannah⚡️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highly recommend this book if you want to learn more about how climate change is impacting health, and how it will continue to impact health in the future. I actually read most of this book in 2015-2016 and didn’t get around to finishing it until now because of grad school and a new job and wanting to read other books first. But hey, better late than never

[Alberto Tebaldi · Rating 5 out of 5]

sheer words of wisdom about the state of the world today, helping to understand many ominous current events too. The main topic aside, the author help understand many other related sub-topics. Really a good read.

[Book Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Changing Planet, Changing Health by Paul R. Epstein, MD, and Dan Ferber

"Changing Planet, Changing Health" is an excellent book about how climate change harms our health now , and how it will devastate us in the future unless we transform society and our global economy. This insightful 368-page book is composed of the following thirteen chapters: 1. Mozambique, 2. The Mosquito's Bite, 3. Sobering Predictions, 4. Every Breath You Take, 5. Harvest Trouble, 6. Sea Change, 7. Forests in Trouble, 8. Storms and Sickness, 9. The Ailing Earth, 10. Gaining Green by Going Green, 11. Healthy Solutions, 12. Of Rice and Tractors, and 13. Rewriting the Rules.

Positives:
1. A comprehensive topic that was well researched.
2. Engaging prose and accessible for the masses.
3. Written with passion and conviction this book reads like a well crafted novel.
4. The authors rely on sound science and their love for this planet to share some very important information.
5. Great use of charts, illustrations and even great photos that further engages the reader into the topics of the book.
6. This great book emphasizes the direct impact climate change has on our species, namely on our health.
7. Great wisdom throughout this book.
8. Great explanation of systems theory, and how it plays a vital role in addressing global issues.
9. The fascinating story of cholera researcher Rita Colwell. Kudos to her!
10. The importance of rain forests.
11. A medical look at illnesses, epidemics and their relation to climate change. Great stuff!
12. A historical look at the term greenhouse effect.
13. So how do humans contribute to climate change? Find out in a comprehensive manner.
14. The impact of El Niño, and why is it called that?
15. So many great examples. The authors do a wonderful job of taking the reader to different parts of the world like Mozambique and Honduras. They proceed to explain with a luxury of details how climate change impacts their environments and how illnesses arise as a result of it.
16. How big oil (as I like to call them) and their money purposely confuse the public by creating a global warning controversy. Global warmer deniers.
17. Cholera, malaria, dengue, lyme disease, asthma, oh my...
18. Great tidbits of knowledge throughout, did you know Rubisco is the most common protein on Earth? You do now.
19. The wonders of evolution never ceases to amaze me. Some great examples...
20. The impact of global warming and our food source.
21. The link between our ocean and our health.
22. Oysters, a keystone species, who knew?
23. Coral reefs and how they are being threatened.
24. Whitebark pine, another keystone species, find out why.
25. What part of the U.S. has been hit the hardest by global warming...find out.
26. We need more people like Dr. Juan Almendares.
27. Global warming and links to extreme weather.
28. Politics and its impact on how we deal with global warming. Some insightful stuff, including scandals.
29. What factors can cause climate to change rapidly?
30. Our living planet a unique look.
31. The impact of global warming and economics.
32. Why nuclear energy, clean coal and biofuels are not good for people.
33. Chicago as a work in progress in turning itself into a green city.
34. Keynes enormous influence through his proposed method of economic development, the Third Way.
35. The uncoupling of the value of the dollar to gold and its impact. Interesting.
36. How deregulation impacted our economy. The Washington Consensus.
37. How we can address our problems. Many excellent guidelines.
38. The web of relationships.
39. Policies for sustainability.
40. The links worked great.

Negatives:
1. Some people might be turned off by the politics but I consider it necessary and integral part of the book.

In summary, what an excellent and informative book. Insightful, educational and inspirational. This book's unique perspective on health was a much needed contribution to climate change and much thanks go out to these wonderful people for writing such a great book. Get this book, I highly recommend it!

Further recommendations: " The Weather of the Future" by Heidi Cullen, "The Crash Course" by Chris Martenson, "Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather" by Mike Smith, "Merchants of Doubt" by Erik M. Conway, "Science Under Siege" by Kendrick Frazier, and "Storms of my Grandchildren" by James Hansen.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

While he does get into some political issues towards the end, for the most part the focus is on what happens when the earth gets too warm. It's not simply warmer weather that is the issue, and it certainly doesn't go away when a large winter snowfall appears. Rather, he analyzes the data related to weather change. Areas that receive more heat than usual obviously have a drought. But where does that water go that heated up? It's not gone forever, but is evaporated up and into weather systems (water weighs much more than air) that dump that water somewhere else, leading to widespread flooding and furious storms. Dry ground can lead to wildfires, which the resulting smoke can actually alter weather patterns, making the imbalances continue.




The pattern of extra water and invasive flooding sets up a domino effect in plant and animal life, and these combine with pathogens to exacerbate the change. What Dr. Epstein shows is what happens next: viruses appear that were dormant or unheard of regionally before. Excessive plant growth alters feeding patterns of animals, causing less (or more) of them and thus further altering the previous balance.




His point is clear and crosses political lines. Focusing on the delicate and fragile balance of the Earth's ecosystems, he shows how change perpetuated by pollution, poor resource management, and greed make for very real consequences in terms of health. Asthma and allergies are only some of the results-major infectious diseases run wild when an ecosystem is out of balance.




It could be a dry read, but it isn't...anecdotal stories and hard data make it lively and potentially scary. When one CDC expert goes to testify before Congress, she has most of her testimony redacted to prevent offending some of the audience. How can the problem be solved if no one gets to hear the truth about it?




One website features an interesting interview with the author, wherein he suggests the political polarizing option of a slight (ACK! The horror!) tax increase to raise funds for better infrastructure. In addition, he makes the case for the way European manufacturers have to prove the safety of their product-a far different stance than the US method. It's an interesting article. http://adventures-in-climate-change.c...




Just for a kick, NASA has some fascinating charts with average land and ocean temperatures here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/gra....

[Wendy Budetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of this book. It was very interesting to read about how medical epidemics led to the authors' work in preventing climate change. I read quite about of this book over the past two weeks when I was stuck inside due to over a foot of snow, an anomaly for this area especially at this time of the season, and after the ridiculously hot, dry summer we had last year, it wasn't a stretch for me to believe that climate change is real and has real effects.

I had two problems with this book. One: the subtitle- the part where it says "And what we can do about it". I didn't feel very empowered by the suggestions in the final chapters. I felt overwhelmed and frustrated by my own lack of knowledge and financial abilities, by our government's slow working, and by the ignorance of my fellow Americans. There are no real "simple" answers to this problem. And he doesn't really highlight the small steps. Honestly, a list of to-dos would have been awkward based on the rest of the book, but part of the reason I was intriguied to pick up the book to begin with was the thought that maybe I could do better. My second issue is the towards the end of the book. The authors veer off into details about the financial crisis and the role of the World Bank. By the end of the chapter, I understood the idea behind including this, but based on the other chapters it very much like a diversion from the authors' thesis.

Overall, a very educational, eye-opening (for me, at least) read about changes in our climate. A lot of information, but for someone like myself who is not naturally science-minded, it was not difficult to understand, nor a drudgery to get through.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very interested in the way the authors tied together climate change with health issues and epidemics. I was aware of a lot of this, but this explicitly tied the changing climate to health issues, resulting from drought, hurricanes, glacier meltoff, etc. However, several of the chapters seemed completely out of place. I might have been interested in the financial underpinnings of some of the latest financial crisis, but not in this specific book. The main author is a man of wide ranging interests and talents but that ability was not helpful to the development of a cohesive book. Nonetheless, the basic theme of the book is an extremely important one that has not been mentioned much in the climate change issue. Human health will be enormously affected...badly...by climate change. This ranges from the obvious...drowning deaths in hurricanes, etc....to not so obvious....malaria and cholera increasing in such a world. If only because this aspect has not been covered much, this book is worth reading. I hope, though, that a future edition meets a tough editor who insists on leaving out several of the chapters in this book that are not germane to the theme of the book

[Mike S · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I think the jury is still out on whether we're seeing net warming or net cooling, I think it's obvious to everybody that climate change is significant and will probably continue to be for the next few years, so any discussion of how temperature change affects the planet is relevant. I found the book interesting because of the various science discussions.The author speaks about diseases such as cholera, malaria, Lyme, dengue, and asthma. Also discussed are plant defenses against insects, algae toxic blooms, oyster toxins, forest health, weather patterns, and how temperature impacts all of them. He ends with political and economic considerations, this was depressing to me because Congress, the WH, and many government bodies are almost completely sold out to Corporate influence, so I doubt we'll see a lot of green in the near future, but fortunately this was a relatively short part of the book. Anyone interested in how climate change impacts diseases will find this book interesting.

[Terry]

p. 294 (epilogue)
... we want too much, waste too much, and fail to consider the consequences.

We're dubbed consumers rather than human beings

As the ecological economist Herman Daley has long argued, at a certain point a growing gross national product (GDP), our government sanctioned measure of economic well-being, actually makes a society sicker. We moved pass that point decades ago.

By the summer of 2010, a consensus ...
AMA ... agrees with IPCC findings ... potential exists for devastating events w/ serious health implications. The American Nurses Assoc. ... 'unprecedented in human history .. Pediatrics Journal .. children .. likely to suffer disproportionately.. Lancelot Journal ... climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an effective synthesis of climate, economics, and health and the complex dynamics that connect them. For me personally, Dr. Epstein is something of a hero for his work in public health and this book represents a blueprint for how individuals with a variety of interests and backgrounds can connect and share to develop a synergistic view of the changing human planet and environment.

[Dan Patel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Covers an enormous range of issues, all while telling interesting stories that make the history tangible. The final chapters are gripping and powerful. His numbers on nuclear LCA are outdated, however. At least if you're going by the most recent IPCC report. I read this right after Whole Earth Discipline, and I think the books pair up very well.

[Science For The People]

Featured on Skeptically Speaking show #132 on October 2, 2011, during an interview with author Dan Ferber. http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/episode...

[Elizabeth]

As seen in Nature .

[Robin Novotny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, many case studies, can be scary!