Climate emergency is becoming more and more apparent. Large fires, floods or excessive pollution in cities are some of the symptoms that accompany us every day. But, unfortunately, climate change is only one of the factors that conditions the poor health of our planet.
In the sixth episode of ‘La mare de la ciència’, the science dissemination podcast in Catalan premiered this summer by the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB), we talk about planetary health with Cristina O’Callaghan Gordo. Cristina is a biologist who combines research at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) with teaching in the new interuniversity master’s degree in planetary health offered by ISGlobal-UPF-UOC from October 2021 – one of the firsts in the world on this topic.
Planetary Health is a relatively new concept that suggests that “human health and the health of ecosystems cannot be separated”. That is why, she explains, “anything we do to improve our health must also be good for the health of the planet”. And the fact is that in recent years, our health has improved at the expense of overexploitation of the planet’s resources.
In this episode, Cristina will talk about science, explaining the effects of land use change or the loss of biodiversity. But it will also tell us about transgenerational justice or eco-anxiety, new concepts that we need to urgently include in our dictionary.
“We must have the mentality that climate change is a current problem, not an issue of the next century!”, she explains. This is a clear idea for the younger generations because, according to their vision we are not risking the future; what we are playing with is the present.
Do not miss Cristina’s testimony!
