JUNE 2009 • VOLUME 6 NUMBER 2

ISSN 1612-9202 (Print)

ISSN 1612-9210

(Electronic)

Conservation Medicine • Human Health • Ecosystem Sustainability

ECOHEALTH2018 • VOLUME 15 NUMBER 3

ISSN 1612-9202 (Print)ISSN 1612-9210 (Electronic)10393 • 15(3 ) 000-000 (2018)

One Health • Ecology & Health • Public Health

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ECOHEALTH Climate Change

In This Issue

CLIMATE CHANGE

Frumkin and Watts start off our special feature on climate

change identifying and describing the impact of three re-

cent developments at the interface of climate change and

health. Limaye et al. quantified heat-related excess mor-

tality risks due to climate change across the eastern USA

using the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Envi-

ronmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (Ben-

MAP). Their findings suggest that currently available

information on future climates is sufficient to protect

public health in regional planning. Wollenberg Valero

et al. provided a proof of concept for the idea that plant

characteristics such as flowering, fruiting, and greening can

be used in predicting Ebola spillover events in the African

tropics. This may serve as a cost-effective method of locally

monitoring spillover conditions. Martin et al. generated an

ecological niche model of Hendra virus and its reservoir

hosts to predict spillover risk. They estimate that the areas

at risk may expand southward in response to climate

change and that in northern regions there may be a gradual

replacement of reservoir hosts. The authors call for en-

hanced prevention in the south and increased flying fox

surveillance to confirm the predicted distributional pat-

terns in response to climate change. In another study,

Martin et al. examined the spatiotemporal patterns of bat-

borne Hendra virus in horses with niche modeling-like

techniques and fitted a consensus statistical model that

corresponded to the observations. The model included

climatic variables such as minimum temperature and

rainfall. To examine potential consequences to humans and

wildlife of the climate change-driven northward expansion

of Culex erraticus, Fonseca et al. examined the host-feeding

patterns of this mosquito in New Jersey. Their findings

identified a new lineage for bird malaria parasites, likely

representing a new species and specialist parasite of wetland

birds.

BEFORE-EFFECTS

Scientists typically communicate findings via peer-reviewed

journals, but what should they do when certain authorities

need to act upon that information sooner than it can be

reviewed and published? Scientists might have concerns

about such communication related to employer policy,

uncertainty in the finding, jeopardizing acceptance by a

journal, ethics, or being scooped. Adams et al. examined

the hypothetical discovery of a pathogen as a case study and

argued that none of these concerns should inhibit appro-

priate communication of provisional findings with time-

sensitive consequences prior to peer review and publica-

tion.

VACCINATIONS IN GRASSLANDS

Oral vaccination of wildlife is an emerging strategy to

combat potential zoonotic diseases like plague, rabies, and

Lyme disease. Recently, Rocke et al. distributed an oral

sylvatic plague vaccine to prairie dogs, testing in numerous

colonies over 3 years. Though vaccine application appeared

safe for short-lived rodents, it did not significantly affect

their abundance, community richness, or evenness.

IN THE WRONG MOUSE AT THE RIGHT TIME

It has been theorized that deer mice (Peromyscus manicu-

latus) are a primary reservoir of plague in California.

However, recent research from other western states has

EcoHealth 15, 475–477, 2018https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1366-x

In This Issue

� 2018 EcoHealth Alliance

found that deer mice are more likely to be spillover hosts.

Danforth et al. aggregated 46 years of plague surveillance

data from California to uncover the role of deer mice. Their

findings support the theory that deer mice are occasional

spillover hosts.

SILENT VIRUS CIRCULATION IN SOUTH

AMERICA

Outbreaks and serological evidence of Orthohantaviruses in

western Minas Gerais, Brazil, are largely documented, but

the northern regions remain poorly researched. Amaral

et al. discussed the ecology and epidemiology of this

important emerging disease and proposed establishing

policies and regulations to prevent future outbreaks.

ASYMPTOMATIC INFECTIONS IN THE ALPS

Rodent-borne hanta and arenaviruses cause asymptomatic

infections in their hosts and in humans. Tagliapietra et al.

analyzed human seropositivity of Puumala, Dobrava-Bel-

grade, and Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis viruses with cer-

tain risk factors due to a significant increase between 2002

and 2015. They hypothesize a general exposure of residents

in the Alps and warn public health authorities to be pre-

pared to diagnose suspected cases.

INUIT NUTRITION SECURITY

Caribou (Rangifer tarandus) has been embedded in the

livelihoods, knowledge systems, world views, and identities of

Arctic indigenous peoples for thousands of years. Although

caribou populations observe natural cycles of abundance and

scarcity, several caribou herds across the circumpolar north

have experienced dramatic declines in recent decades.Kenny

et al. discussed the importance of future initiatives to support

nutrition and food security in the Arctic that will necessitate a

transdisciplinary food systems approach including active

participation from indigenous organizations as well as wild-

life, public health, and nutrition sectors.

RANAVIRUS IN FREE LIVING AMPHIBIANS

Ranaviruses are globally important pathogens that can

cause near-total mortality in larval populations of

amphibians. Constructed ponds, an essential wetland

restoration tool, have been associated with higher preva-

lence of ranaviruses than natural ponds, emphasizing the

need to better understand the drivers of ranavirus infection

in managed wetlands. Youker-Smith et al. analyzed 4 years

of Frog Virus 3 prevalence data and identified predictors

including an effect not previously documented in the wild.

VERTEBRATES AS BACTERICIDAL AGENT

Ferreira et al. presented an important discussion about the

ecological and cultural consequences of the use of animals

for medicinal purposes in Brazil, potentially supporting

several strategies for the conservation of medicinal fauna.

BIRD–BACTERIA ASSOCIATIONS

Chung et al. reviewed a 15-year span of the literature,

finding that pathogenic bacteria were more frequent than

non-pathogenic bacteria in several human-associated

habitats and that antibiotic resistance was also common

among the bacteria tested. Their findings illuminate the

need to study broader ranges of bird bacteria in conjunc-

tion with antibiotic resistance tests in order to quantify the

potential of birds in spreading disease.

DROUGHT AND DISTRESS IN AUSTRALIA

Previous studies have found associations between drought

with suicide, depression, and distress. Hanigan et al. re-

ported a new discovery that younger women in rural

Australia are affected by this phenomenon, yet older wo-

men and men are not. They suggest that understanding

coping mechanisms of Australian women might inform

policy geared toward mental health interventions in the

future.

DISEASE AWARENESS IN NEPAL

Increasing livestock production to meet demands has re-

sulted in greater interactions at the livestock–wildlife–hu-

man interface and opportunities for zoonotic disease

spread. Kelly et al. investigated smallholder farmers’

awareness of livestock-associated zoonoses and disease

prevention practices in Nepal. The farmers’ awareness of

476 In This Issue

zoonoses was limited and highlights the need for improving

Nepali farmers’ knowledge and practices relating to zoo-

noses.

LEPTOSPIRA IN THE SOIL

There is critical knowledge gap in understanding how

infectious Leptospira bacteria respond to exposure to a

diversity of natural soil and water conditions. Lall et al.

revealed a significant positive relationship between the

presence of Leptospira and richness of certain metal ions in

soil that may influence the survival of the pathogen or

transmission of leptospirosis.

DISTURBING MONKEYS

Vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) are a model

species to assess anthropogenic influence on parasitic load

of primates as they are common across Africa and are

found across the urban–periurban–rural landscape.

Thatcher et al. showed the applicability of using parasite

load to measure the effect of anthropogenic influences on

vervet monkeys, providing a foundation for further re-

search on these urban exploiters.

A BAT IN THE HAND

Flying foxes provide critical ecosystem services, but their

role as hosts to zoonotic pathogens may undermine con-

servation support. Crockford et al. surveyed 214 commu-

nity members in Cairns, Queensland, about their

perceptions of risks and benefits of flying foxes, and their

likelihood of handling bats. Their results stress the need for

One Health communication integrating public health

messages for flying fox conservation.

In This Issue 477

Altered Disease Risk from Climate Change

Today’s global climate crisis poses large risks to public

health through many exposure pathways; from heat waves

and air pollution, to infectious diseases, malnutrition, and

social dislocation. Climate change has the potential to re-

verse many of the recent gains seen in the reduction in

infectious diseases globally, while exacerbating the chal-

lenge of health inequities (Woodward et al. 2014).

This special issue of EcoHealth contains new studies

that illustrate the sensitivity of health outcomes to a

changing climate, as well as opportunities for predicting

risk and thereby improving the effectiveness of early

interventions. These new studies add to the growing liter-

ature linking climate change to public health. Since the

establishment of the United Nations Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 30 years ago to assess

climate change science, impacts and mitigation, it is clear

that health concerns are now central to the climate change

discourse.

Addressing the more direct consequences of exposure

to excessive heat, Limaye et al. (2018) estimate that in the

year 2069, the eastern USA could experience over 11,000

additional deaths due to projected increases in apparent

summer temperatures of more than 4�C. But concern

about climate change extends beyond the direct effect of

elevated temperatures, as bat-borne and mosquito-borne

diseases are more sensitive to subtle shifts in weather

conditions and local ecology. In two papers by Martin et al.

(2018a, b), the authors argue that Hendra virus may spread

southward due to shifts in climate-related habitat suit-

ability for the fruit bat reservoir species. The authors find a

subsequent doubling in the number of horses at risk from

Hendra virus infection. They further investigate patterns of

future climate over the Australian landscape and posit that

weather-induced food shortages could alter bat immune

systems or behavior, or potentially adaptive responses in

horse husbandry.

Disease prevention occurs at several levels along the

exposure–response continuum, and the earlier that detec-

tion can occur, the more likely interventions will be suc-

cessful. In this issue, Wollenberg Valero et al. (2017)

examine how changing climate may alter plant phenology

for predicting the likelihood of Ebola virus spillover events

in Africa. The authors conclude that plant phenology—as

an integrated biologic response to multiple weather

parameters—may be a useful predictor of Ebola spillover

events. In the USA, Egizi et al. (2018) use mosquito blood

meals to assess circulating pathogens in a Culex mosquito

species that can carry arboviruses, as a way to monitor the

expansion of the geographic range in disease risk.

The rationale for actions to mitigate climate change

also takes on ethical dimensions, as we first discussed in a

2007 issue of EcoHealth, showing that populations most

vulnerable to health risks from climate change are those

least responsible for causing the problem (Patz 2007). In

this issue, an editorial by Frumkin and Watts (2018) pro-

vides an update on the ethics of climate change, expanding

on foundational recommendations from Pope Francis’

sweeping 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, ‘‘On Care of our

Common Home.’’

For health and for ethical reasons, the global climate

crisis demands rapid collective actions to divert our current

path toward a 7�C warmer world by the end of this century.

But consider the fact that fossil fuel combustion accounts

for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions—with

deforestation comprising between a quarter and a third of

emissions due to the loss of the carbon sink that forests

provide. Cleaner energy can help reduce the heating of the

planet, while saving lives from air pollution. In addition,

EcoHealth 15, 693–694, 2018https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1382-x

Editorial

� 2018 EcoHealth Alliance

upward trends in obesity and chronic diseases, such as

diabetes and heart disease, are now occurring throughout

the world, as Western lifestyles with automobile-dependent

transportation and meat-based diets are being pursued.

Herein lie substantial opportunities for public health by:

First, adopting more alternative modes of transportation,

especially those that promote exercise through ‘‘active

transport’’ by foot or by bicycle; and second, reducing meat

in the diet (Patz et al. 2014).

In conclusion, disease risks posed by climate change

must be evaluated alongside the health benefits likely to

accrue from a low-carbon economy and forest protection.

Such an approach requires a more diverse set of indicators

to measure progress across many sectors of society, in

addition to disease monitoring and conventional risk

assessment (Watts et al. 2018). In parallel, we continue to

need better understanding of how a changing climate will

alter disease dynamics and pose risks to health at the local

level.

Jonathan A. Patz

Global Health Institute,

University of Wisconsin, 1710 University Avenue, Madi-

son, WI 53726, USA

e-mail: patz@wisc.edu

REFERENCES

Egizi A, Martinsen ES, Vuong H, et al. (2018) Using bloodmealanalysis to assess disease risk to wildlife at the new northernlimit of a mosquito species. EcoHealth 15(3):543–554. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1371-0

Frumkin H, Watts N (2018) Health, science, faith, and steward-ship. EcoHealth 15(3):482–484. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1373-y

Limaye VS, Vargo J, Harkey M, et al. (2018) Climate change andheat-related excess mortality in the Eastern USA. EcoHealth15(3):485–496. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1363-0

Martin G, Yanez-Arenas C, Chen C, et al. (2018a) Climate changecould increase the geographic extent of Hendra virus spilloverrisk. EcoHealth 15(3):509–525. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1322-9

Martin G, Yanez-Arenas C, Plowright RK, et al. (2018b) Hendravirus spillover is a bimodal system driven by climatic factors.EcoHealth 15(3):526–542. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-017-1309-y

Patz JA, et al. (2014) Climate change: challenges and opportunitiesfor global health. JAMA 312(15):1565–1580

Patz JA, Gibbs HK, Foley JA, Rogers JV, Smith KR (2007). Climatechange and global health: quantifying a growing ethical crisis.EcoHealth 4(4):397–405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-017-1309-y

Watts N, et al. (2018) The Lancet Countdown on health andclimate change: from 25 years of inaction to a global transfor-mation for public health. Lancet 391(10120):581–630

Wollenberg Valero KC, Isokpehi RD, Douglas NE, et al. (2018)Plant phenology supports the multi-emergence hypothesis forEbola spillover events. EcoHealth 15(3):497–508. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-017-1288-z

Woodward A, et al. (2014) Climate change and health: on thelatest IPCC report. Lancet 383(9924):1185–1189

Published online: October 30, 2018

694 J. A. Patz

Health, Science, Faith, and Stewardship

Howard Frumkin1 and Nicholas Watts2

1Wellcome Trust, 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK2University College London Institute for Global Health, London WC1E 6BT, UK

2017 was an auspicious year for those who care about the

health implications of climate change—in both worrisome

and positive ways.

It was a catastrophic year. Temperatures rose to

unprecedented levels in places across the world. Unprece-

dented wildfires ravaged vast expanses of land from Cali-

fornia to Portugal. Hurricane Harvey brought

unprecedented rainfall and flooding to Texas and was

quickly followed by Hurricane Irma, the strongest Atlantic

Ocean storm ever recorded outside of the Caribbean and

the Gulf of Mexico. Montana and Idaho fell prey to

unprecedented drought, just as, across the world, large

parts of east Africa were enduring their second year of—

that’s right—unprecedented drought.

In the paragraph you just finished reading, we used the

word ‘‘unprecedented’’ over and over. (Our English

teachers would complain!) But we did this intentionally.

Climate conditions are now routinely breaking records.

There is no precedent for current realities. What used to be

500- or 100-year events now occur every few years. People

the world over are suffering as a result.

But 2017 was an auspicious year in positive ways as

well. The global fight against climate change advanced.

Here we celebrate three such advances, seemingly quite

distinct, but related, we contend, in fundamental ways: the

publication of the Lancet Countdown’s inaugural report,

the emergence of the field of Planetary Health, and the

Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ declaration on ‘‘Health of

People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility.’’

The Lancet Countdown evolved out of the 2015

Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change (Watts

et al. 2015), which recommended, among other things, a

rapid acceleration of investments in ‘‘climate change and

public health research, monitoring, and surveillance to

ensure a better understanding of the adaptation needs and

the potential health co-benefits of climate mitigation at the

local and national level,’’ and committed to a collaborative

effort in ‘‘tracking, supporting, and communicating pro-

gress and success along a range of indicators in global

health and climate change.’’ From this, 24 academic insti-

tutions and UN agencies from six continents formed the

‘‘Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress On Health and

Climate Change,’’ which published its framework docu-

ment in 2016 (Watts et al. 2016) and its first report in 2017

(Watts et al. 2017). The report presented a total of 40

indicators in five categories: Climate change impacts,

exposures, and vulnerability; Adaptation planning and re-

silience for health; Mitigation actions and health co-bene-

fits; Economics and finance; and Public and political

engagement. The indicators, and the methodology behind

them, are available not only in the published papers but on

the web, at www.lancetcountdown.org.

While most of the Countdown findings were consistent

with well-recognized patterns, there were a few surprises.

For example, Indicator 1.3 suggested that global labor

capacity in rural populations exposed to temperature

change had decreased by 5.3% between 2000 and 2016, withPublished online: September 21, 2018

Correspondence to: Howard Frumkin, e-mail: h.frumkin@wellcome.ac.uk

EcoHealth 15, 482–484, 2018https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1373-y

Forum

� 2018 EcoHealth Alliance

a dramatic decrease of more than 2% between 2015 and

2016. Overall the Countdown data yielded four core mes-

sages: that climate change unequivocally threatens health,

with no country immune to its effects; that 30 years of a

delayed response has amplified this threat, with definitive

intervention now urgent; that health professionals have an

essential role to play; and that recent ‘‘glimmers of hope’’

over the last 5 years give some cause for optimism. Perhaps

the greatest significance of the Countdown is that it

aggregates, for the first time, a suite of indicators on climate

change and health, including risks, health impacts, adap-

tation and mitigation (or preparedness and prevention)

actions, financial and policy implications. Such systematic

tracking of data is a time-honored and essential public

health function (Lee et al. 2010) and represents a major

step forward in the global response to climate change.

Planetary Health as a field grew out of long-standing

frameworks such as EcoHealth, One Health, Conservation

Medicine, and others (Buse et al. 2018). Its intellectual

foundations included the recognition of profound plane-

tary changes, enough to define a new geological epoch, the

Anthropocene (Steffen et al. 2007), and the idea that certain

planetary limits, if transgressed, could pose grave threats to

ecological balance and to human civilization (Rockstrom

et al. 2009a, b). Planetary Health was first proposed in a

2014 ‘‘manifesto’’ in The Lancet (Horton et al. 2014), which

articulated a vision of ‘‘a planet that nourishes and sustains

the diversity of life with which we coexist and on which we

depend,’’ and its foundational document, a Lancet Com-

mission report, was published a year later (Whitmee et al.

2015). That report asserted that ‘‘the structure and function

of the Earth’s natural systems represent a growing threat to

human health,’’ defined planetary health as ‘‘the health of

human civilization and the state of the natural systems on

which it depends,’’ and called for a new science—one that

is synthetic, systems-based, and applied.

A key feature of Planetary Health is its holistic ap-

proach. It addresses a range of planetary changes, not only

climate change but also changes in nitrogen and phos-

phorus cycling, in land use patterns, and in hydrological

patterns, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, environ-

mental loading with chemicals, and urbanization. It is

solution-oriented, driving toward agriculture, energy gen-

eration, manufacturing, transportation, urban design, and

behavioral choices that are healthy, sustainable, and equi-

table.

With support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the

Wellcome Trust, the field of Planetary Health has advanced

rapidly, with 2017 being a landmark year. Two important

journals, Lancet Planetary Health and GeoHealth, debuted,

and the Planetary Health Alliance (planetaryhealthal-

liance.org) held a highly successful first annual meeting in

Boston. The emergence of this field represents a second

major step forward in the global response to planetary

change.

Under Pope Francis, the Catholic Church, with its 1.2

billion adherents worldwide, has addressed the twin prob-

lems of environmental degradation and social inequity with

vigor. The 2015 release of the papal encyclical, Laudato Si,

On Care for Our Common Home (Francis 2015), expressed

a powerful commitment to social justice and environ-

mental sustainability. This engagement with ecological

principles and sustainability signals, according to one ac-

count (Peppard 2015), a new phase of the Church’s his-

torical relationship with science, following the eras of its

responses to the rise of astronomy and physics (sixteenth–

eighteenth centuries), geology and evolutionary theory

(nineteenth–early twentieth centuries), and rapid techno-

logical advances (mid- to late twentieth century). The

implications for public opinion and policy are not fully

understood. While some religious positions, especially the

Church’s position on population, have impeded progress

(Zaleha and Szasz 2015; Ehrlich and Harte 2015), there is

evidence that a faith-based framework (Bingham 2016),

and the teachings of Pope Francis in particular (Schuldt

et al. 2017), propel a moral response to climate change.

It was against that background that the Pontifical

Academy of Sciences hosted a meeting in early November,

2017, to address the combination of climate change, pol-

lution, and health. The meeting produced a bold Declara-

tion (http://www.pas.va/content/accademia/en/events/

2017/health/declaration.html) that was signed by dozens

of scientists, including many members of the Pontifical

Academy and many Nobel laureates. The Declaration states

unequivocally that ‘‘Climate change caused by fossil fuels

and other human activities poses an existential threat to

Homo sapiens and contributes to mass extinction of spe-

cies,’’ and calls for a range of responses, including decar-

bonizing the world’s energy systems, support by rich

countries of climate change adaptation efforts in poor

countries, ending deforestation and land degradation,

placing health at the center of climate policies, and

implementing both the Sustainable Development Goals and

the Paris Climate Agreement. This high-profile fusion of

science and faith is a third major step forward in the global

response to planetary change (Sorondo et al. 2018).

Health, Science, Faith, and Stewardship 483

Each of these milestones, and the initiatives they rep-

resent—carefully tracking the health impacts of climate

change and global efforts to respond; building a scientific

paradigm that blends the health of humans with the health

of the planet; and aligning science and faith in crafting

equitable solutions—is not only significant, it is essential.

While a publication, an innovative scientific framework,

and a religious declaration do not in and of themselves

represent action—2017 also brought a global increase in

carbon dioxide emissions, reversing a three-year trend (IEA

2018)—they are clearly positive indicators. Each of these is

needed to propel the transition to a world that is healthy,

just, and sustainable. At a time when optimism can seem

elusive, 2017 was a year that gave real reason for hope.

REFERENCES

Bingham SG (2016) Faith and science working together on climatechange. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union.

Buse CG, Oestreicher JS, Ellis NR, et al. (2018) A public healthguide to field developments linking ecosystems, environmentsand health in the Anthropocene. Journal of Epidemiology andCommunity Health 72:420–425

Ehrlich PR, Harte J (2015) Biophysical limits, women’s rights andthe climate encyclical. Nature Clim Change 5:904–905

Francis P (2015) Laudato Sı, Rome: The Vatican

Horton R, Beaglehole R, Bonita R, Raeburn J, McKee M, Wall S(2014) From public to planetary health: a manifesto. The Lancet383:847

IEA (2018) Global Energy and CO2 Status Report, 2017: Inter-national Energy Agency.

Lee LM, Teutsch SM, Thacker SB, St. Louis ME (2010) Principlesand Practice of Public Health Surveillance, 3rd ed., New York andOxford: Oxford University Press

Peppard CZ (2015) Pope Francis and the fourth era of theCatholic Church’s engagement with science. Bulletin of theAtomic Scientists 71:31–39

Rockstrom J, Steffen W, Noone K, et al. (2009a) A safe operatingspace for humanity. Nature 461:472–475

Rockstrom J, Steffen W, Noone K, et al. (2009b) Planetaryboundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity.Ecology and Society 14:32

Schuldt JP, Pearson AR, Romero-Canyas R, Larson-Konar D(2017) Brief exposure to Pope Francis heightens moral beliefsabout climate change. Climatic Change 141:167–177

Sorondo M, Frumkin H, Ramanathan V (2018) Health, faith, andscience on a warming planet. JAMA 319:1651–1652

Steffen W, Crutzen PJ, McNeill JR (2007) The Anthropocene:Are humans now overwhelming the great forces ofnature? AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 36:614–621

Watts N, Adger WN, Agnolucci P, et al. (2015) Health and climatechange: policy responses to protect public health. The Lancet386:1861–1914

Watts N, Adger WN, Ayeb-Karlsson S, et al. (2016) The LancetCountdown: tracking progress on health and climate change.The Lancet 389:1151–1164

Watts N, Amann M, Ayeb-Karlsson S, et al. (2017) The LancetCountdown on health and climate change: from 25 years ofinaction to a global transformation for public health. The Lancet391:581–630

Whitmee S, Haines A, Beyrer C, et al. (2015) Safeguarding humanhealth in the Anthropocene epoch: report of The RockefellerFoundation-Lancet Commission on planetary health. The Lan-cet 386:1973–2028

Zaleha BD, Szasz A (2015) Why conservative Christians don’tbelieve in climate change. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71:19–30

484 H. Frumkin, N. Watts

What’s New

WORLD HEALTH SUMMIT 2018

Held once a year, the World Health Summit has grown into

the world’s most prominent forum for addressing global

health issues. It brings together key leaders from academia,

politics, civil society and the private sector to address the

most pressing health-related challenges on the planet.

October 14–16, 2018, Berlin, Germany

https://www.worldhealthsummit.org/conference.html

KEYSTONE SYMPOSIA: FRAMING

THE RESPONSE TO EMERGING VIRUS

INFECTIONS

The key themes to be covered include the need to understand

why zoonotic diseases matter, their association with agriculture,

the importance of surveillance and early detection, and the

difficulties of dealing with diseases that involve both medical

and veterinary communities. The conference will bring together

experts in virology, immunology, vaccinology and epidemiol-

ogy with those who seek to transfer knowledge between these

groups, veterinarians and industry and government.

October 14–18, 2018, Hong Kong

http://www.keystonesymposia.org/18S2

THE 8TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON

EMERGING VIRAL DISEASES

This symposium gathers reports on outstanding scientific

achievements in a variety of research fields including emerging

viral pathogens, viral-host interaction, antiviral immunity and

arboviruses. It will specially organize invited talks, panel dis-

cussions and academic posters to present the latest develop-

ments in the related areas and to explore the frontiers of

emerging viral diseases. This symposium will provide global

researchers an open, high-quality communication platform

for exchanging the state-of-the-art research and developments

and for strengthening collaborations and communications.

October 20–22, 2018, Wuhan, China

http://english.whiov.cas.cn/Notice2016/201805/t20180

508_192264.html

APHA ANNUAL MEETING AND EXPO

The Annual APHA Meeting and Expo is where public

health professionals convene, learn, network and engage

with peers. The Annual Meeting strengthens the profession

of public health, shares the latest research and information,

promote best practices and advocate for public health is-

sues and policies grounded in research. This year’s theme is

‘‘Creating the Healthiest Nation: Health Equity Now.’’

November 10–14, 2018, San Diego, California

https://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/apha-calen

dar/2018/apha-annual-meeting-and-expo

2018 CONFERENCE ON HEALTH,ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

In December 2018 in New Orleans, the American Council for an

Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) will host its first Confer-

ence on Health, Environment and Energy. This two-day, multi-

track event will showcase the groundbreaking research of

ACEEE’s new Health and Environment program as well as the

work of prominent experts and academics in this growing field.

December 3–5, 2018, New Orleans, Louisiana

https://aceee.org/conferences/2018/chee

EcoHealth 15, 688, 2018https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1365-y

What’s New

� 2018 EcoHealth Alliance

EcoHealth 15, 689–692, 2018https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-018-1370-1

Cover Essay

� 2018 EcoHealth Alliance

Betwixt the World Destroy’d and World Restor’d

‘‘The raven calls the dawn from darkest night.’’

‘‘Is that exactly what he said he sang?’’

‘‘As seals on ice, our Mahri-Pahluk’s words

were clumsy, slow, and often not quite right,

but—like my aqqaluk along the hunt,

unerring in his tracking of the bear—

he read the shaman’s dance and heard him drum

the folly of Commander Peary’s dream

of striking out from Pituffik for, what,

ultima Thule, as you deem it now,

after unearthing Ahnighito’s mass

and sailing from Savissivik for home.’’

‘‘What then did Mahri-Pahluk say to this?’’

‘‘No words, Knud. But soon a sadness fell

to score his face like sudden blood on snow.’’

‘‘I thank you, Akatingwah, for this trust.’’

Today’s December twelfth, two thousand nine.

Ensconced within Christianshavn’s cozied niche

of cobblestone, canals, and masonry

outside the Danish Arctic Institute,

I smoke a cigarette and nosh the cake

I scored with luck in Christiania

before the march from Amagerbrogade,

where I, with other eco-warriors,

held the CO2LONIALISM banner.

My eyes still smart from all the pepper spray.

Yet, after showering and changing clothes,

I biked back to the Institute again,

for Rasmussen’s stories invite return.

I pause, admiring the sea at night.

The wavelets slosh almost inaudibly

against the pier beneath where I now sit;

the seaweed smacks of Scandinavia

and complements the hearty bittersweet

exuding from this coffee that’s gone cold.

I note the earthy resin of the hash.

Then, close, a shot reports, and shattered glass

rains down. A woman laughs. Her date joins in.

Their chortled peals resound like tolling bells.

I hear their love, of course, but also hear

how nuptial ringing echoes certain dirge.

The distant sirens sigh now in assent.

The THC, tobacco, and caffeine

have kicked in perfectly apparently.

I cast my glance at the cipher again:

‘‘The raven calls the dawn from darkest night.’’

Whatever, shaman, did you mean by that?

And what about this, Henson, made you sad?

And, Akatingwah, why then share the tale?

And, Rasmussen, how could you end this here

on such a simile as this evokes?

The questions of the wandering mind abound,

but sometimes answers, too, waft overhead.

Of course, an ethnographic find is found

and, rightly, published in its natural state.

Yet, even so, I cannot shake the thought

that something more portentous is afoot,

that shaman, scholar, lovers, and a man

ascending higher than the kite’s cliche

on this historic day that donned the world

in the guise of Hans Christian Andersen

to pen a happy ending to our tale

of due damnation and apocalypse

have come together for some reason here.

The raven harkens to the nevermore

of Poe that Matthew Henson surely knew.

For Akatingwah—and the shaman, too

the bird possessed a spirit just like hers.

To Rasmussen, it was a native trope

whose mythopoesis was evident.

The raven my mind’s eye calls forth alights

upon the exploitation of Greenland.

I see the world’s most northern settlement,

millennia old, whose people must move

for what they’ve been told is the greater good.

I see the endless scrum of ships, whose holds

are stocked with instruments of future war

machines that ferry the makings of hell.

I see the Distant Early Warning fields.

I see the names of bases meant to house

those marshalled superpowers yet concealed—

Published online: October 16, 2018

Correspondence to: Mark Olival-Bartley, e-mail: olivalbartley@gmail.com

690 M. Olival-Bartley

Camp TUTO, Cape Atholl, Camp Century,

of which the last is spyship’s master front,

where Cronkite himself would

journey to sell

the Agency’s utopian charade, allowing Project

Iceworm

to remain beneath a glacial gleam of poise and aim

a fissile volley at the Soviets.

I see how Operation Chrome Dome takes flight

and see the laden B-52

and how it crashes, burns, contaminates.

I pause again to smoke and sip and chew

and trip upon an unexpected thought:

As it began its polar strategies,

the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

cored lines of ice that read like Milton’s verse—

a cosmographical epic foretold—

in how, with hubris, paradise was lost

and how, with grace, it may yet be regained.

Mark Olival-Bartley

Betwixt the World Destroy’d and World Restor’d 691

ABOUT THE POEM AND THE POET

Set during the 2009 United Nations Climate Change

Conference in Copenhagen, the poem takes its title from

the third line of the twelfth book of Paradise Lost, whose

blank verse also furnished its meter. The preamble renders

a transcription of a conversation imagined to have taken

place in 1912 between Knud Rasmussen, the Danish-

Greenlandic literary scholar, and Akatingwah, the Inuit

woman who accompanied Matthew Henson (known to her

as Mahri-Pahluk), the African-American explorer, on his

famed (though likely unsuccessful) expeditions to the north

pole with Robert Peary. Aqqaluk denotes the younger

brother of a girl. In 1953, the Inuit of Pituffik, a 4000-year-

old settlement in the north of Greenland, were displaced

wholesale to accommodate the secret construction of Thule

Air Base. Savissivik is a village a couple hundred kilometers

south of Pituffik that grew around a 31-metric-ton frag-

ment of a 10,000-year-old meteorite, named Ahnighito

(Inuit for ‘‘tent,’’ describing its appearance), which for

centuries provided iron to augment tools and weapons;

Ahnighito was found by Robert Peary in 1894 and sold

3 years later to the American Museum of Natural History,

where it remains on display.

The resident poet at EcoHealth, Mark Olival-Bartley is

presently writing a dissertation on the sonnets of E. A.

Robinson at the Amerika-Institut of Ludwig-Maximilians-

Universitat Munchen, where he also tutors composition

and poetics. His verse and translations have appeared in

journals on both sides of the Atlantic.

ABOUT THE ART AND ARTIST

The City on the Iceberg speaks to the fragile relationship

between civilization and ecosystems. The City balances on

the iceberg, needing it to exist, and at the same time slowly

straining it. Humanity’s use of carbon-emitting fuels, wa-

ter-system decay due to overuse, fouling of the oceans, as

well as overfishing, industrial farming, and other ecologi-

cally unsound practices make it difficult for us to equalize

the needs of civilization and the demands of a healthy

planet. We must find a way to better balance on our planet

if we wish to survive. The picture invites the viewer into the

colorful, detailed city, all the while reminding the viewer of

its fragility as it pans outward to present the funneling

shape that keeps it above water. The piece also speaks to

how cities are sustainable in the smaller human footprint of

apartment living. City dwellers use less energy to heat their

homes and get to work. Nevertheless, their huge popula-

tions strain the local ecology. Humans must learn to har-

monize with our environment, attempting to find the right

amount of give and take.

Ellis Rosen is a cartoonist and illustrator living in

Brooklyn, NY. His work has appeared in The New Yor-

ker, The Paris Review and Barron’s. He is the illustrator of a

children’s chapter book, Woundabout, from Little, Brown

and a contributor to the Eisner-nominated graphic

anthology Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land.

692 M. Olival-Bartley