HIGHER EDUCATION: A KEY INSTRUMENT FOR PROMOTING HUMAN AND ENVIROMENTAL HEALTH, AND A GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT

Several interrelated challenges now face the world, including:

(1) providing adequate healthy food, clean drinking water, and non-renewable energy resources, which exist in finite supplies, to an exponentially growing population;

(2) limiting the detrimental socioeconomic and health effects of the worldwide epidemic of unhealthy lifestyle, obesity and a wide range of associated clinical conditions, that are responsible for the great majority of non-communicable diseases;

(3) creating a sustainable inclusive global economy that does not destroy the environment or compromise human health, and promotes planetary peace. 

How can we handle these challenges?

There are several strategies that can be implemented to address these problems, but I personally believe that one of the most powerful and pervasive instrument is EDUCATION.

We should provide all the college and university students, who will become the future experts and leaders of any professional category (e.g. politicians, policy makers, governmental officers, journalists, teachers, lawyers, economists, doctors, health professionals, etc.), not only with the expertise to be successful in their specific careers, but also with the basic interdisciplinary theoretical knowledge and practical skills necessary to enhance and promote human and environmental health.

Indeed, if we systemically teach to all the students a basic set of “health values” and technical skills on how to promote human and environmental health, this knowledge will eventually perfuse in our societies and transform our lives and the world we live in.

The “University” should not be a ‘loose collocation of academic silos’, but a transformative engine that by targeting the key health determinants have the most opportunity to deliver the greatest potential social, economic and cultural impact. It is also important that we teach our students to: (1) ) challenge ordinary thinking, (2) think systemically and interdisciplinary, (3) develop emotional and creative intelligence skills, and a genuine desire to do good in the world by exploring new healthy ways of living.

As I postulated in an opinion paper (*) that I wrote with Daniel Kammen and Vincenzo Atella, significantly improving human and environmental health, societal wealth and well-being (leading to PLANETARY PEACE) is possible, but requires a profound transformation in the way we think and live, and a new environment-centered industrial and economic system.

Most of the needed knowledge and technology to enact a reshaping of our future and a new industrial revolution already exist today. In summary, we need to abandon the paradigm of producing more energy, food, drugs and other products at lower cost in favor of a new paradigm that opts for less but high-quality energy, food and materials for a healthier life and environment.

At the individual level, reducing the intake of empty calories by increasing the consumption of a variety of minimally processed plant foods (rich in vegetables fibers, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals) and by significantly reducing the intake of animal foods will significantly increase healthspan and reduce health care costs, environmental pollution, soil erosion, water pollution and shortage, CO2 production and global warming, violent weather and associated planetary consequences.

Similarly, making our houses more energy efficient and resilient (e.g. wall and roof insulation, energy-efficient windows and doors, ultra-efficient lighting technologies, energy-saving appliances, solar power to heat water and produce electricity, geothermal heat pumps, etc.), buying lightweight hybrid-electric motor vehicles, and reducing waste by choosing reusable products instead of disposables have huge effects in protecting human and environmental health as well.

At the community level, we need more public/private investment and research in “green” chemistry, technologies and practices, including sustainable farming, break-through materials to improve building and vehicle efficiency, new technologies that better extract energy from renewable sources, hydrogen-fueled cars and buildings, and applications of modern information technology to maximize energy efficiency and resilience. The application of the energy efficiency and resource productivity paradigm offers a new ground for business invention, sustainable growth and economic development.

We also need to design and implement policies that enhance literacy about human and environmental health; improve the livability of our cities and towns by implementing, for example, projects for non-motorized transport, green spaces and parks; reward good behaviors, while enforcing the true costs of poor behavior (e.g. by lowering health insurance premiums for people with healthy lifestyles and metabolic profiles, taxing carbon and junk food, and ending subsidies for mining, oil, coal, corn, soy, and intensive factory animal farming).

Most importantly, we need to understand that both individual and societal wealth, happiness, and well-being do not depend merely on the acquisition of material goods and on economic growth, but are powered by our physical, psychological and spiritual health, the quality of life and the richness of our cultural and social relationships, and foremost by the health of the environment that supports all life on earth, our “natural capital” that must be preserved.

(*) https://f1000research.com/articles/2-101/v1

Professor Luigi Fontana, MD, PhD

Chair Translational Metabolic Health

University of Sydney