The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on February 19, 2008
The European Journal of Public Health 2008 18(2):101; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckn008
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.
Editorial |
Public health, the environment and the 21st century: a wider field of vision
Anthony J. McMichael**National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Correspondence: Anthony J. McMichael, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, email: tony.mcmichael@anu.edu.au
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
As we enter the 21st century, there is rising awareness that the global population of 6.7 billion humans is overloading many of Earth's environmental systems. The collective demand of Homo sapiens for materials, food, freshwater and waste absorption has escalated enormously over the past century. We currently use natural resources (sources, sinks and system stabilisers) at an estimated 25% higher rate than the planet