Eric Chivian and Noel Michele Holbrook discuss why we can no longer see ourselves as separate from the natural world, nor assume that we will be unharmed by its alteration. The Earth's biodiversity, the rich variety of life on our planet, is disappearing at an alarming rate. And while human health depends, to a larger extent than we might imagine, on biodiversity, this essential relationship is rarely addressed.
Dr. Eric Chivian is Founder and Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, at Harvard Medical School. In 1980, he co-founded (with Professors Bernard Lown, Herbert Abrams, and James Muller) International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Chivian is the senior editor and author, with Dr. Aaron Bernstein, of Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, published in June, 2008 by Oxford University Press and co-sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme, the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, and the World Conservation Union. The book, launched at UN headquarters and at the Smithsonian Institution, is the most comprehensive report available on the relationship of human health to the natural world. In 2008, Dr. Chivian was named by Time Magazine, along with the Rev. Richard Cizik, Former Vice President for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, for their work in organizing scientists and Evangelicals to join together in efforts to protect the global environment.
