One Planet–One Health? New Challenges for Medical Thinking in times of Climate Change

This Circle U. Open Conversation explores the interdependence between climate change and disease across species and ecosystems — and why a truly holistic understanding of health must go beyond the human.

In our Open Conversation “One Planet – One Health?” we want to explore the interdependence between climate change and disease epidemiology across species and ecosystems – a blind spot in medical thinking.

While the epidemiological impacts of climate change on human disease are increasingly well studied, far less attention has been paid to climate-related diseases in plants, despite their critical role in ecosystem stability and human livelihoods.

Without exaggeration, current approaches to health tend to focus more on human habits than on its habitats, highlighting the prevailing anthropocentric perspective in medical thinking and leaving out this fundamental driver behind disease emergence altogether.

In contrast, the One Health framework offers a holistic perspective by explicitly addressing the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health.

Building on this perspective, we want to discuss new challenges for medical thinking in times of climate change.

Speakers:

Carmen Büttner, Professor for phytomedicine, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Pietro Coletti, Circle U. Global Health Chair, UCLouvain

Pascal Grosse, Circle U. Global Health Chair, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Marcel Robinschon, Professor for agroecology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Cyril Caminade, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, UCLouvain

Wim Van Bortel, Institute for Tropical Medicine, UCLouvain