Planetary health links human well-being directly to Earth’s ecological systems and stability.

The arts can turn abstract crises like climate change into personal, actionable experiences.

Neuroarts show how art shapes the brain and emotions, fueling behavior change for the sake of the planet.

Written by Erin Broas, MSPH, Communications Specialist at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Planetary Health

Over the past century, humanity has achieved extraordinary gains in human health. Advances in water and sanitation, maternal and child care, infectious disease control, vaccinations, and other public health achievements have vastly improved human longevity and quality of life, reducing global child mortality significantly and increasing life expectancy to about 71 years as of 2021 (WHO, 2024). However, while human health and well-being have improved by traditional measures, the ecological systems supporting this well-being are deteriorating.

Rapid population growth, industrialization, urbanization, and technological advances in transportation, communication, agriculture, and manufacturing are transforming patterns of human consumption on an unprecedented scale (Globaia, 2024). Since the 1950s, people have acquired vast new capacities to travel, manufacture, extract, and consume. Cars and airplanes are reshaping how we move, plastics and paper production have expanded into the hundreds of millions of metric tons annually, and freshwater use is surging to meet the increased demands of agriculture, industry, and our growing cities.

The consequences of increased consumption are now visible across every major Earth system. It is not only the climate that is changing—everything is changing. Alongside record-high temperatures, the planet has lost roughly one-third of its forests, approximately one million species face extinction, and........

© Psychology Today