Antibiotics are the first line of defense in protecting humans and animals against bacteria and other microbes. Microbes, like humans, want to survive. They can do that by mutating to adapt to their changing environment, unfavorable conditions and any threats they encounter — threats such as antibiotics.
Tagged: environment
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On a sunny August day in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a dozen people ages 15–24 sit in a circle on the grass outside of the Prek Leap National Institute of Agriculture. They aren’t discussing the latest viral video or school gossip. Rather, they are exploring how communication strategies can help their families, peers and communities understand the negative effects of some of Cambodia’s most environmentally damaging behavior trends — and how they can live more environmentally friendly lives.
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Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing humanity, and it is only getting worse. To protect the future of all living things, we need to take collective action. Scientists and policymakers must implement a systemic response to the immediate needs, but it’s also imperative that educators equip young people to tackle the crisis.
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Green jobs are the future
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The 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) has brought renewed attention to the concept of “green jobs” — those where workers produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources and those in which workers’ duties involve making production processes more environmentally friendly.
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2020 will go down in history as a year of global health, economic and social crises occurring against the backdrop of increasingly catastrophic climate events. It is a year that defines disruption. However, as we jump into 2021, I’m taking a cue from last season’s development optimists to look for how to convert crisis into opportunity. This year, I will explore with my guests how they see us leveraging disruption for good in a post-COVID world.
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The One Health concept calls for a worldwide approach to expanding interdisciplinary collaboration and communication on all aspects of health for humans, animals and the environment. This approach has tremendous implications for human health because an estimated sixty-one percent of human infectious diseases originate from animals. At the same time, there is a growing sense of urgency to advance One Health collaborations before more ground is lost in the fight for a healthy planet.
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Are our growth-based models of modernization at odds with sustainable development? Does addressing environmental concerns need to take a back seat to economic growth in order to alleviate poverty? And is it reasonable to expect people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from to care about the environment?
In this episode, I sit down with Heather Tallis, Global Managing Director and Lead Scientist for Strategy Innovation for the Nature Conservancy, who dispels the myths and assumptions around the interplay of conservation and safeguarding the environment with meeting human needs and raising living standards. Marshaling the evidence, Heather makes the case that there doesn’t have to be a tradeoff between economic growth and poverty alleviation and conservation and that development goals and environmental goals can go hand in hand.
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We live in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world. The risks to much of the world’s population that stem from climatic, political and economic fluctuations have played out again and again in recent years. While emergency response and humanitarian aid still have an important role to play, the development community is increasingly interested in how to build the resilience of individuals, communities and systems not only to survive these shocks and stresses, but also to adapt to them and better prepare for future occurrences.
There is no single solution for building resilience, as it is highly dependent on the population in question, the risks they face, local infrastructure and resources, and a number of other factors. However, one tool that has the potential to facilitate increased resilience across a range of contexts is digital technology.
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Despite decades of investments to improve food security for the world’s poorest people, hunger and malnutrition are still problems for many. Indeed, a daunting food security crisis currently puts more than 20 million people at risk of starvation in just four countries: Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen. In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 42 million children under the age of 5 will be malnourished by 2050, and 10 million additional children will be malnourished if climate change impacts continue unabated.
This crisis calls for improvements in identifying, understanding and addressing the interlinked factors that result in broadscale food security crises. The cycle of resource degradation caused by climate change that leads to food insecurity, starvation and ongoing conflicts raises the question of whether climate change itself is a “threat multiplier” that increases the potential for conflict. Evidence suggests that the interplay between these sectors is critical to the emergence or development of many humanitarian crises. However, the complexity of these relationships and the role of climate change as a threat multiplier are less understood.