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PERSPECTIVE article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Planetary Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1373787
This article is part of the Research Topic The Relationship Between Health and Environment Under the Lens of Climate Change: Insights for Policy Makers View all 10 articles

Grand (meta) challenges in planetary health: environmental, social and cognitive

Provisionally accepted
Colin D. Butler Colin D. Butler *
  • Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Text word count: 2005, plus abstract, captions and references Grand (meta) challenges in planetary health: environmental, social and cognitive The term "planetary health", coined in the 1970s, arose from planetary consciousness, stimulated in part by the dawn of the space age, and commensurate recognition that our species faces extraordinary obstacles ("limits to growth") if it is to fulfil its promise. While such awareness was then widely suppressed, awareness is reviving, driven by the now obvious perils, not only of climate change but from weaponization and national aggression. Our neoliberal society (including in academic circles) has inappropriately rewarded articles and researchers that are biased to optimism. This article proposes six grand ("meta") challenges that planetary health must face.

    Keywords: Academic fraud, Climate Change, Civilization collapse, limits to Growth, optimism bias, Population bias, scientific integrity

    Received: 20 Jan 2024; Accepted: 31 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Butler. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Colin D. Butler, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

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