3rd Planetary Health Academy

Here you can find all past lectures of our third cycle of the Planetary Health Academy as well as presentations and additional sources.

#1 Crossing Planetary Boundaries: Climate Change and the Loss of Biodiversity

Julia Pongratz (LMU Munich)
Kris Murray (Imperial College London)

Recordings, additional materials and more information about this lecture

In the first lecture we will talk about the dramatic changes of our Earth System in the decades since the Industrial Revolution. You will get an insight into the different disciplines in the field of Planetary Health and the main issues we are currently facing. We are taking a closer look on the climatic changes, how models are helping us to understand the ongoing processes and how these helped making the Paris Agreement.

Speakers presentations coming soon.

Additional reading:
IPBES Workshop Report on Biodiversity and Pandemics

Julia Pongratz
LMU Munich

Julia Pongratz is full professor for Physical Geography and Land Use Systems at the LMU Munich. After her studies of geography she investigated land use change as a climate driver throughout the last millennium during her PhD work. After a postdoc at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, looking into food security and geoengineering, she established a junior research group at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology on “Forest Management in the Earth System” in 2013. She contributes to the IPCC’s last and current Assessment Reports. Julia Pongratz seeks to connect disciplines and serves as member of several interdisciplinary boards, amongst others, the Steering Committee of the German Alliance for Global Health Research.

Kris Murray
Imperial College London

Kris Murray is a disease ecologist having worked at the interface of human, wildlife and environmental health for the past 15 years. After a PhD on a wildlife pandemic and work on zoonoses and spillover ecology he joined Imperial College London to work as the Environment and Health lead in the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment and later at the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. He is Associate Professor of Environment and Healt at the MRC Unit the Gambia at LSHTM. He served as the infectious disease lead for the Lancet Countdown on Climate Change and Health.


#2 Planetary Health – a New Scientific Discipline

Ian Hamilton (Lancet Countdown)
Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann
(University of Augsburg)

Recordings, additional materials and more information about this lecture

In the second lecture we will talk about the interconnection between human health and planetary changes like climate change, the loss of biodiversity and geochemical changes. We will explore further topics of planetary health and its causes: pollution, biodiversity loss and water scarcity.

Speakers presentations coming soon.

Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann 
Universität Augsburg and Helmholtz Zentrum München

As specialist in dermatology and allergology Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann concentrates her research on interdependencies between environment and human health with a focus on human barrier functions. She studies immune response on both the clinical and the molecular level. She is Head of the Department of Environmental Medicine at the Medical Faculty of Augsburg University and Director of the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Helmholtz Zentrum München and holds various honors and awards.

Ian Hamilton
Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, University College London

Ian Hamilton is Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change and an Associate Professor in Energy Epidemiology who studies the intersection of climate, energy and health. His research background is in evaluating climate mitigation actions in the built environment their impact on indoor and outdoor environmental conditions and associated health and wellbeing outcomes.


#3 Health for Future – the Path to Living Healthy and Good Lives

Mayara Floss (WONCA Porto Allegre Brazil)
Marilena Berends (She/Her, freelance journalist and editor)
Maike Weißpflug (Natural History Museum Berlin)
Martin Hermann (German Climate Change and Health Alliance)

Recordings, additional materials and more information about this lecture

“Climate change can be the biggest opportunity for global health.”, the Lancet stated in 2015. How can we create win-win situations for climate mitigation and human health and create a more livable, health and yet sustainable society on Earth? In this lecture we focus on the co-benefits and how we can create environments that foster happy societies and make the healthy choice the easy one.

Speakers presentations coming soon.

Mayara Floss
WONCA Porto Allegre Brazil

Mayara Floss is a Brazilian Family Doctor and PhD student in Pathology at the University of São Paulo (USP). She was the junior author of the policy brief recommendations for Brazil of Lancet Countdown 2018 and 2019. She created and coordinates the Planetary Health and Planetary Health for Primary Care MOOC and serves as Rural Seeds creator and Ambassador. Mayara is member of the WONCA Environment as well as executive member of the WONCA Working Party on Rural Practice. As a member of the planetary health group of IEA/USP she engages in the field of planetary health.

Marilena Berends (she/her)
freelance journalist and editor

As a possibilist, Marilena sees the potentials and scope for action that are available to us to solve the main challenges of our time. In addition to her studies in philosophy and politics, she has been producing the Sinneswandel Podcast since 2017 and works as a freelance journalist and editor. Her main focus is on sustainable transformation, questions of personal self-efficacy and social responsibility.

Maike Weißpflug
Natural History Museum Berlin

Maike Weißpflug is a political scientist with a focus on political theory. She works in the research department for science communication and knowledge research at the Natural History Museum Berlin. She is an expert on the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt and will share her thoughts on freedom and new beginnings in recognition of planetary boundaries.

Martin Hermann
German Climate Change and Health Alliance (KLUG)

Founder and chair of the German Climate Change and Health Alliance – KLUG.  Martin Herrmann has accompanied transformational change processes in global health and commercial contexts for more than 30 years. A doctor by training, he soon started to advise companies and NGOs, creating new concepts for organizational development. Today he teaches at international business schools and universities. He is especially passionate about   linking complexity science and  Hannah Arendt political philosophy to the transformational challenges of our time.


#4 Landuse/Agricultural Systems and the Planetary Health Diet

Anja Bosy-Westphal (University of Kiel)
Marco Springmann
(Oxford University)
Karen Pittel 
(IFO Institut München)

Recordings, additional materials and more information about this lecture

Humans had converted more than 40% of the Earth’s ice-free land surface, and an additional of around 37% is semi- natural. These numbers show that humans already changed the majority of their habitat. Two of the most significant land-use change drivers are the growing food demand for an increasing population and urbanization. How can we answer the rising demand for nutrition and yet stay within the boundaries of our planet? With a quarter of global GHG, the agricultural sector has enormous potential for change. In the fourth lecture, we will talk about possible ways.

Anja Bosy-Westphal’s presentation
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More speakers presentations coming soon.

Anja Bosy-Westphal
University Kiel

Anja Bosy-Westphal is a nutritional scientist and professor for human nutrition at the University of Kiel. Her research focuses on body composition analysis in health and disease as well as on the regulation of energy balance and co-morbidities of dysregulated energy balance. She is currently president of the German Society for Nutritional Medicine.

Karen Pittel
ifo Institute, LMU Munich

Karen Pittel is Professor of Economics at LMU München and director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Resources of the ifo Institute. Karen is Co-Chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) and Deputy Chair of the Steering Committee of the German Climate Protection Science Platform. She is also Deputy Chair of “Energy Systems of the Future” of the German Science Academies and a member of the Bavarian Climate Council. The research interests of Karen Pittel are in the areas of energy, climate and resource economics with a focus on the transformation of energy systems and the long-term effectiveness and efficiency of climate and energy policies.

Marco Springmann
Oxford University

Marco Springmann is Senior Researcher at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford. His research systematically assess the impacts of climate change, economic development and changing dietary habits on the global food system. He is one of the lead authors of the EAT Lancet study „Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems.”


#5 Clinical Planetary Health – Internal Medicine

Clarissa Prazeres da Costa (TU Munich)
Thomas Münzel (Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz)
Claudia Traidl- Hoffmann (University of Augsburg)

Recordings, additional materials and more information about this lecture

In this lecture we will explore the health effects of planetary change on the diseases from internal medicine. From cardiovascular diseases like stroke to chronic diseases like diabetes o to lung disease, infectious diseases and allergies we are covering the broad effects from fetus to the elderly.

Speakers presentations coming soon.

Clarissa Prazeres da Costa
Technische Universität München

Clarissa Prazeres da Costa, MD, is a consultant medical microbiologist, immunologist and infectious disease specialist, long-term lecturer, co-founder and co-director of the Center for Global Health at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). Since 17 years, she heads the research group “Infection and Immunity in Global Health” as well as the diagnostic parasitology department and teaching unit at the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene at TUM. Her scientific interests focus on basic immunological aspects of host-parasite interactions of zoonotic and neglected tropical diseases (NTD) and type 2 immune disorders such as allergies in relation to maternal and child health. Her Global Health activities include integration of novel technologies into the SDG3 agenda, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and Women’s Health in SSA. Since March 2020 she is member of the COVID-19 Expert Team at TUM’s teaching hospital, Klinikum rechts der Isar

Thomas Münzel
Johannes Gutenberg University

Thomas Münzel MD, is Chief of the Department of Cardiology at the University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. He is an interventionist and also a vascular biologist and got his post doc training as a vascular biologist at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA with focus on endothelial function and oxidative stress. He is co-initiator of the Gutenberg Health Study, one of the largest prospective cohort trials worldwide and was the founding director of the Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, CTH in Mainz. Since 2011, his research group is focusing on environmental risk factors for cardiovascular disease with a focus on aircraft noise and air pollution. Currently he is member of The WHO advisory group Sharing Key Air Pollution and Health Information in Europe (SKAPHIE). (Foto: Peter Pulkowski)

Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann 
Universität Augsburg and Helmholtz Zentrum München

As specialist in dermatology and allergology Claudia Traidl-Hoffmann concentrates her research on interdependencies between environment and human health with a focus on human barrier functions. She studies immune response on both the clinical and the molecular level. She is Head of the Department of Environmental Medicine at the Medical Faculty of Augsburg University and Director of the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Helmholtz Zentrum München and holds various honors and awards.

# 6 Clinical Planetary Health – Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Geriatrics 

Andreas Heinz (Charité Berlin)
Nightingale Wakigera
(Clinicians for Planetary Health)
Clemens Becker
 (RBK Stuttgart)

Recordings, additional materials and more information about this lecture

In the second lecture on the clinical effects of planetary change we are focusing on the mental effects as well as the neurological consequences. Furthermore, we are learning about the health risks for one of the most vulnerable groups: children.

Speakers presentations coming soon.

Andreas Heinz
Charité Berlin

Andreas Heinz is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Mitte, Germany and since 2019 he is president of the German Society of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology (DGPPN). He studied medicine, philosophy and anthropology in Bochum at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, in Berlin at the Freie Universität Berlin and at Howard University, Washington D.C. Dissertation (MD) 1988 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, PhD 2013 at the Department of Philosophy, Universität Potsdam. He qualified for professorship (Habilitation) in psychiatry and psychotherapy in 1998. His research focuses on dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmission and their respective effects on reward-dependent learning, positive and negative mood states and decision making. A second research focus is on social exclusion stress and transcultural psychiatry.

Nightingale Wakigera
CHIP

Nightingale Wakigera is a Registered Nurse, mother, and graduate student studying One Health. She is a co-lead for Child Health Is Planetary Health (CHIP), a project that works with and for children to connect child health with planetary health. Nightingale is also a leader of ACOPPHE/Africa Community of Planetary Partners for Health and Environment. ACOPPHE works to highlight the fundamental importance of environmental stewardship for people’s health and well-being, along with the critical role that Africa plays in the health of the planet. Having been born and raised in a village in rural Kenya, Nightingale knows that the direct and healthy connections with the natural environment she got to know as a child are rapidly turning into a rare luxury. Nightingale believes that our calling as global citizens and members of one human family is to heal our broken relationships—both with each other and with planet Earth. In her view, connectedness, diversity and Indigenous wisdom give us a stable foundation to evaluate and selectively adopt modern advances to restore a maximally healthy and balanced relationship with the natural world, which furthermore prevents, mitigates, and reverses climate change. 

Clemens Becker 
University of Stuttgart and RBK Stuttgart

Clemens Becker is Professor of the Unit Digital Geriatric Medicine at the University of Stuttgart and Head of Department for Geriatric Medicine at the Robert-Bosch-Hospital Stuttgart, an academic hospital of the University of Tübingen. Among others his research focuses on the early risk detection and prevention in ageing people and heat stress resilience.

# 7 Beyond Exploitation – Reimagining Life and Health

Susan Prescott (inVIVO Planetary Health)
Blake Poland (University of Toronto) 

Recordings, additional materials and more information about this lecture

Humans tried to dominate their environment during the last decades. The climate crisis demonstrates that humans still live as part of nature and not separate from it. What approaches can we find to redefine our attitude towards the living species and our environment’s non- living aspect?

Blake Poland’s presentation
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Susan Prescott
inVIVO Planetary Health

Susan Prescott is a Professor of Paediatrics in the School of Medicine at the University of Western Australia and an internationally acclaimed physician scientist, with a research focus on the early environmental determinants of health and disease and immune health. She is a passionate advocate for social change and adopting a holistic approach to life. As an artist and award-winning author, she communicates these ideas, not only through the knowledge base of science, but also through the inspiration of art. In finding common ground, she maintains we can work together to address many global problems, recognising the direct connections between personal and planetary health. 

With this goal, she leads both local and global efforts towards improving personal and planetary health: Susan is the Founding President of inVIVO Planetary Health, a Founding Director of the ORIGINS Project at the Telethon KIDS Institute, the Founding President of the multidisciplinary ‘DOHaD’ Society in Australia and New Zealand (Developmental Origins of Health and Disease) and a former Director of the World Allergy Organisation (WAO).

Blake Poland
University of Toronto

Blake Poland, PhD is a professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, where he is also the director of the Collaborative Graduate Specialization in Community Development, and a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research. His work focusses on community resilience, community development as an arena of practice for health and social care professionals, sustainability transitions, and the role of civil society and social movements as agents of social change. 

# 8 Examples of Transformative Action

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