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The Earth's biodiversity-the rich variety of life on our planet-is
disappearing at an alarming rate. And while many books have focused
on the expected ecological consequences, or on the aesthetic,
ethical, sociological, or economic dimensions of this loss,
Sustaining Life is the first book to examine the full range of
potential threats that diminishing biodiversity poses to human
health.
Edited and written by Harvard Medical School physicians Eric
Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, along with more than 100 leading
scientists who contributed to writing and reviewing the book,
Sustaining Life presents a comprehensive--and sobering--view of how
human medicines, biomedical research, the emergence and spread of
infectious diseases, and the production of food, both on land and
in the oceans, depend on biodiversity. The book's ten chapters
cover everything from what biodiversity is and how human activity
threatens it to how we as individuals can help conserve the world's
richly varied biota. Seven groups of organisms, some of the most
endangered on Earth, provide detailed case studies to illustrate
the contributions they have already made to human medicine, and
those they are expected to make if we do not drive them to
extinction. Drawing on the latest research, but written in language
a general reader can easily follow, Sustaining Life argues that we
can no longer see ourselves as separate from the natural world, nor
assume that we will not be harmed by its alteration. Our health, as
the authors so vividly show, depends on the health of other species
and on the vitality of natural ecosystems.
With a foreword by E.O. Wilson and a prologue by Kofi Annan, and
more than 200 poignant colorillustrations, Sustaining Life
contributes essential perspective to the debate over how humans
affect biodiversity and a compelling demonstration of the human
health costs.
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