Description
In an age characterized by a rapidly changing environment, in which emerging and re-emerging diseases continue to confront us, how can we predict the next major threats to human health? Are we, in fact, aiding the spread of disease by destroying the barriers that keep us from it? In his series Medical Ecology: Environmental Disturbance and Disease, Dickson Despommier, professor of public health and microbiology at Columbia, illuminates the connections between the disruption of ecosystems and eruptions of human disease. In Food: Land Use and Health Risks, the seventh and final seminar of this series, Despommier touches upon the last of Earth's great zones: land. He focuses his discussion on agriculture, our primary use of land, and the large impact that agriculture has on biodiversity and climate change. In addition, he discusses the impact of decreased biodiversity and climate disturbance on human diseases.

Growing human populations require great supplies of food for sustenance. The question is, can modern technologies or policies help us strike a balance between this agricultural need and the need for natural ecosystem and human health?

Minimal prior knowledge of science is required for this course, including basic concepts of ecosystems and agriculture.