Dr. Eric Chivian is the founder and director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. In 1980 Dr. Chivian co-founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an international medical organization dedicated to advancing understanding of the catastrophic health and environmental consequences of nuclear war, which won the 1985 Noble Peace Prize.

Today, he is raising the alarm about another global crisis: mankind’s destruction of species and ecosystems around the world, and the resulting threat to human health. Together with fello Harvard physician Aaron Bernstein, he has edited and written the book Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity.  The volume compiles contributions from over 100 leading scientists, to examine 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.
 



 

photo: an endangered Whooping Crane, Ryan Hagerty - USFWS