Health gains in the last 150 years around the world have been a spectacular leap for human civilization. Numerous diseases were wiped out and health care for the majority of human beings on the planet improved in a remarkably short period of history. However, all of these scientific and medical gains are in danger of being lost because of the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, according to a report published last month in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet.

The report focuses on the effects on human health from human degradation of the environment. Such problems as ocean acidification, depleted water sources, polluted land, depletion of fish stocks and loss of biodiversity all threaten to have massive health consequences. The report, titled "Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch" offers one of the first global evaluations of future health conditions by connecting human health to the ecological problems that humans have caused.

The term "anthropocene" has been used by many scientists, researchers and historians to describe the current period of history in which human activity has had profound effects on the earth's ecological conditions. The broad planetary focus of the main report was accompanied by more specific studies. In a study accompanying the main report and also published in Lancet, it was found that staple crops such as wheat, rice, barley and soy have lower levels than ever before of zinc, which is essential for human immune systems and the growth of children. Lower zinc in crops is the direct result of greatly increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Another accompanying report looks at the present decline of bees and other pollinators, which is largely the result of pollution, loss of land and pesticides. The extinction, even partial, of pollinating species will mean that many crops dependent on pollen could fail in increasingly larger numbers. The crops dependent on pollinators are responsible for up to 40 percent of the world's supply of essential nutrients, such as vitamin A and folate, indispensable for children and pregnant women. Without pollination by bees, the report estimates that a quarter of a billion people would have an increase in heart disease, strokes and cancer.

The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should take the results seriously for many reasons. First, the collapse of planetary health is not isolated to one country or another. All over the world, including Japan, recent gains in health quality through improved medical science will be offset by decreasing levels of health caused by ecological destruction. That is to say, the costs of health care are likely to skyrocket as fish stocks become depleted, rice loses nutritional value and crops lose both quality and quantity.

These concerns should be addressed by any responsible government. Japan must work together with other countries to slow climate change as soon as possible by reducing carbon emissions, setting limits on pollution and working worldwide to halt environmental damage.

Our health depends on it.