Human health is predicated on 4.5 bn years of Earth history, including the gradual build of oxygen by cyanobacteria enabling the development of multicellular lifeforms, the formation of Earth's ozone layer and the subsequent emergence of plant and animal life, several extinction events, and 60 mio years of hominid evolution. These developments were necessary to create the environmental conditions characteristic of the Holocene epoch-a relatively warm and stable climate, stable geological conditions, a high degree of biodiversity, and the pervasiveness of extensive, biodiverse habitats-that have enabled and supported human life, health, and civilizations as we know them today. 1 Unchecked economic growth, production, and consumption building on colonial and extractive industries have now destabilized the environmental conditions essential for human life and health. Climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, human-driven change of 75% of earth's land surface, the loss of 85% of global wetlands, and pervasive air, water, soil, and plastic pollution are the major markers of today's environmental crisis. These environmental changes are already driving one-quarter of the worldwide burden of diseases and onequarter of all human deaths each year amid increasing the frequency and severity of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), infectious and vector-borne diseases, mental trauma and physical injury, and adverse effects on human physical activity around the world. 2