The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
The goal of the inaugural Planetary Health / GeoHealth Annual Meeting is to bring together a diverse group of students, investigators, instructors, policy makers, and other interested individuals who are committed to understanding and communicating the human health impacts of global environmental change. Our objective is to showcase the extraordinary momentum that is taking place around the world in the field of planetary health while highlighting institutional developments, emerging investigators, research developments, and applications to policy-making and natural resource management. Our expectation is that a diverse group will take from this meeting a sense of excitement about the quality and importance of work being done in planetary health, a new cohesiveness as a community dedicated to furthering these issues in collaboration with each other, and a commitment to continuing to grow this rapidly emerging field together.