Notes: Single, pair, three Ingredients of main candidates of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for mild, moderate, and severe mVIDs (such as COIVID-19 and other respiratory or lung infection) and mNCDs (such as CVD, diabetes, and cancer, etc.), respectively.

In the last decade, TCM has received more and more attention and praise in the globe. Particularly in 2015, the Chinese scholar Tu Youyou won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of artemisinin (Stokstad and Vogel, 2015), and in recent years, the outstanding efficacy of TCM in fighting COVID-19 was highly praised by the World Health Organization. For example, there is an innovative theory and program of “TCM Hot Pot” (Hu, 2023), that is “Bark-Flower-Fruit-Grass-Leaf-Nucleolus(seed)-Root” [BFFGLNR] (Table 1), it is not only a significant breakthrough in the principle “Sovereign-Minister-Assistant-Courier” of TCM compatibility and formulation, but also a significant breakthrough in the clinical application of TCM for human disease, including major virus-infectious diseases (mVIDs) and major non-communicable diseases (mNCDs), creating new theories and models for the TCM compatibility and formulation in the new era. It better reflects the holistic view and big-picture thinking of TCM syndrome differentiation and treatment, with more comprehensive medicinal ingredients, more reliable pharmacological effects, easy to learn, understand, and promote, and stronger operability.

However, planting industry in China, including the cultivation of Chinese herbal medicine, is affected to some extent due to CC related salinization, soil erosion and desertification (Tollefson, 2022). Due to inevitable direct and indirect effects on ecosystems, long-lasting effects of CC on pathogen emergence may link to the COVID-19 crisis (Schmeller et al., 2020). Moreover, the global change in climate is one of the major drivers of the emergence of zoonoses (Roberts, et al., 2021), we need better tools for evaluating infectious disease emergence and spread. In addition, since it is the new normal of both slow droughts and flash droughts, and there are more flash droughts over 74% in the globe (Yuan et al., 2023), undoubtedly, global herbal cultivation will be significantly affected.

Because there are definite population health effects from CC mitigation actions (Hess et al., 2020), related guidelines are more comparable and useful for evidence-based decision by policymakers. And since there are the strong links between risk for pandemics, human-induced climate change and biodiversity loss, innovative multidisciplinary solutions are helpful to globe health and environmental change (Destoumieux-Garzón et al., 2022), and developing innovative ways for pandemic prevention including emerging infectious diseases and zoonoses would not only reduce the risk of future pandemics but also provide a model for prevention strategies (Woolaston et al., 2022). As a public health and social investment, urban public green spaces have both social benefits (job/food creation, biodiversity promotion, carbon sequestration) and health benefits fighting against future pandemics (Geary et al., 2022).

As we all know, depression, in particular major depression (MD) is a vital public-health challenge with a multifactorial etiology, there are currently still lack of effective treatment. Since this disease can be affected by unhealthy lifestyle, such as abnormal environment, sleep, emotion, exercise, and diet, herein, improvements in psychological health by “the magic polypill” (Hu, 2018), that is the E(e)SEEDi, is a good strategy, such as Yoga. It is not clear or there is no research to show whether plants are as emotional as humans, but it is clear that medicinal plants can fight against human psychological stress and emotional abnormalities, such as anxiety and depression, and improve psychological health. In fact, plants-based polyphenols are good candidate agents for the depression due to anti-inflammatory role. Thus, to protect medicinal plants is also protection of human health.

Herein, there are several suggestions to strengthen the response to international and local climate risks and challenges. First, attach importance to the role of clean energy and green environmental protection in industrial and agricultural production; Second, accelerate the popularization and application of artificial intelligent in CC, such as automatic driving and UAV for people’s livelihood; Third, pay more attention to the efficiency of policies and laws, limit and cut emissions to the maximum extent, and formulate zero pollution standards. Fourth, since both COVID-19 infection and CC are global health threats (Negev et al., 2021), close cooperation for protection of the public health is a vital step in the globe.

In addition, because there are high links among cultivation, scarcity and price fluctuations in medicinal plants (Cunningham and Long, 2019), and the microecology highly links to the growth and development, metabolism process, and component accumulation of TCM as well as the distinctive origin and quality of Dao-di herbs (He et al., 2020), thus, the geographic information system for global medicinal plants is helpful to introduction and cultivation of TCM (such as American ginseng) in ecologically suitable areas (Shen et al., 2019).

In a word, these strategies and measures are conducive to reducing the threat of CC to the herbal cultivation and helping TCM better serve global health during the COVID-19 pandemic and post-COVID-19 era. Because water is an essential element for human survival in the world, and the human body cannot survive without water for a week. Due to the continuous high temperature and drought for a long time, plants can not grow normally without water. Therefore, current CC is a major hazard to herb cultivation in both China and the globe. And people need to take effective strategies for fighting against CC. All in all, both humans and medicinal plants need water, in particular the “magic polypill”. And the E(e)SEEDi including water is the source of all life. A recent study (Yamada et al., 2022) found that there are equations to predict human water turnover, but not in plants. The daily water demand of plants remains a question that needs to be answered and solved by reliable experiments. Herein, only when we understand and confirm that plants also need sleep and have emotions as human, can we think that medicinal plants also need healthy E(e)SEEDi lifestyle, so that we can protect and improve herb cultivation and growth.