ABSTRACT
This is a text on environmental health, so why is the subject of human population of any concern here? The answer is brief and startlingly cold. Human numbers have risen with such ferocity that we have overwhelmed the carrying capacity of sections of the Earth and threatened the sociopolitical structures of civilization in some parts of the world. We must come to understand “the environment” and realize that environmental destruction is the national security issue of the early 21st century. The world’s billions of impoverished people are surging in an enormous tidal wave into the urban centers around the globe as they desperately seek relief and opportunity from the crumbling ecosystems of rural life. These billions are fleeing from deforestation, soil erosion, water depletion, natural disasters, hunger, emerging diseases, and hopelessness to find themselves entrenched in uncontrolled settlements of never-ending shanty towns built with corrugated metal shacks or cardboard. Armies of undernourished and pot-bellied children run through puddled streets with
floating garbage where malarial-infested mosquitoes swarm in great black clouds. Electricity, sewage systems, and running water are rare. It is little wonder that in these environs criminal anarchy is the endemic illness. Overpopulation, infectious disease, unprovoked crime, few resources, and the influx of more refugees increases the erosion of nation-states, leading to the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international drug cartels. This is the vision in many parts of the lesser developed countries (LDCs), and it threatens to expand with the continued growth of human populations.
