Population, development, and climate change: links and effects on human health
September 30, 2013 • Climate Change & Mitigation, Daily Email Recap
Population, development, and climate change: links and effects on human health
See: http://www.geog.ucl.ac.
Judith Stephenson, Susan F Crane, Caren Levy, Mark Maslin
Global health, population growth, economic development, environmental degradation, and climate change are the main challenges we face in the 21st century. However, because the academics, non-governmental organisations, and policy makers in these specialties work within separate communities, our understanding of the associations between them is restricted. We organised an international symposium in May, 2011 in London, UK, for academics and technical experts from population, developmental, and environmental science to encourage debate and collaboration between these disciplines. The conference provided the impetus for this Review, which describes, in historical context, key events and fundamental intercommunity debates from the perspectives of population, development, and climate change communities. We consider the interconnections between population, development, and climate change and their eff ects on health, including new analysis of longstanding debates, and identify opportunities for effective collaboration on shared goals.
Introduction
Because of huge population growth in the 20th century, the world’s population is expected to be ten times larger by 2050 (roughly 10 billion) than it was for most of the 19th century (around 1 billion) (fi gure 1A).1,4,5 The European Enlightenment (17th and 18th centuries) started this growth and laid the foundation for improvements to public health that triggered a global demographic transition. This transition began in northwest Europe pre-19th century and continues worldwide.6-8 In pre-transitional societies, high fertility rates offset high mortality rates and population levels remained constant (figure 1A) because, on average, only two children per couple survived to adulthood.7,8 The fundamental processes of demographic transition-which causes a population to move from high mortality and high fertility to low mortality and low fertility-are associated with a sustained decline in mortality leading to population growth and a decline in fertility leading to population ageing and urbanisation.
Please click here for the full PDF: http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/people/academic-staff/mark-maslin/Stephenson%20et%20al%202013.pdf
Current World Population
7,823,625,651
Net Growth During Your Visit
0