Pollution causes 40 percent of deaths worldwide

[doG]

About 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water' date=' air and soil pollution, concludes a Cornell researcher. Such environmental degradation, coupled with the growth in world population, are major causes behind the rapid increase in human diseases, which the World Health Organization has recently reported. Both factors contribute to the malnourishment and disease susceptibility of 3.7 billion people, he says.

 

David Pimentel, Cornell professor of ecology and agricultural sciences, and a team of Cornell graduate students examined data from more than 120 published papers on the effects of population growth, malnutrition and various kinds of environmental degradation on human diseases. Their report is published in the online version of the journal Human Ecology (available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/101592/, to be published in the December print issue)...

 

Of the world population of about 6.5 billion, 57 percent is malnourished, compared with 20 percent of a world population of 2.5 billion in 1950....

 

More at Cornell...

 

Just what size of human population can our planet really support?

[Phi for All]

Just what size of human population can our planet really support?

15 billion really wise people or <1 billion short-sighted ones.

 

Since it's likely there will always be a mix, at 6.5Bn I'd say we could use more wisdom and less short-sightedness. It isn't an easy fix but this would be a good start.

[1veedo]

I thought we were supposed to peak at 8 or 9 billion, somewhere around 2050 then start declining (because of decreased birth rates).

[Pangloss]

I'm surprised nobody has questioned that statistic. It sure smells fishy to me.