Health, Population, Limits and the Decline of Nature

The main purpose of this chapter is to argue that global population health is in peril, due to a crisis rooted in our species’ lack of respect for nature, and the conceit that humans have largely mastered nature, and nature will do as we wish. To achieve our aim in a convincing way, we explore two parallel and closely related issues: human population growth and limits to growth. This involves discussion of history, economics, politics and social science. Before this, we discuss health (human and ecological) and sustainability. None of these concepts is simple, uncontested, or possible to do justice to here. However, they cannot be ignored.