Ebola and Other Diseases: The role of Climate Change and Deforestation

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This week the World Health Organisation described the current Ebola outbreak as ‘the most severe acute health emergency in modern times’, with the epidemic now killing more people than all previous Ebola outbreaks combined.

Whilst epidemics on this scale are thankfully rare, there are increasing fears that our burgeoning population, warming climate and rapid urbanisation of previously forested land has already increased the pace in which deadly diseases can infect and spread amongst humans. As deforestation and climate change look set to get worse before they get better, are we facing a future of greater risk from global disease?

Water Water Everywhere? The Future of our Water Supply

Worrying about water is nothing new. Finding reliable sources of water has long been a primary concern of our ancestors. Think how many major cities of the world surround rivers; the Nile, for example, literally acts as an artery of human civilisation (pictured).

Industrialisation and the subsequent explosion of population during the 1800s marked the start of major shortages, and by the turn of the 20th Century about 2% of people experienced 'chronic' water shortage. By 1960, this number had risen to 9% (280 million people) and by 2005 it affected a staggering 35% of the world's population (2.3 billion people).

In some areas, water is becoming as valued as oil and some predict it to be a major source of conflict and war in the 21st Century and beyond. Unfortunately, things may be about to get worse. Recently, research has indicated that climate change will seriously impact water availability and this, when coupled with our rapidly rising population, makes water supply one of the most serious challenges facing human development.