Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
at birth reached 77 years for males and 83 years for females. But not all coun-
tries have experienced gains. Life expectancy plummeted in Russia in the
early 1990s as social structures and controls dissolved following the collapse
of communism. Elsewhere during the 1990s, adult life expectancy fell by at
least two years in around 10 other (non-African) countries, including Haiti,
Ukraine, Moldova, North Korea and several countries of Central Asia
(McMichael
et al.
2004).
Infectious diseases are almost certain to spring some future surprises,
despite views expressed prematurely around three decades ago by various
eminent scientists to the effect that we had brought infectious diseases under
control with vaccination, antibiotics and better environmental manage-
ment. The newly named variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (human 'mad cow
disease') appeared unexpectedly in Britain in the mid-1990s, and its future
course remains uncertain. HIV/AIDS emerged during the 1980s and, by the
year 2000, was killing over two million people annually. Cholera has
extended its dominion over the past quarter-century, having embarked on
its longest-ever pandemic. Tuberculosis, assisted by HIV, has rebounded
within poor and malnourished populations around the world. During that
same period, the mosquito-borne diseases, malaria and dengue fever, have
been resurgent. Dengue fever, substantially under control in the 1970s in
Latin America, has subsequently re-established itself widely in that region,
infecting more people annually than ever before.
Ways of getting there
The task we face in achieving an ecologically and socially 'sustainable' society
is unfamiliar, unprecedented and formidable. But our latent brainpower, to
be applied to the task, is also formidable. There are three areas in which we
need to change our current practice.
i
Research
: Recognition of the complex environmental and social
problems that we face requires a widened interdisciplinary research
capacity, including the application of complex systems science to
these issues. This added-value model of science is well illustrated in
the ongoing work of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). In 2004 the Australian Academy of Science convened
a conference specifically to consider how best to achieve cross-
disciplinary engagement in relation to big and complex issues to do
