ECOSCIENCE:

POPULATION,
RESOURCES,
ENVIRONMENT

PAUL R. EHRLICH
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

ANNE H. EHRLICH
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

JOHN P. HOLDREN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

W. H. FREEMAN AND COMPANY

San Francisco
606 / UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL DISRUPTION
amid pleasant surroundings to life in such a horrible
place. The aesthetic poverty of U.S. cities and suburbs
has reached such a degree that most citizens are aware of
it. Newspapers are replete with stories describing slums,
ghettos, rats, trash, and garbage. This is one of the
reasons why weekends and holidays invariably bring on a
mass exodus from the cities. Unfortunately, frontier
habits of thoughtless littering and defacement seem
likely to reduce attractive rural areas and state and
national parks to similar levels of ugliness.
Studies with young animals and indirect evidence
from young children indicate that the richness of the
sensory environment early in life influences the extent of
later mental development. Sensory stimulation in young
rats resulted in measurably larger brain sizes in adult-
hood than in their sensorily deprived litter-mates, and it
affected their learning and problem-solving abilities as
well. Children who have been exposed to a variety of
sights, sounds, and experiences when they are very young
may learn faster and later on be more likely to develop
attitudes of inquiry and exploration.
Yet cities, once a rich source of varied sensory
experiences, are becoming more monotonous and dismal.
Modern urban development programs flatten blocks at a
time—blocks that once included a mixture of buildings
of different ages and styles—and then replace them with
concrete monoliths that lack aesthetic quality. The
variety of sounds, at least some of which were pleasing to
hear, in smaller towns and on farms, is also coming to be
replaced by an incessant din of traffic and construction.
A zoologist with an interest in environmental psy-
chology, A. E. Parr of the American Museum of Natural
History, has written that city children of a generation or
two ago spent much of their time exploring and partici-
pating in the activities of the city, while today children
are confined to dreary schoolrooms, their homes, and the
local park. Poorer ones may play in the streets, and in this
respect perhaps they are luckier. But many of today's city
children are being deprived of firsthand knowledge about
the city they live in and how the social organizations
within it function, which creates a sort of alienation
from their surroundings. At the same time their sur-
roundings are becoming more and more monotonous and
less attractive. Children's urges toward inquisitiveness,
exploration, and ingenuity (qualities that will be desper-
ately needed in the next generation) may thus be stifled
outside the schools as well as in them.223
Suburbs are often better than the cities in aesthetic
qualities and sensory stimulation, but not invariably so.
Although the environment is usually more natural and
includes trees and gardens, many suburbs tend to reduce
everything to a common denominator. All the houses in a
given area are similar, if not identical, and so are the
gardens, parks, and shopping centers. Each modern
real-estate development is generally inhabited by people
of about the same age, educational level, type of employ-
ment, and economic status. There is not much opporrc-
nity for children to meet people whose points of vie—
differ from their own or those of their parents. Although
the children may be freer to explore in the suburbs than
in the city, there is sometimes even less of interest to find
there. The absence of men most of the time may result m
an even greater alienation of youngsters (and wives a;
well) from the functioning society. Of course, television
may compensate somewhat for the lack of sensory ar.c
social variety in children's lives, but it does not encour-
age inquisitiveness or offer opportunities for exploration.
ingenuity, or direct experience. On the contrary, it may
foster passiveness and a tendency to regard life a? =
spectator sport.
THE EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT
Today the population of Homo sapiens is the largest in the
history of the species, it has the highest average density.
and it contains a record number of undernourished and
malnourished people. The population, or rather a small
but important segment of it, is also unprecedented! v
mobile. People are in continual motion around the globe.
and they are able to move from continent to continent in
hours. The potential for a worldwide epidemic (pan-
demic) has never been greater, but people's awareness of
this threat has probably never been smaller. Contrary :c
popular belief, "medical science" has definitely no;
conquered epidemic disease, as recent experience with
22i
A. E. Parr, The five ages of urbanity.

influenza, cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, and Lassa fever
have shown.224
The behavior of viruses is not completely understood,
but it is known that the spontaneous development of
highly lethal strains of human viruses and the invasion of
humanity by extremely dangerous animal viruses are
possible. It is also known that crowding increases the
chances for development of a virus epidemic. Should,
say, an especially virulent strain of flu appear, it is
doubtful that the United States and other developed
countries could produce enough vaccine fast enough to
save most of their populations. Needless to say, the
problem would be even more severe in the LDCs.
Certainly, little effort could be made to save most of
humanity. Consider, for example, the difficulty the
United States had in coping with the mild Asian flu
epidemic of 1968. It was not possible to manufacture
enough vaccine to protect most of the population, and the
influenza death rate in 1968 was more than 4 times as
high as that of 1967. Only 613 deaths were attributed to
flu, but society paid a high price for the disease in extra
medical care and loss of working hours. That the number
of deaths was not higher was due primarily to the
relatively mild character of the virus, rather than to
modern medicine. More recently, the swine flu fiasco of
1976-1977 certainly did not build confidence that public
health machinery will be able to cope competently with
future epidemic threats.
In 1967 an outbreak of a previously unknown disease
occurred among a shipment of vervet monkeys that had
been imported into laboratories in Marburg, Germany,
and in Yugoslavia. This severe, hemorrhagic disease
infected 25 laboratory workers who came into contact
with the monkeys and their tissues. Seven of those people
died. Five secondary infections occurred in individuals
who came into contact with the blood of the original
patients; all of those individuals survived. Humanity was
extremely fortunate that the first infections of Homo
224
L. K. Altman, Hong Kong flu is affecting millions in wide areas
around world, New York Times, January IS, 1970; H. Schwartz,
Influenza: Yes you really had it; and H. Schwartz, Cholera now spreading
to remote regions: Eruption is the most widespread since 1899 pandemic,
New York Times, September 26,1971; B. Dixon, Typhoid bacilli learn a
new trick; J. Lederberg, Yellow fever still is a menace, J. G. Fuller, Fever:
The huntfor a nev) killer virus; T. Monath et al., Lassa virus isolation from
Mastomys natalensis rodents during an epidemic in Sierra Leone.
DIRECT ASSAULTS ON WELL-BEING / 607
sapiens by Marburg virus occurred around laboratories
where the nature of the threat was quickly recognized,
and the disease contained (it was not susceptible to
antibiotics). If it had escapedinto the human population
at large, and if the disease had retained its virulencejasjL-
frnm person to an ppiHprpic resulting in
r>f r,r ^,fr\ frji1i"ns of deaths might
hay£_accurred. Among well-fed laboratory workers with
expert medical care, 7 out of 30 patients died.225 Among
hungry people with little or no medical care, mortality
would be much higher. The infected monkeys passed
dirough London airport in transit to the laboratories. If
the virus had infected airport personnel, it could have
spread around the world before anyone realized what was
happening. In addition, it is hardly reassuring that
infection of laboratory workers with viruses is a rather
common occurrence, and the potential virulence of
possible "escapees" from labs is increasing.226
The highly mechanized society of the United States is
also extremely vulnerable to disruption by such events as
power failures, floods, and snowstorms. What would
happen if the nation were confronted with an epidemic
that kept masses of sick people from work and caused the
uninfected to stay home or flee the cities because of their
fear of infection? This might slow or even stop the spread
of the disease, but hunger, cold (in the winter), and many
other problems would soon develop as the services of
society ceased to operate. Almost total breakdown has
been known to occur in much less complex societies than
the U.S. in the face of the black death— breakdown that
occurred among people far more accustomed to a short
life, hardship, disease, and death than the population of
the Western world today.227 The panic may well be
imagined if Americans were to discover that "modern
medical science" either had no cure for a disease of
epidemic proportions, or had insufficient doses of the
cure for everyone. The disease itself would almost
certainly impede the application of any ameliorating
-'-5R. E. Kissling et al. Agent of disease contracted from green monkeys.
More recent cases contracted in parts of Africa (outside laboratories) have
been reported, including several hundred deaths. (New outbreak of
Marburg disease, New Scientist, October 28, 1976, p. 199.)
226
For example, R. P. Hanson, et al., Arbovirus infections of laboratory
workers; N. Wade, Microbiology: Hazardous profession faces new
uncertainties.
2
«W. L. Langer, The black death.
608 / UNDERSTANDING ENVIRONMENTAL DISRUPTION
measures. Distribution of vaccines, for instance, would
be difficult if airlines, trains, and trucks were not
running.
In many parts of the world, public-health conditions
are developing that have a high potential for disaster.
The rats that live on stored grain in India have renewed
the specter of a major outbreak of bubonic plague.
Nitrate pollution of water is creating conditions in which
dangerous soil organisms are brought into contact with
human beings for the first time. The organism that has
recently caused cases of a fatal meningitis has been
identified as a soil-dwelling amoeba.228 It may be just the
first of many such agents to appear seemingly from
nowhere.
Irrigation projects in the tropics and subtropics around
the world are spreatjipft the conditions that promote the
i parasitic diseas^schistosomiosis (bilharzia)} which, to-
gether withTmalarufe is one of the two most prevalent
spfinm diseases on Earth.229 The broadcast use of
chemotherajjy, and antibiotics has created a serious
medical problem through tbf introduction of resistance
I in_ bacteria juid other parasitesjjvlodification of the
^ ^climate wouid~alsp inevitably influence disease patterns^
\ for example, the length of time viruses remain infectious
f is in part a function of humidity. A trend toward drying
would encourage some, whereas others would thrive in
increased rn";smrp .It is s*'l*r*prr(*dt_in addition, that
Weather changes can trigger epidemics^30';
As if the threat of a natural pandemic were not
gruesome enough, mere is always the threat of biological
warfare or of an accidental escape of lethal agents from a
biological warfare laboratory or, conceivably, from a
laboratory engaged in genetic engineering experiments ~~x
r
(see inaterial on recombinant DNA research in Chapter^ I
i4}j Although most laypeople have long been afraid of J
thermonuclear war, they are just beginning to grasp the
colossal hazard posed by chemical and biological warfare
(CBW). Any country with one or two well-trained
microbiologists and even a modest budget can build its
own biological doomsday weapons. Constructing lethal
228
J. H. Callicott, Amebic meningo encephalitis.
229
K. S. Warren, Precarious odyssey of an unconquered parasite; N.
Ansari, Epidemiology and control of schistosomiasis.
250
K. E. F. Watt, Ecology and resource management, McGraw-Hill,
New York, 1968, p. 162 ff.
viruses against which there is little or no resistance in
human populations can easily be done in theory; it may
already have been done in practice. There were at one
time rumors of the development by the American CBW
establishment of a pneumonic rabies, one that, instead of
being transmitted by bite, is transmitted in the same way
as the common cold: from person to person via exhaled
droplets. This is certainly possible, since under special
conditions (such as those that sometimes occur in caves
full of rabid rats) rabies appears to have been transmitted
through the air. Such a disease would be a disastrously
effective weapon if it were transmitted by infected
individuals before symptoms appear, since once they do
appear, rabies is (with one notable recent exception) 100
percent fatal. Other possibilities for lethal agents are
many —for example, anthrax, which even in its "natural"
state can be transmitted by contaminated aerosols?
plague, tularemia, Q-fever, and encephalitis, to name a
few 231 — disseminated in their natural forms or in the
form of special "hot" strains that are drug-resistant or
superlethal. Besides direct assaults on human beings-
overt or covert attacks on a nation's food supply might b;
made by introducing plant diseases. The more crowded i
population is, and the smaller its per-capita food sup-
plies, the better a target it would be for a biological
warfare attack.
Why would nations develop such weapons? For tii-e
same reason they develop others. They hope to immur.:z ;
or otherwise protect their own populations and tfcs
avoid a biological backlash. These weapons have s
special appeal for small and poor powers, which x=
themselves threatened by larger, richer ones and wnica
lack the funds or the expertise to develop nuclear
weapons.232
Chemical-biological weapons may never be used, but
that does not rule out the possibility of an accident. Viru>:
laboratories, especially, are notoriously unsafe. By 196".
some 2700 laboratory workers had become accidentally
infected with viruses transmitted by insects, and 107 had
died.233 Their deaths were caused by just one group
2JI
F. M. LaForce et al, Epidemiologic study of a fatal case of in
anthrax; J. Lederberg, Swift biological advance can be bent to gsacciit
2i2
M. Meselson, Behind the Nixon policy for chemical and biologiai
warfare.
233
Hanson, et al, Arbovirus infections.
 DIRECT ASSAULTS ON WELL-BEING / 609

of viruses. Fatal accidents occur in laboratories where
work is done on other kinds of viruses, as well as other
microorganisms. The inability of government CBW
agencies to avoid accidents was made clear by the Skull
Valley, Utah, CBW disaster of 1968, in which many
thousands of sheep were poisoned when a chemical agent
"escaped,"234 and by the possible escape of Venezuelan
Equine Encephalitis from the Dugway, Utah, proving
ground in 1967. Congressman Richard D. McCarthy of
New York announced in 1969 that CBW agents were
being transported around the country in small containers
on commercial airliners!
In 1969, President Nixon announced the unilateral
renunciation by the United States of the use of biological
warfare, even in retaliation.235 He directed that the stocks
of biological agents be destroyed and that further work
on. defenses against biological weapons be transferred
from the Department of Defense to the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare. Destruction of U.S.
biological warfare materials was systematically carried
out in 1970 and 1971, although in 1975 it was discovered
that the Central Intelligence Agency had not destroyed
some toxins in its possession.
234
P. M. Boffey, 6000 sheep stricken near CBW center.
2S5
M. Meselson, Chemical and biological weapons, Scientific American,
May 1970.
Some level of research might be continuing clandes-
tinely in the United States (although the possibility
seems remote), and it would be a simple matter for a
future administration quickly to reestablish biological
warfare capability. Indeed, with the rapidly increasing
ability of biologists to manipulate the genetics of micro-
organisms, the possibilities for creating deadly agents
seem endless.235 Furthermore, there is little sign that the
U.S. action has led to the end of work on biological
weapons elsewhere. Biological warfare laboratories are
potential sources of a man-made "solution" to the
population explosion. It is essential that some way be
found to block all further work on biological weapons—
the risk for humanity is simply too great.
It should be clear now that humanity is creating an
enormous array of hazards that directly threaten the
health and welfare of all people. Unfortunately many of
these hazards are poorly understood, and many un-
doubtedly remain unrecognized at present. The next
chapter shows that the level of indirect threats to human
welfare is just as high and the level of understanding
just as low.
2S6
P. Berg et al., Potential biohazards of recombining DNA molecules.

Recommended for Further Reading

Cairns, John. 1975. The cancer problem. Scientific American, November. A superb
semi-popular review of environmental carcinogenesis.
Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Annual. Environmental quality. Government
Printing Office, Washington, D.C. Extensive data and discussion on recent measured
levels of air and water pollution across the United States, as well as special topics in
energy, land use, transportation, radiation, and environmental legislation and
regulation.
Huddle, N.; M. Reich; and N. Stiskin. 1975. Island of dreams: Environmental crisis in Japan.
Autumn Press, New York. Well-documented and illustrated survey of the serious
environmental problems of one of the world's most intensely industrial nations.