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SOCIAL SCIENCE The term environment encompasses both the earth’s natural systems and the human-constructed “built environment.” Population growth is a contributor to changes in the natural environment—usually assessed as degradation—at a variety of scales, from local (such as watershed deforestation and erosion) to global (such as climate change). In turn, those changes may affect human health and demographic conditions. For the half of the human population that lives in cities, the built environment that makes up people’s immediate urban surroundings provides (or, often, fails to provide) the conditions and amenities of healthy and productive life. The relationships between population change and environmental change are both analytically and empirically complex. Difficulties arise in specifying population–environment systems, in gauging environmental change, and in valuing system outcomes. Both population policy and environmental policy, however, need to be informed by an understanding of those relationships. The Population Council’s past and in some cases continuing research lying within this large field is spread over several different program areas. It include studies of the following topics: demographic contributions to greenhouse gas emissions (1992–94), population and food supply (1994–96), the global political economy of population and environment (1997–present), effects of environmental toxicants on male fertility (1999–present) (more), management of population–environment systems (2000–present), and the health effects of urban environments (2002–present). Population Council researchers Geoffrey McNicoll, John Bongaarts, Paul Demeny, Matthew P. Hardy, Paul Hewett, Mark Montgomery Publications/Resources on this issue See Also
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