The natural environment, human communities and traditional cultures are collapsing. Extremist leaders, politicians and media are pitting people against one another along cultural identities. Displaced from their homes by the combined effects of climate change, poverty and political violence, caravans and boatloads of desperate people are seeking refuge across state borders. Climate-change induced hurricanes, floods, droughts and biodiversity loss are realities.

In addition to the problems encountered of settling in a host country and attempting to find acceptance by the community of that country, refugees encounter difficulties in finding employment and housing. They have to adapt themselves to new environments, lifestyles, ideas about values and customs, and often to a foreign language. They run the risk of losing their native identity, especially when the culture is oral, and are constantly confronted with a feeling of the inability to participate and belong, a feeling which often leads to cultural rootlessness. Their children often have difficulty accessing schooling and, once admitted, experience problems in adjusting to new languages, teaching styles and standards. These people may also have a higher incidence of nightmares, inability to concentrate in school, and of the various kinds of aggression, withdrawal, and mental breakdown observed in people who have seen horrors which cannot be eradicated from their minds.

For the receiving countries, waves of refugees may cause severe and abrupt changes in the environment. Population densities multiply overnight, traditional land systems are disrupted and markets are disorganized. The presence of refugees may create xenophobia among the permanent residents, stir up prejudice and lead to factions which disagree ideologically with one another.

Inflammatory processes resulting from infections of bronchi and lungs, scarring and tissue destruction, as well as impaired pulmonary circulation, are frequent lung disorders. Infants and the elderly are especially vulnerable to acute respiratory infections, which can be fatal. Since the lungs literally filter the venous blood drainage from the entire body, they often become involved secondarily by blood-borne processes; many malignant tumours eventually metastasis to the lungs. More important still is the steadily rising incidence of primary malignancy of the lung and its relationship to cigarette smoking and environmental pollution.

A number of infectious plant diseases result from viruses. Major crops that are seriously affected by virus diseases include: tobacco, potato, sugar beet and cane, peach, orange, cotton and wheat. Most of the plant viruses impair or destroy chlorophyll, causing the plant to wilt or die; some viruses, though, stunt or otherwise deform plants without seriously affecting the chlorophyll.

A chronic illness usually develops slowly, lasts for an indefinite period of time, can deteriorate overall health and usually requires intervention to resolve.  Many chronic diseases are uncertain in prognosis. Cure is problematic or impossible, so treatment concentrates in making the patient comfortable or relieving pain. Sometimes patients suffer from multiple diseases; and the side effects of medical treatments can lead to additional chronicity. Long-time use of drugs, routine monitoring and crisis requiring hospitalization make chronic diseases expensive. The extent to which patients succumb to the various effects of chronic disease depends upon numerous factors, in particular their psycho-social support, financial status, childhood experiences, sense of humour and determination to push on.

Illiteracy is the inability to read and write. A person is defined as illiterate if he cannot, with understanding, both read and write a short and simple statement on his everyday life; and as functionally illiterate if he cannot engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for the effective functioning of his group and community, and also for enabling him to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his own and the community's development. Lack of such abilities prevents individuals from going about their daily activities in modern society, seeking suitable employment, or moving about normally with comprehension of the usual printed expressions and messages they encounter. Its consequences include inability to take up basic social services, fill in even simple forms, and understand traffic instructions or other danger signs.