Final answer:
Humans have increased the carrying capacity of the environment through agricultural advancements, water purification, and medical improvements, but overuse of natural resources typically does not increase carrying capacity and can result in its reduction.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the context of human activities, carrying capacity refers to the number of individuals that an environment can support without significant negative impacts to the given ecosystem. When addressing which of the following is not a way that humans have increased the carrying capacity of the environment, we can consider various innovations such as agricultural advancements, water purification, and medicine which have all expanded the ability of habitats to sustain larger populations.
One method that typically does not increase the carrying capacity is the overuse of natural resources, leading to habitat loss and depletion of essential ecosystems, which can result in a reduction rather than an increase in the environment's carrying capacity. This is because such overuse can compromise the very resources that human populations rely upon for survival. One tool that is NOT used to secure the environment in the context of physical security is encryption software. Encryption software is primarily used to protect digital data by converting it into unreadable code, but it does not directly secure the physical environment.