Joel E. Cohen once stated in his How Many People Can the Earth Support?, “A little boy wanted to know the sum of one plus one. First he asked a physicist, who said, “If one is matter, and the other is antimatter, then the answer is zero. But if one is a critical mass of uranium and the other is a critical mass of uranium, then that's an explosive question.” Unenlightened, the little boy asked a biologist. She said, “Are we talking bacteria, mice or whales? And for how long?” In desperation, the boy hired an accountant. The accountant peered closely at the little boy and said, “Hmmm. One plus one? Tell me, little boy, how much do you want one plus one to be?” (Cohen 261) Every living thing on planet Earth requires a certain amount of resources to survive. In the anecdote by Cohen, the accountant tells the boy that he is able to choose the sum of one plus one which accounts in this case to the limits that humans have on the resources. One plus one in this case is also the ratio of the specific supply of each resource per human being which cannot be accounted for. Humans have the potential to act for themselves in knowing how to balance out their needs. Every person on planet Earth needs space and resources to survive but as the population grows, the natural resources begin to decrease due to their ever-growing demands. As time goes by, these natural resources undergo increasing pressure, threatening public health and development. As the human population expands, its effects on the environment will multiply, such as the depleting of Earth’s natural resources, biodiversity, and the slowing dynamic economy, and therefore the citizens of Earth must help in the recreation of the planet. As the world’s population grows, improving living ...
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...e Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Surveys, File Storage and More. Negative Population Growth. Web. 23 Feb. 2011.
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An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary film in which basis are put long-term researches of changes of climate, level of carbonic gas in the atmosphere, and conditions of polar ices. In this film, El Gore, a presidential candidate of 2000 and former vice president of the United States, explains the scientific and political view of global warming and its serious consequences that we already observe on Earth, and other more tragic consequences that are still to come in the near future if we do not reduce emissions of exhaust gas in the atmosphere. Nothing especially new about the global warning is presented in the film, but what made this film effective is, firs of all, the fact that El Gore, a public and well known figure in the United States, is the main protagonist of the film. Another effective point in the film is that El Gore put all the scientific work together and showed that the problem is real, it is not a myth, and it should not be ignored any longer.
Parfit, Derek (2004). “Overpopulation and the Quality of Life.” In J. Ryberg & T. Tännsjö (eds.), The Repugnant Conclusion. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 7-22.
According to the World Bank’s report, climatologists predict greenhouse gases will cause temperatures to rise 7.2 degrees before the next century (par. 8). While the rise in temperature might seem trivial, Scranton elaborates on the detrimental effects this change would cause by quoting James Clapper. Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, argues that extreme weather disasters will “increasingly disrupt food and energy markets, exacerbating state weakness, forcing human migrations, and triggering riots, civil disobedience, and vandalism” (par. 7). Dr. Scranton mentions these sources in order to convince the audience that an increase of only a few degrees can have a devastating impact that will inevitably leave the planet radically different during this epoch; the current epoch we live in, named the Anthropocene, is a term invented by geologist and scientists for the epoch that is “characterized by the arrival of the human species as a geological force” (par. 10). The name of the epoch inspired Scranton to title the article “Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene” since it reaffirms his claim that we must accept that the future will not be the same as the present. Furthermore, Scranton includes a book in his article written by geophysicist David Archer incase readers remain skeptical of the scientific evidence with
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Mr. Gore’s speech was given in New York University on September 18, 2006 to bring awareness to the issue. Al Gore uses scientific background and research to persuade the audience by appealing to pathos, logos, and ethos used by his esoteric diction that contributes to the consequential tone to create an effective argument for global warming.
There is no hesitation when it comes to whether humans impact the global environment. However, it is questioned in whether human’s ecological footprint is either negatively or positively impacting. In clear perspective, humans share from both sides and their ecological footprint is noted towards whether it will benefit or harm the environment around them. Topics such as overpopulation, pollution, biomagnification, and deforestation are all human impacted and can harm the environment, but some include benefits into helping the world around us with solutions to their problems.
Overpopulation drastically affects the standard of living of the people. Not only does it affect the standard of living, it affects the environment as well. The environment has a certain carrying capacity of humans that it can support. When this carrying capacity is exceeded, the environment starts to deteriorate. With a large amount of people, land that can be used as valuable farmland is wasted. Also, with a great amount of humans, there is more waste produced. This waste contaminates local water and spreads disease, eventually leading to the destruction of wildlife. Animals as well as humans have a limited use of water because of the microorganisms and fecal matter in the water. Many ideas have been debated upon to help improve these conditions for both animals and peopl...
The first part of this essay discusses what the human species has done to deal with the problem of climate change. While some improvements have been made, the problem has not been addressed aggressively enough to stop the damage. What is amazing about this is the denial of so many people that problems exist. If they do realize the risks, they are simply not taking actions to contain the damage.
It is becoming increasingly certain that climate change will have severe adverse effects on the environment in years to come. Addressing this issue poses a serious challenge for policy makers. How we choose to respond to the threat of global warming is not simply a political issue. It is also an economic issue and an ethical one. Responsible, effective climate change policy requires consideration of a number of complex factors, including weighing the costs of implementing climate change policies against the benefits of more environmentally sustainable practices. Furthermore, this analysis must take place amidst serious gaps in the existing research and technology concerning the developing climatic condition.
Human Impact on the Environment Introduction = == == == ==
An increase in human population can influence our economy. Some of the factors that are affected are unemployment, poverty and the restriction of economic expansion. When the population increases, the cost of health, education, and other areas of urban growth are affected. Unempl...
Williams, Laurence O. An End to Global Warming. Ohio: Pergamno, 2012. Web 13 May 2015
Subpoint A: Not long ago, a documentary film called “An Inconvenient truth” came out in 2006. This film raised international public awareness of climate change and reenergizing the environmental movement. A former U.S Vice president Al Gore campaigned to educate citizens about global warming through a simp...
There are various systems in handling population rates and its various issues that connect with threatening our environment. The population and environment debate will forever be a back and forth problem because there is possibly no way to completely stop carbon emissions but ease its production. To help the environment, we must incorporate all potential solutions in governing population such as family planning and governmental involvement and practice renewable resources and stop on using nonrenewable resources, as well as ways to tackle overconsumption to support our corrupting environment.
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...