The Effects of Population Increase on the Environment
As inevitable as death and taxes, the population of the world will continue to grow until the government intervenes. The gross increase in population will generally lead to adverse effects on the environment. In the anthology, A Forest of Voices, an entry titled ?Is It Too Late?? by Anthony Weston deals with the history of legislation for the protection of the environment and stories of it?s destruction that are all too real. Seemingly, as the population increases, so should the level of intelligence for a sample population which would necessarily lead to a certain form of protection to the environment.
It would seem quite apparent that an increase in population has a causal relationship with the status of the environment. Some factors that may lead to this are underlying, though. When this notion comes to mind, the immediate reaction may be that a population increase would deem more space to be required for the new population. This includes any area that is necessary for human survival, such as farmland area, water consumption, area to reside, and the production of all products necessary for an individual to function in society. There are statistics to prove this theory. All of the statistics given are a 20 year projection from 1990 to 2010 (Bryant). The projection shows that the population will increase just fewer than 2 billion in this period (Bryant). This would be about a 33% increase in population (Bryant). The study shows that in these 20 years, the amount of fish caught will increase 20%; the area of cropland will increase 5%; and the area of forests will decrease by 7% (Bryant). Granted these figures do not look too dangerous, but we are already three-quarters of the way through the projection. From these statistics, the future is starting to seem bleak.
From these figures, it can be derived that the resources on Earth will eventually be depleted by the hand of man. As grim as the future may seem, there might be some hope just over the horizon. When an increase in population occurs, it must be taken into account that as the years pass the knowledge of the human race will increase. It could be assumed that as our intelligence increases, our means of survival will become more systematic with relation to the earth. Take for example the notion of ecology. It was not until the huma...
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...ng that; the human race is arrogant, a lack of intelligence is logically equivalent to a certain level of arrogance, and as intelligence increases, arrogance decreases. All of theses given truths have been induced through the writer?s interpretation of the world. I see humans as arrogant by nature. I notice people of higher intellect may have an ego, but do not necessarily have a high level of arrogance. I also notice, on the other end of the spectrum, that the less intelligent a person is, the more likely that person is to be arrogant. Looking back on the last century, or so, there has been underlying instances of a world-wide call for awareness of the environment but nothing great has come to fruition. I guess that is what happens when you have a Texan as the President of the ?best? nation on Earth.
Works Cited:
Bryant, Peter J. Biodiversity and Conservation. 2002. School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine. < http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sust ain/bio65/lec16/b65lec16.htm>.
Weston, Anthony. ?Is It Too Late?? A Forest of Voices: Conversations in Ecology. Anderson, Chris. 2nd Edition. Mountain View: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000. 134 ? 136.
In unit 3 we learned about sustainability, our ecological footprints, oil resources as well as trade. The sustainability dilemma is divided into three sections that each show a way the earth is struggling to sustain us. When studying population, we learned that the global population is slowing down, but will continue to increase for at least thirty years. Furthermore, in unit 4 we learned about population change. When studying exponential growth, we learned the United Nation has three predictions for the future global population. These predictions include our population increasing rapidly, decreasing rapidly and stabilizing. These two ideas are connected because they both explore the future of our population. The diagram represents
Is it right to think that population is a threat to the global environment? Is there indeed a direct correlation between population and environment? Is there such thing as overpopulation and who has the power to say that there is what they called overpopulation? These are some of the questions that are running through my mind. Now, in response to the question “Is limiting the population growth a key factor in protecting the global environment?” I with all conviction say no to that. I believe that it is the behavior of the people and not the population growth itself that affects the environment.
Overpopulation and the debate of population control will continue to go on as the earth continues to age. Whether or not this issue will continue to be ignored or not remains to be seen. Many people see this growth as a threat while others interpret it a different way. But with people out there as concerned as they are, and with our resources running shorter every day, eventually a solution may have to be put into place.
In the twenty-first century, awareness of the environment has dramatically increased as it begins to suffer at the hands of humans. Discussions on protecting the world’s luscious ecosystems have multiplied. Groups of so-called “environmentalists” and their critics flock at the chance to throw their opinion in. Though strong-minded, the intent of these people are seriously doubted by those such as contemporary scientist Edward O. Wilson. In his satiric and forward book The Future of Life, Wilson employs a slippery slope logical fallacy, classic name-calling, and sarcasm in order to illustrate the unproductive nature of such discussions.
Overpopulation is a real significant reason why today's current environmental status is in such critical condition. A few of the issues that overpopulation contributes to are things such as global warming, water shortages, ocean depletion, and even food shortages. Another major effect that world overpopulation displays is acid rain, which can be caused by air pollution. Air pollution is usually created from the burning of fossil fuels which operate in things like planes, cars, and also trucks. So by burning the fossil fuels and deforesting, the earth ends up turning up the gas levels in the greenhouse. This then creates a major increase in the air and starts to heat up the earth, which potentially could lead to an abundant of dangerous effects such as the depletion of the ozone layer. Also,...
Here one of the continuous arguments is that Earth’s support do not only consist the number of people in the earth, but also the features of economics, environment and culture. Cohen takes into perspective also the economic growth and takes critical position considering its inconsistency. He describes that global economic system does not take into notion depletion of unowned stocks, their environmental and social costs and ignorance of human need. Growth of population also has many environmental impacts. He argues that human activity is closely linked to environmental problems, and when population growth is fast, the environmental problems get worse. He brings up the issue of trade-offs, for example trade-offs among burying municipal wastes. In his opinion, environmental vulnerability increases as humans move into cities and consume more. Third negative feature of population growth according to Cohen is cultural implosion. Due to migration and technology the rural and urban regions have shrunk the world, bringing cultures into contact and into conflict. He thinks that this cultural cohesion has raised problems on employment, cultural conflicts, gender inequality and distressing income gaps. Cohen says that these problems put aside also issues concerning the negative effects of population growth to environment. It is interesting to read about the important factor of regulating population. He says that it is hard to find solutions to this, and also highlights that the time is short for correcting our
Yet there are good reasons to attempt to do so. Meteorologists have warned us that pollution linked to the tremendous and growing resource use of the immense and expanding human population will lead to a greater frequency of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes, as well as a rise in global temperature; the last decade would seem to support such a suggestion. Biologists have gloomily predicted that many of the Earth's species will be exterminated within the next century, as a direct result of the human domination of the landscape. Social scientists are well aware of the putatively causal link between overcrowding and social conflict, violence and war, and we already have no shortage of these three evils. Even now humans have seriously impacted most ecosystems on Earth, and use more than half of the fresh water accessible for consumption. It is a fundamental truth that on a planet with finite resources, unrestrained growth is an impossible practice to sustain; all of the signals woul...
Planet Earth, or Planet Humanity as Engelman expresses it, consists of individuals who are concerned about “[their] diets, [their] modes of moving, and [their] urge to keep inferior temperatures close to 70 degrees Fahrenheit no matter what is happening outside…[eventually] these behaviors are moving basic planetary systems into danger zones” (Engelman 1). Corresponding to Pearce, who considers consumption is a major issue as well, Engelman claims that the effects of humans’ “needs, greed and wants are” a concern and humans ought to confront the disproportion human being consumption on this planet (1). For instance, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) predicts that two thirds of the Earth’s population will be encountering water shortage or urgency in fourteen years (Engelman 2). In addition, Engelman declares that we cannot prevent the hasty population expansion instantly, but if women determine whether or not they want to be pregnant then we can reduce the amount of births (3). As mentioned previously, Kotkin suggests that the decline in child births is the chief obstacle; on the contrary, Engelman opposes Kotkin’s declaration arguing that lower births will aid the planet. In brief, “stopping climate change, reducing water scarcity, or keeping ecosystems intact, by contrast, don 't yet seem to be in our skill
I believe overconsumption of resources is the most significant impact that human population size and growth have on the environment. As population size gets bigger, people's need of food, water and services also increases. Forests are being destroyed because of human's need of wood, different kinds of animals are getting killed because human's need of goods and food and fossil fuels are being used because of human's need for electricity and transportation. As a result, many habitats and species are lost, which impacts ecosystem a lot.
Smith, T. M., & Smith, R. L. (2012). Elements of ecology (8th ed.). San Francisco: Pearson Benjamin Cummings.
Sodhi, Navjot S., and Paul R. Ehrlich. 2010. Conservation Biology for All. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau once said, “Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today” (“Population,” Internet). With the current statistics, Jacques could not be more accurate. Every second, 4.2 people are born and 1.8 people die, which would be a net gain of 2.4 people per second (“Population,” Internet). At this steady rate, the environmental health is spiraling downwards, and it is safe to assume humans are responsible for this. As the population increases, harmful effects on the land, water, and air also do.
* Daily, Gretchen C., ed. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
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...