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Alarmingly high population growth rate has become a serious global problem today
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Effects of overpopulation essay
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As the world’s population slowly grows our world grows smaller as well. Resources sustain us, but when there are no resources then what would we do. Our population is always growing, which is a growing problem. Overpopulation has caused an increased resource depletion throughout the world, causing a push for more sustainable ideas.
Previously, the population had been low and had little impact on the Earth and her resources. Though it was always steadily growing. During the beginning of Earth it only accounted for approximately 10,000 people. It grew reaching approximately one billion in the early 1800’s. The industrial revolution had begun occurring around this time increasing medical ideals and improving life. Through this life expectancy
As small mobile groups of hunter-gatherers adopted a sedentary lifestyle, they mastered both agriculture and animal domestication. These small settled groups quickly evolved into cities and towns that encompassed the entire globe. Today the estimated population of the world is over 6.2 million people.1 As the population has grown, it has had several deleterious effects on the Earth. These include climate changes, the spread of diseases, declining food production, deforestation, and environment pollution (particularly air pollution). As people have become more conscious of these harmful effects, they have begun to devise strategies to combat this problem. Among the suggested responses include a switch to renewable energy, a call for zero population growth, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices.
12,000 years ago, the discovery of agriculture triggered such a change in society and the way in which people lived that we now call this important era in time the “Neolithic Revolution.” Traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles were cast away in favor of more permanent settlements and a reliable food supply. Agriculture helped form cities and civilizations, and because crops and animals could now be farmed to meet growing demand, populations skyrocketed from around five million people 10,000 years ago, to more the more than seven billion people that walk this earth today.1
Prior to industrialization, the population of Europe saw a dramatic growth – from 110,000,000 to 190,000,000. What triggered this growth? Likely the end of feudalism. The end of feudal contracts gave people a little more say in their day-to-day working activities, resulting in more time spent at home, which ultimately resulted in childbearing. This would leave citizens scrambling both to provide needs for the population as a whole, and to improve the individuals overall quality of life. This resulted in economists, like Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776), examining the most cost-effective method of producing the goods and services citizens demanded (such as clothing and food). It also left others, such as Thomas Malthus in his Essay on Population (1798), searching for a way to curb population growth so that Europe could sustain its growth. Ultimately both theorists’ ideas were put into play in reality. While both theorists’ ideas were initially met with resistance by the everyday-labourer and his family, these ideas were necessary for the nations economic development and sustainability. The Industrial Revolution was advantageous to society at the time because it provided the population with the means to provide needed materials through developments in mechanization, laboured work, as well as agriculture – but conformed to Malthus’ subsistence model by having citizens living together in slums located in urban areas close to their workplace, the health and safety issues associated with this move would result in a naturally decreased population.
46. Indicate the factors that contributed to population growth in the American colonies during the eighteenth century, and discuss the characteristics and consequences of that growth.
Imagine a civilization that's population that was cut in half, and always has a problem or a flaw that some way always intervened. Well then you should be thinking of Jamestown. Now their population had surprising variables that had so many different causes to why it decreased. They also had a very interesting relationship with the Powhatan indians, and by that I mean they had a classic historic love/hate relationship.
As an American who’s been raised in a country that firmly believes in its own excellence, I’ve always believed that my government would do anything within its power to protect me from all harm, and that I will be safely enclosed by its borders. Some may perceive this opinion as naive, but I have never had any reason to doubt my security. I believed a country as great as America would always be able to handle any issues that it encountered in a reasonable and measured fashion, equally maintaining the freedom of all of its citizens. However, I was mistaken.
Human population growth was relatively slow for most of human history. Within the past 500 years, however, the advances made in the industrial, transportation, economic, medical, and agricultural revolutions have helped foster an exponential, "J-shaped" rise in human population (Southwick, Figure 15.1, p. 160). The statistics associated with this type of growth are particularly striking: "Human beings took more than 3 million years to reach a population of 1 billion people...The second billion came in only 130 years, the third billion in 30 years, the fourth billion in 15 years, the fifth billion in 12 years..." (Southwick, p. 159). As human population has grown, there has been simultaneous growth within the industrial sector. Both of these increases have greatly contributed to environmental problems, such as natural resource depletion, ecosystem destruction, and global climate change. Also linked with the increasing human population are many social problems, such as poverty and disease. These issues need to be addressed by policy makers in the near future in order to ensure the survival and sustainability of human life.
Fewer people mean fewer demands on the environment. With growth in human population, the grasses and animal populations humans used for sustenance did not have time to recover, which turned into humans using the earth's natural resources in an unsustainable manner (class discussion 02.14.03). Humans living in agrarian society do not necessarily use the environment's resources in an unsustainable manner, but the greater the population density, the more land will be needed to support that population in a sustainable manner. As resources become more and more scarce, field owners will be less willing to let land lay fallow (class discussion 02.21.03). Humans then found a "tech fix" with the development of agriculture and the domestication of animals.
It is a safe assumption to make that our society’s population is not one that will be slowing down anytime soon. To date, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census the United States population is projected to be 290,634,727 people, with a net gain of one person every 11 seconds, and though this may seem quite large it is only a mere 1/25th the world population, which currently is around 6.5 billion people. With large numbers like these and an outlook for continuous growth, it must be taken into concern that at some point, the U.S. and the world as a whole is going to reach its carrying capacity, a point at which the resources in an environment can no longer support a greater population. Though this may still be hundreds of years away, by addressing energy consumption and depletions concerns now we can prolong and prepare for that date as best as possible.
Rising global population is hindering our ability to become sustainable, especially in poorer and developing nations. Empowering women through educational opportunities and family planning programs have been shown to decrease population in developed nations through demographic transition. Even though fertility rates are declining in developed nations, there has been a significant increase in resource consumption, and the consumption of material goods and services (Withgott & Brennan, 2011, Chapter 8). Although population control can be a touchy subject, it should be addressed as a solution to our overconsumption and need for sustainability.
Human wants, needs, and actions have created large impacts on the Earth’s environment. Although populations have been dependent on natural resources for thousands of years, in the past few decades our consumption of resources has rapidly increased. This has caused the depletion of many important resources like fresh water, as well as the looming possibility of scarcity of widely used non-renewable resources like oil. The planet is experiencing a lack of waste assimilating resources due to over-exploitation, which has further exacerbated climate change issues. Without sustainable resource management, the future for the world’s natural resources and a healthy planet looks grim. This paper will outline both renewable and non-renewable resource depletion, the causes of resource depletion, and the proper resource management necessary to maintain the world’s incredibly important supply of resources.
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...
Overpopulation is a growing problem all over the world. This is a very important environmental issue and needs to be dealt with. This environmental problem is affecting many countries around the world, but mostly the poor and impoverished countries that don’t have the resources to help deal with these issues. It also affects the environment like plants, animal life and air quality. When the population of people expands we need more natural resources from the environment, so we consume more than we can produce.
Our world is too small for our ever-risingly growing population. One day, resources will run dry and vanish, which will bring death and loss to all nations on this planet. Many researchers and scientists have confirmed that the population will reach 10 billion by the end of the century and will continue to stream upward. There are many different ways of trying to decrease population, contain global warming and assist our environmental changes. The only way to succeed, families must be the regulators of their fertility and future.
The reduction of the Earth's resources has been closely linked to the rise in human population. For many thousands of years people lived in relative harmony with their surroundings. Population sizes were small, and life-supporting tools were simple. Most of the energy needed for work was provided by the worker and animals. Since about 1650, however, the human population has increased dramatically. The problems of overcrowding multiply as an ever-increasing number of people are added to the world's population each year.