Overpopulation and the Economical Effects

Overpopulation and the Economical Effects

Introduction

Currently there are more than 6 billion people living in the world and this number is expected to double in a short period of time. Many researchers and theorists feel that the world does not have a carrying capacity for this amount of people. The overpopulation of the world, brings a fear of overcrowding and an apprehension that the resource base will become to low, perhaps even non-existent. In 1900, the world population was 1.6 billion people. Compared to the 6.1 billion that it is today, that population is miniscule. The population is projected to reach 16.4, more than double today’s population by the year 2060. Right now there are only about 30 million people in Canada, itself, whereas a country like China is home to 1.2 billion people. As it is seen, China has a very large proportion of the world’s population within it’s own boundaries and this has created many problems throughout the country. It is possible, that with the knowledge of the problem, with an education, infrastructure, and some sort of work skills this problem can be turned around.

Developing Countries

The developing countries, are the main concerns for overcrowding. 1996 statistics show that 75% of the worlds population live in both Africa (13%) and Asia (63%). The overpopulation in these continents, is so much higher for many different reasons. The main reason being culture. When comparing a continent like Africa, to a continent like North America, there are many different, noticeable, differences. An example of this being the fertility rate. In Africa’s particular culture, having many children equals high fertility rates and this, they believe, is a great blessing from God. Also, here women are not educated, as well as the developed countries, and there is no or very little knowledge of contraceptives.

(John L.Seitz Global Issues, an Introduction. Pg. 14)

The developing countries effect both the global and local economics. It effects the local economics, for simple reasons as, food shortages, housing, or education. Food shortages are also a major problem. Thomas Malthus, a theorist, believes that the world’s population doubles every 25 years, whereas the agriculture in one area takes much longer than this to grow back. Therefore, he bel...

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...er to our way of thinking. With the beliefs and traditions, that many of these country’s do have, the likeliness becomes more of an unreality.

At the end of this project, the world population had reached

6 027 116 296

Wednesday, November 24, 1999

Work Cited

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton, Los Angeles, 1994

Ehrlich, Anne and Paul. Healing the Planet. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1994

Ehrlich, Anne and Paul. The Population Explosion. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996

Ehrlich, Anne and Paul. The Stork and the Plow. Gretchen Daily, Grosset/Putnam, 1998.

Hardin, Garrett. Living with Limits. Oxford University Press, New York, 1996

Ponting, Clive. A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations. Penguin, Toronto, 1994.

Seitz, John L. Global Issues, an Introduction. Blackwell, Toronto, 1997

Wackernagel, Matt and Rees, William. Our Ecological Footprint. New Societies Publishers, New York, 1995.

Weatherford, Givers. Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World. Fawcett Columbine, Denver, 1991.

*World Population # found at www.facingthefuture.org