Overpopulation is Not the Problem
As we sailed into the new millennium, humans crossed a threshold never before witnessed in our species. We flew past the 6 billion mark in number. This is an impressive figure, but not one that we can easily appreciate, unless we are Bill Gates or ExxonMobil.
Let's try to understand how incredibly large this number is. Consider that this article has ~9000 letters. Thus, it would take more than 650,000 copies of it to produce enough letters to represent all humans. Or, put in other terms, consider that if all the humans were to hold hands side by side, our species would circumscribe the equator nearly 14 times! And perhaps, most horrifying, if we all were to move to Texas (the 2nd largest state in our nation), each one of us would only have a theoretical room 35 ft by 35 ft to ourselves-assuming no room for other forms of life or human "necessities" such as airports, lawns, and shopping malls.
So now that you have an idea of how big a number 6,000,000,000 is, are you even more convinced that human population has become too large? The evidence, at first glance, appears overwhelming. The world's population has grown from 1 billion in the early 1800s to over 6 billion today. Two nations in the world (namely, China and India) themselves each have more than 1 billion people now. According to United Nations' statistics, around 2 billion people (1 in 3) suffer from malnutrition and dietary deficiencies and more than 800 million (1 in 7) are chronically malnourished. Add to this that resources are becoming depleted and ecosystems (and their animal and plant residents) are being decimated. Worse yet, if world populations continue to grow at the rates observed in 2000, the world's population will surpass 24 billion people by 2100; a very unlikely event given recent reductions in world growth rates (current projections put us at about 12 billion). With all of this evidence is there any doubt that population has grown too large. However, even though the world's human population appears to be overabundant, "super-sized"," or "gargantuan," this tendency to think about the world problems as largely driven by population pressures, as so many thoughtful people do, has its own serious problems and limitations.
Population only tells part of the story. People are malnourished not because there ...
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...ng to continue to contract it. In another example, recognize that when we find out that our prisons are full, we don't respond that our population is too big, but rather we, all too often, resign ourselves that more prisons need to be built. However, as long as prisoners keep being "produced" by our society (via our laws, our social neglects, our revengeful nature), we will continue to need more and more prisons. Perhaps, rather than chanting that overpopulation is such a terrible problem so much, we should ask what economic, political, and social forces exist worldwide that encourage people to have children that are almost guaranteed to suffer throughout their lives and, more illuminating, why must children born today suffer-when food is available, immunizations are available, and technology seems so advanced. It is time to take a refreshed, rejuvenated, and more fully informed look at the "population" problem.
Works Cited
Brower, M. & W. Leon. The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices.
The Union Of Concerned Scientists. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999.
Cohen, J. How Many People Can The Earth Support? New York: W.W. Norton, 1995.
The worldwide population is approaching 7 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 (Baird). This projected population number is down from a once predicted 16 billion (Baird) and while some are not concerned, others are worried about any increase in population. Population growth is discussed in the articles “Too Many People?” by Vanessa Baird; “Population Control: How Can There Possibly Be Too Many of Us?” by Frank Furedi; and “The Population Bomb Revisited,” by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. Baird and Furedi concur that a concern for population growth has been around since mathematician Thomas Malthus, in 1798, warned that overpopulation could lead to “the collapse of society” (Furedi). Furedi claims that too much human life is being used as an excuse, by population control supporters, for the world’s current and future problems. Baird tries to discover if “the current panic over population growth is reasonable.” For Ehrlich and Ehrlich the concern over population growth is very real, and they reinforce and support their book “calling attention to the demographic element in the human predicament” (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 63). While taking different approaches to their articles, the authors offer their perspectives on population growth, population control and the environmental impacts of a growing population.
Our world today has altered immensely since the days of Adam. It is a perfect example of the maxim "survival of the fittest.'' Due to the captivating media, the revolutionary Internet and the cutthroat competition for winning the rat race, human contact is diminishing rapidly.
“We are burdensome to the world, the resources are scarcely adequate for us.” Tertullian, a philosopher from the third century had said this about our world when the population was mere 200 million. This statement can be taken two different ways. The first would be to think that our resources are limited and we need to be worried. The second would be to say people have been worried about overpopulation forever but everything seems to have worked out. There is no doubt that there are many people inhabiting this earth but the real question is if too many of us is a real threat to humanity.
matter how far mankind has come, we still have a long way to go in our journey
The human race as a whole now seems destined to explore beyond the boundaries of our
Due to the lack of decency and respect in this generation, society has become very dark. There is poor parenting taking place in this overpopulated world, and it is effecting all the future generations. Teenage parents, are uneducated and unprepared to be to raise a child. They believe they are responsible enough to take on the world and raise a family. Unfortunately, this is false information. Considering they are teenagers, they were unable to get their lives set up for success, and then they make the same parenting mistakes multiple times and end up with a huge family way below the poverty line. For every married couple, two children are all it takes to keep the world’s population at a constant rate. In too many families, there are more than two children, causing to exceed the death rate. In Overpopulation: Causes, Effects and Solutions, Rinkesh Kukreja
The human population has increased by 4.5 billion since the last sixty years (Engelman 1), this tremendous growth in the human population has startled numerous individuals. As a matter of fact, the biosphere’s population of humans is expected to grow additional, resulting in a total of nine billion by 2050 (Pearce 1). Some individuals may see this as a concern for the planet, whereas others assume that there are other more imperative hitches that humans should deal with. Although Erle C. Ellis agrees that overpopulation is not a problem for this planet, conversely, Fred Pearce and Joel Kotkin argue that there are other more vital problems to mend; unlike Ellis, Robert Engelman disagrees, proclaiming overpopulation
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.
Overpopulation has become a drastic issue, for no one knows how many people the earth
The world’s population is unarguably on the rise. The real argument is if we should be concerned or see this as a serious problem. With this constant growth, there comes a rising concern for the food supply. Not only that, but other resources are in danger. On the other hand, over population is believed to be a myth. This causes for two very different opinions on this topic.
Every year the human population grows, every decade it grows twice as much. In 2000, the global population was a little over six billion. As of the year 2014, the human population has grown over seven billion people. Although people live in different areas and are somewhat spread out, there are some regions where it is densely populated. A lot of problems can occur just because of overpopulation, for example there could be major environmental changes, a decrease in living space, which could lead to huge amounts of overcrowding. According www.slate.com, “John Beddington, the chief science adviser to the British government, has warned that by 2030 the interlocking trends of climate change, population growth, and resource scarcity may result in “major destabilization,” including street riots and mass migrations as people flee shortages of food and water.” This means that population growth could be a huge factor in what they call “major destabilization” and with the population already large by that year, many people will most likely try fight over food and water. Over time the world’s population has been increasing and has therefore begun to create major problems not only in countries with vast populations, but possibly the world.
Humans have been the worst life form to ever occupy the Earth. No other being has damaged the world as much as humans, but not all humans contributed to the suffering of the Earth. It was those who lived during and after the Industrial Revolution in 1800, these humans introduced innovation and invention of new technologies, improvement in communication and transportation, and enhancing the lifestyles of various countries around the world along with chemicals into the atmosphere and into freshwater. Since the Revolution, there has been a boom in the population that is still growing today. The uncontrollable increase in birth rate has developed into a very delicate situation, known as overpopulation. Most major problems on a global scale can
There are approximately 6 billion people on our planet now and by 2050 that number is expected to jump to 9 billion people. (http://www.prb.org/datafind/datafinder5.htm) Picture yourself driving down a crowded street or stuck in a traffic jam, have you ever wondered how it is possible for that many people to live all on the same planet. I have had those thoughts several times and believe that overpopulation is one of the biggest problems in the world today. Overpopulation has become a major crisis in the twenty-first century and it's detrimental effect on our living standards, environment, and much needed resources. The problem is not the number of people in this world, but the way people choose to live. The dilemmas created by overpopulation affect people of all races and social status. This is why we as the ?human race? must work together to preserve our planet and necessary resources before it is too late.
Overpopulation is going to continue to be a growing problem all over the world unless we come together and help each other out. This is a difficult task but it can be dealt with. This is the most important environmental issue because it leads to many others. It leads to loss of species, shortage of land, lack of resources, deforestation, health issues, pollution, and famine. Overpopulation is a growing problem we can stop. The only way this is going to be stopped is by humans taking action and trying to help each other.
About ten years ago while in a science museum, I saw a counter that estimated what the world population was at that given moment. Innocuous at first glance, since a number in excess of five billion is difficult to comprehend, what became alarming after watching the counter for a minute was the continual increase in the population. Thinking about the circumstances related to the population rise logically made the problem seem apparent. The earth is finite both in terms of physical size and in resources but the population is growing towards an infinite value. At some point the steadily rising population will move from being a problem that is geographically distant to one that is immediate and more salient than just an increasing value on a faceless counter.