A Solution to the Population Problem:

This paper can be an excellent source for anyone researching into how to fight overpopulation. Hardin provides several other viewpoints that show he did not selectively choose evidence or distort it. Hardin proceeds from point to point logically which allowed the reader to comprehend the main idea effortlessly. The author glided to how the people of poor

Later in the essay, Hardin writes about the differences in the population growth between rich and poor nations. Poor nations multiply much more quickly than richer nations. The essay then goes on to explain what the consequences would be of setting of

Population Growth is an issue that exists in today’s world that needs to be confronted before it becomes out of hand. The population itself has reached overwhelming numbers making it a problem that could turn to be dangerous. The amount of humans that the earth can support or the carrying capacity is slowly rising but at a much slower rate than the population growth rate. The increasing growth rate has its negative effects environmentally, agriculturally, socially, and economically and also has its positive effects nationally, and economically. The government is brainstorming and trying to come up with ways to decrease

Dr. Forsyth implements plenty of evidence as well as proven statistics to back up his outlook on these issues. The growth of human population is happening at an exponential rate, implying that in a short period of time population growth will double. “We find it difficult to comprehend exponential growth, but it may prove to be our fatal blind spot” [3]. When analysing the world’s population over a long period of time, it took roughly 19,000 years for the world’s population to go from 5million people to 500 million people in 1500 A.D. [4] With an estimated population of 7.5 billion people [5], for a period less than 1000 years, population increased more than 1500 times its size than it was in the 1500’s. In addition, on a more minute scale of time, in 1950 the world’s population was roughly 2.5 billion people [6] in merely 50 years the world’s population has tripled. With these statics, it is evident that the world’s population is increasing at an incomprehensive rate. With populations at their peak, overconsumption is another problem this world faces, as Dr. Forsyth affirms “humans consume far more than their fair share of the Earth’s natural productivity.”[7] Due to this over consumption of resources, there is a vast demand for cheap food which results in the clear cutting of large forest to generate room for new plantations of food. When doing so, humans destroy habitats that

Thesis: The topic of human population growth is an important issue due to its impacts upon people in developing countries, economics, religion, food production, and the environment; without any limitations, population growth can lead to negative consequences, such as famine and environmental destruction, or even positive outcomes, such as potential economic growth.

No matter how many people do claim overpopulation is not a relevant issue, it very much is because of the simple fact that starvation and pollution are very real and existing issues that are ultimately offset by overpopulation. In an article titled “Overpopulation Is Not the Problem,” author Erle C. Ellis uses the analogy “Like bacteria in a petri dish, our exploding numbers are reaching the limits of a finite planet, with dire consequences,” to argue that overpopulation is not a problem by stating the opposing claim. “We are nothing like bacteria in a petri dish,” Mr. Ellis solemnly asserts, “...these claims demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of the ecology of human systems. The conditions that sustain humanity are not natural and never have been. Since prehistory, human populations have used technologies and engineered ecosystems to sustain

In the article “ Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”, Garrett Hardin (1974) argues that wealthy people should not be responsible for the poor and that the consequences of feeding the poor are detrimental to the environment and to the society as a whole. Hardin was a well known philosopher and ecologist. He earned his bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and also earned his doctorate degree in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941 (Garrett Hardin, n.d.). The main issue that he tackled was human overpopulation and one of the books that he wrote that analyzed this issue was called ‘How Global Population Growth Threatens Widespread Social Disorder’(1992). Because the author has a sufficient

Hardin provides the statistic that poor countries increase by 2.5% each year whereas poor countries increase by .08% each year and although yes, people dying is sad but the overpopulation of poor countries and shortage of food it somewhat of a natural population control. Although it is a blunt way of saying it, Hardin is right when you stop and think about it. As barbaric as it sounds, without that natural population control those countries would grow at an exponential rate and the impoverished conditions would go thru the roof cause the gap between the rich and the poor to become ocean wide.

Garrett Hardin, human ecologist and writer, in the informative analytical essay, “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor” (published 1974), argues that overpopulation is affecting our dwindling resources on Earth and it has to be stopped. Hardin supports his argument by giving statistics about the rise in population in the past decades and by explaining how this impacts the use of our resources; his generous use of parentheticals helps him convey his message eloquently, and his use of anaphora when he says, “Complete justice, complete catastrophe.”( Hardin, 383) keeps the reader absorbed; and his use of dilemmas throughout the whole article keeps the reader curious and wanting to continue reading on. Hardin’s purpose is to persuade

Renowned environmentalist Lester R. Brown wrote about 10 Troubling Trends we’re seeing in in our environment and in our global ecosystem. His fourth point on his list, population growth, is one that has been an issue since the 1950s. As far as our population, urbanization, and industrialization goes, functionalists recognize that while it has been functional in creating a more effective, interdependent, and productive society, it has also been problematic. It has weakened social bonds and an absence of norms. We have began to lose our ability to function effectively. Even with our growth of large complex societies due to the population getting bigger and bigger. Brown’s ninth point on his list is the spreading of hunger. This is a direct

His main premise is the difference in population growth rates between the wealthy and unwealthy nations. He argues that if a poor country becomes heavily dependent on an affluent nation, whose population grows far less quickly, their population will quickly overtake that of the providing nation and make further aid to them infeasible. He also alleges that, using the example of the proposed World Food Bank, that any country’s population will eventually level out to an amount which can be supported relatively easily by said nation’s natural resources if and only if it is not heavily dependent on another country, in which case its dependency will only increase with time. I find his arguments to be completely plausible, if not somewhat oversimplified, though it is of course impossible to take all factors into account.

This is a great point because more developed countries consume more wastefully because they are wealthier, while other countries that are poor barely consume anything. Also resources are not distributed equally because while the U.S. gets lots of resources that they don’t even need other parts of the world don’t even get anything. By reducing the rate we consume and having an equal share of resources overpopulation shouldn’t be a real concern anytime

In the article Overpopulation Is Still the Problem, Alon Tal (2013) claims that overpopulation remains the number one problem facing the world today and discusses various problems and possible solutions. Tal unveils the falsely assuring news stories refuting overpopulation as a problem. He particularly dissects Ellis Erle’s assertions, in the New York Times, concerning China’s seemingly magical works of technology. Erle comes to the conclusion that China’s amazing technology has and will always be able to keep them out of any problems regarding overpopulation. Of course Tal is able to rhythmically rebut Erle’s claims by explaining that, “Anyone with a teaspoon of historic sensibilities about the country 's environmental history might want to mention its long litany of famines which occurred precisely because carrying capacities were consistently outstripped by a growing population”. Tal then goes on to explain other problems linked directly to overpopulation in China like the food crisis from 1958-1961 which led to the starvation of over 20 million people. He also discusses the Chinese one-child policy describing it as “tough medicine” although the application of the policy was flawed he depicts how it has prevented the next round of famines. Tal ties the China population problems into the rest of the article which is mainly about how quickly the world is growing and what we need to do about it. He presents distressing facts like 1 in 8 people in the world suffer from

Garrett Hardin was a controversial ecologist who believed that overpopulation was going to bring a downfall to a world of limited resources. Each nation was compared to a lifeboat with the rich being inside the boat and the poor in the water, drowning (Hardin, 561). He wrote the “Lifeboat Ethics” in 1974 when Ethiopia was having a starvation problem. Hardin’s opinion about the situation was that sending aid to Ethiopia was only making the problem worse and by feeding the people would aid overpopulation; the root to the problem. Hardin’s thesis developed from the notion that the rich should do nothing to help the poor. He believed that one

Hartmann states, " Affluence has more to do with the depletion of natural resources than does population size" because similarly to the issue of food distribution, too few people consume too much of the world 's energy, metals and wood (Hartmann 1995: 23). For this reason, " on a global level, it simply does not make sense to blame environmental degradation on population growth" (Hartmann 1995: 23); consumption patterns illustrate that one group of people are obviously creating the damage, and that group is not the "overpopulated" nations of the Global South. Hartmann explains that the goal of achieving a Western lifestyle, which necessitates environmental exploitation, cannot become a reality for a global population of this size but that the globe does have the ability to support every life on the plant. She is effectively calling into question the notion that a Western existence is inherently desirable and better, forcing people to examine if they cry "overpopulation" as a way of protecting their extravagant and environmentally harmful existences. This connects to the final overpopulation myth, analyzed here, which paints the developing world 's inability to reach Western levels of economic growth on their growing population size.