How Have Humans Populated Earth So Fast In The Last 200 Years?

In contrast to the upheaval of animals in a development area, humans also make efforts to preserve biodiversity and forests by creating wild life

The scale and pace of change is dramatic; for example, the extinction of species is occurring at around 100-fold pre-human rates4. The population sizes of vertebrate species have, on average, declined by half over the last 45 years5. More than 2.3 million km2 of primary forest has been felled since 20006. About

The message of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s Governing Board is that human impacts on this resilient natural world are so unprecedented and extensive that we crossed the line into unsustainable consumption some time ago and are now depleting ecosystem capital stock instead of living off its sustainable goods and services.

Long-term survival of a species depends on its ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions (Murphy, 1994). Genetic diversity within a species, which has taken 3.5 billion years to evolve, makes adaptations to these changing environments possible. Unfortunately, the rate of extinction of genetically diverse organisms is rapidly increasing, thus reducing this needed biodiversity, largely due to the human impacts of development and expansion. What was an average of one extinction per year before is now one extinction per hour and extinct species numbers are expected to reach approximately one million by the year 2000 (WWW site, Bio 65). As a result governmental and societal action must

Forests have been cut, crops planted, pastures seeded, and urban areas paved. One of the most troubling consequences of human modification of ecosystems is an ongoing loss of species and therefore a loss of biodiversity around the world. The current extinctions have a human cause: habitat loss (such as clearing of tropical rainforests); the introduction of invasive species; unregulated hunting and fishing; and pollution of water, air, and

The current world's population is estimated at approximately six billion people in the world and even this number can be inaccurate. According to Sernau (2012), what is harder to estimate are the effects that this growth and change will have on our planet. When looking at overpopulation and the effects on the environment, we look at the overpopulation in cities and countries across the nation. Many economic problems in our society place an impact on our environment from overpopulation come from the overuse of resources, lack of resources, and pollution. There are many solutions to this problem but the common factor is humans have to put controls in place and take care of the environment, so the required resources do not become extinct.

Too many acres of biodiversity has been damaged. For example, NASA made an article that

Every habitat has something called a Carrying Capacity, this is the maximum population of any given species that the surrounding environment can sustain indefinitely. The factors that define the carrying capacity are water, food, shelter, and other necessities required by the species. Nobody is a hundred percent sure what the Earth’s carrying capacity for humans is, but many scientist believe the global population is nearing that limit. From the Stone age to about the 18th century the population had a slow steady growth rate. Then due to the sudden increase in food production and advances in modern medicine, the human population exploded from one billion at the beginning of the 19th century to the seven and a half billion we have today.

“It’s frightening but true: our planet is now in the midst of a sixth mass extinction of plants and animals” (Greenwald). I know what you are thinking. Does this include humans too? No, not yet at least. But, animal species from all over the world are struggling to survive in their own habitats. Why? Well, because of you, and by you, I mean the human race. Animal extinction is caused by humans because we cause climate change, poach endangered species, and we destroy habitats.

In an ever-expanding world where resource scarcity is discussed in side conversations and overpopulation is being combatted by concerned nations, worldwide struggle of equal allocation of vital resources persist. Biological resources and biodiversity in general are at the forefront of these concerns. Decreasing biodiversity does not just pose a problem for the plants and animals that are becoming increasingly endangered; individuals who have constructed their livelihood around the availability of such resources face dire circumstances as scarcity arises. The greater the variety of abundant plant and animal species present in the world, the greater the potential opportunity, opportunities such as medical discoveries and newfound scientific knowledge that increase the sustainability of life on Earth. However, tragedy of the commons, has led to overuse of biological resources across the globe, throwing the issue of sustainability into question. While species extinction is a natural process in the world ecosystem, the rate at which it has increased is not. In the past 65 million years the rate of extinction has gone from one to five species per year to roughly 1,000 to 10,000 times that rate (Diversity, 2013, pg. 1). This is no longer a matter of natural selection; this is a matter of ineffective resource regulation worldwide. Despite extensive amounts of environmental legislation actively in place, specie scarcity will continue to grow. The greatest challenge now

All populations of species are limited to a specific number, called its carrying capacity, which refers to the ability of an ecosystem to support their needs. Once a population grows to the point where it extends past the limit, the environment no longer has the capacity to support them and individuals must die to stabilize the population. Humans are no exception to this rule, as their populations are constrained by such density dependent factors as the availability of food, land, and other resources. Growth in the human population in particular, profoundly worsens the effect on the environment as well, based on the IPAT equation which states that population directly contributes to environmental impact. With the rapid growth that the human population is undergoing, researchers predict that humanity is overshooting their carrying capacity and will soon face a collapse; however, the ability to use technology to efficiently maximize resource allocation while minimizing environmental impact raises a debate of whether or not humans will be able to continue living as they are now.

Human overpopulation is among the most pressing environmental issues, silently aggravating the forces behind global warming, environmental pollution, habitat loss, the sixth mass extinction, intensive farming practices and the consumption of finite natural resources, such as fresh water, arable land and fossil fuels, at speeds faster than their rate of regeneration. However, ecological issues are just the beginning...

Every day, over three hundred million babies are born around the world. Abortion lowers the population number a minute amount, but according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), only about 1 in every five parents abort, resulting in a population increase of four live births. Without control, the human population growth will not stop. Companies will try to meet the demand for more consumer goods, causing the development of more factories. Deforestation, or the clearing of forests, will occur to build the factories. The increase in factories will result in higher carbon dioxide levels emitted into the atmosphere. Humans are unquestionably the most advanced species. They are also, unfortunately, the most destructive. Humans are causing a surprising amount of damage to Earth because of one thing, overpopulation.

There is no doubt that planet Earth is ever-changing. The emergence of new species, extinction of extant species, rise and fall of climate, and much more are completely natural occurrences; however, there is one terrifying force that changes the world much faster than most of its inhabitants can handle: humans. Ever since humans began to populate the Earth, we have been exploiting natural resources and depleting populations, thus harming countless communities and ecosystems. As our population continues to increase, we destroy more and more natural habitats, negatively impacting biological diversity by decreasing the abundance of individuals per species (Hunter 2007). Many studies in the past have looked into how overexploitation of resources, habitat loss due to development, and the release of fossil fuels from production result in the decline of biodiversity (Goulletquer et al. 2014), but one form of human disturbance is often overlooked: recreation. The increasing popularity of outdoor recreation can affect wildlife in numerous ways, usually resulting in the avoidance of disturbed habitat (Coppes et al. 2017).

The health of the earth degrades with the destructive activity of human beings. A recent study by a group of scientists looked at twenty four different services that the earth’s ecosystems provide for humans, ecosystem services, and found that fifteen of them are in need of desperate help (Gazette 31 March 2005). These services are vital to the survival of both human and nonhuman life and include filtering water and providing nutrient rich soils and ocean waters. Many of the members of these various ecosystems are also decreasing in numbers. In a British survey of bird populations found that in the 200 birds of Britain tracked there was about a 54% population decrease between the 1968-1971 tacking period and the 1988-1991 tacking period. In two other surveys of 254 native plant species from the same area there was a decrease of about 28% during the past 40 years. Humans are pushing the sixth mass extinction (Gazette March 19, 2004).