Human Population Growth

In today’s society there are many economic problems such as, pollution, water conservation, war, overpopulation, global warming, pollution. All of these problems have a huge impact on our society, and overpopulation affects the environment. The term overpopulation is defined as a situation in which too many people or animals live in a certain area. In our case it is when there is an excess amount of people on earth which are depleting the resources available. The world 's population will soon reach an amount that will not have enough resources to sustain life. The growth must be balanced to avoid a catastrophe that we will not be able to handle. Many social, environmental, and economic situations are developed by overpopulation or increased by the overpopulation of humans. The government throughout the world should assume responsibility in regulating the growth of human beings to avoid societies to exhaust essential resources necessary to live.

The impact of human activity on the environment is catastrophically devastating and destructible. Assisting to that destruction is the increasing number of people that make up the worlds population today. Overpopulation is the condition of giving birth to a number of people living on earth that over exceeds the amount of space, resources and land found on our planet. According to reports from the United Nations (2007), “World population is currently growing by approximately 75 million people per year.” Such growth should be considered alarming and a possible threat to people as well as our environment. Humans all over the world must understand that these changes in population growth will foreshadow many changes

The current world's population is approximately six billion people, and the amount of time that it takes for the population to increase by another billion is decreasing with each billion. It is estimated that they will be about eight billion people by the year 2020, and this is due to its continuation of growth” (Southwick 159). An understanding of the causes and what might possibly happen is the first step to dealing with the population crisis.

It is widely accepted that more population equals economy growth. It is true that a larger population will have a larger economy, however this will not matter unless there is growth of per capita GDP (Arguments). However there have been no cases of of population growth leading to an increase in per capita GDP. Most importantly, population growth is actually harming economies. When population is low the standard of living is higher but, “When population size is large, the standard of living will be low, and population will be reduced by either the ‘preventive check’ (intentional reduction of fertility) or by the ‘positive check’ (malnutrition, disease, and famine),” (Lozeau). A larger population would harm the economy, especially if

Despite the fact that there are numerous research studies on the relationship between population and economic development, there is no universal consensus as to whether population expansion is beneficial, detrimental or neutral to economic growth. Thirlwall (1994: 143) has

Two hundred years ago less than one billion humans roamed the earth. Today the current world population stands at 7.3 billion and is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030 (source UN) this is due to the decline in death rates and increase in birth rates. The population has seen fluctuations, and changes over the centuries with astonishing peaks during the 20th century. In order to understand these changes, we will need study the growth, the explosions and drops in the world’s population. In this unit, we will therefore be analysing the causes of population change as well as the potential consequences.

Overpopulation is a concern as technology improves the quality of life for human beings. We are not increasing population because of births but because people are now living longer. With twice as many people now on Earth, our resources are depleting twice as fast. British Economist, Thomas Malthus, wrote in his essay in 1798, that by not reducing human population, a human would surpass agricultural productivity. However, his predictions never came true as innovative technology preserved food from spoiling and birth rates began to drop. After two centuries since Malthus’s claim, economists believed that the early predictions of 12 million people by 2050, seemed far-fetched. No longer does society need to limit population but learn how to support the population it has. No one knows for sure what Earth’s carrying capacity is as it greatly depends on what humans are willing to sacrifice to survive. It is estimated that the capacity is over a million and under a trillion. Today’s standard of living for most individuals far exceeds that of individuals 50 years ago. Technology has advanced our expectations and increased our carbon foot print. The population is slowing down in developed areas but growing in undeveloped areas. These areas population is growing at an alarming rate and will be unable to support the growth rate. Investment in education, family planning services and the status of women’s rights play a crucial factor in a countries fertility rates.

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...

“Our object must be to bring our territory into harmony with numbers of our population”, said Adolf Hitler. Overpopulation is one of the global problems that make leaders of countries concern about it. Despite several warnings of scientists, a number of persons are increasing day-by-day. Most of the researchers believe that the world is not likely to support that many people in the next few decades. Nowadays, schools, public transportations, streets are overcrowded due to high growing number of earthlings. Increasing the number of human beings is one of the quintessential worldwide issues of this century, that causes by high birth rate, as well as conquest of diseases, and it leads to unemployment and poverty.

Global human population is mounting at an alarming rate. In fact, in the next fifteen years, it is expected to reach 8.5 billion. Even if a worldwide policy of two children per couple, instead of the current 2.8, were enacted tomorrow, the global population would continue to grow for about seventy years before stabilizing at about thirteen billion people (Pimentel, 155). The ramifications of such growth could be catastrophic. Overpopulation contributes to a multitude of problems such as the degradation of environmental quality, the depletion of natural resources, the spread of disease, and an escalation in crime and conflict.

Throughout human history, population growth is one of the most important topics brought into discussion. Globally, there are about 7.2 billion people in the world, and it will rise up to 11 billion or more by the 21st century (Brown). When we look back in the history, population growth has been so slow as to be imperceptible within a single generation, “Reaching a globally population of 1 billion in 1804 required the entire time since the humans appeared on the scene. To add the second billion, it took until 1927, just over 100 years. Thirty- three years later, in 1960, world population reached 3 billion” (Brown 15). Then the pace sped

As time passes and our world’s population continues to grow, overpopulation is becoming a very serious issue deserving of the upmost acknowledgement and consideration. Throughout history crowding of the earth and the overuse of the world’s natural resources has hardly been a main concern. Today however, with a population of 7 billion people and counting, the diminishment of the earth’s resources has become a more serious issue than ever before.

From 1950 to 2005 the Earth’s population has risen from 2.5 billion to 6.5 billion according to the Population Reference Bureau. One of the first people to say that human population growth is not always a good thing was Thomas Malthus. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich wrote a book called The Population Bomb, which rose awareness on the possible impact of a rapidly growing human population. When this book was written the thought of controlling the population was not a popular opinion, and not all of the predictions he made in this book happened, but that does not change the fact that the quickly growing population has a big impact on our environment.

Conclusively, the relationship between population growth and economic growth is found to be positive in this study. In other words, the variables are found to

Population growth and economic development have been intertwined since historic times. The question of these two detrimental factors being correlated with one another has been the topic for debate time and time again, but even today controversies among them exist. Our economy has withheld the impact of war, immigration, and depressions and stands today at a much higher point than it did decades ago. The concern is not with where the economy stands today, but where it will be in the long run. The long run can be anywhere from one year to a substantial time gap. When considering long run economic growth we must also take into account population growth. In order to further understand this relationship we must define the term long run economic growth. Long run economic growth refers to rise in GDP per capita, which measures individuals’ material standard of living. Apart from material needs, one must also consider human wellbeing, which is individual happiness based on income, employment, and other resources available that increase standard of living. Many economists believe that population growth ultimately will have a positive correlation with economic growth in the long run, I disagree. After thorough research of relevant theories and considering the points of both sides of the controversial topic, I believe exponential population growth will have an adverse effect on long run economic growth.