Overpopulation is a major challenge that humans face today. The human population is close to 8 billion, and at our current birthrate, we are adding nearly one billion more people every 12 years. Issues such as dependence of natural resources, degradation of the environment, poverty, and unemployment, are root causes of overpopulation. Though opponents of this theory, such as Erle C. Ellis uses archeological records, and the history of human evolution to argue against overpopulation. Robert Walker, on the other hand, disagrees. He uses scientific explanation to anticipate that all living beings on earth will are under torment as they die off due to: erosion of natural resources, mainly food, and water. Next, Joel Kotkin claims that an …show more content…
Many years later, they extracted nutrients from the species by cooking them, and used different woods for enhanced hunting outcomes. Ellis points out that these innovations are still being used before since the last ice age ended. So, if hunter-gatherers were, therefore, successful worldwide at that time, human innovation will adapt. Ellis further argues that, the planet’s carrying capacity of hunter-gatherers was not any more than 100 million. Without their stone tools, he argues, the amount would be a lot less. The creation of agriculture, eventually empowered a higher population growth, which needed more land-use. Although the population is much greater now, approximately 7.2 billion, society has adapted with innovation. In contrast to a UN assessment, Ellis believes that a peak population is sustainable if obligatory investments are finalizing in the substructure and conducive trade, supplemented with anti-scarceness and food security strategies. , For instance, Chinese agriculture, shows that population growth will increase efficiency; this is because the relationship between population and economic wealth displays an increase of productivity. As the population rises, so does the productivity that matches the stock of food available, this is due to Anthropocene. Anthropocene suggests that people essentially live in human-dominated environments, which is being changed for our livelihood. Society is transformed
the population is said to reach 9 billion by 2050. The overpopulation of humans is causing destructive impacts on the environment and a high demand for resources. One destructive impact would be climate change because of the exceeding rate of humans, causing pollution in the air. While the Earth is having a tough time sustaining particular resources, the high demand causes the earth to force to get its nonrenewable resources. Overpopulation can lead to dangerous impacts of pollution, depleted resources, habitat loss, etc. Overpopulation is a controversial topic. While there are those who are not paying attention to its effects, the world is displaying its resources will soon disappear due to the depletion of nonrenewable resources such as water, oil, and soil. Addressing the problems and concerns of overpopulation now, can help save the lives of individuals in the future, LITERALLY!
Overpopulation is an undesirable condition where the number of the human population exceeds the carrying capacity of Earth. Recent research shows the Earth currently is holding around 7 billion people and around the year 2050, the population will exceed to 11 billion. While there are organizations helping with people who are in poverty or saving species in the brink of extinction, the real cause of the problem is yet to be solved.
Over population is an issue that plagues people all over the world. American’s specifically are headed towards a population of over 400 people by 2050. High population numbers like these can lead to an abundance of environmental issues. One of these issues specifically is air pollution. Air pollution is primarily the cause of industrialization and releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. This causes the ozone levels to rise to unhealthy conditions. If countries like the U.S don’t become active in preventing these environmental issues, overpopulation would just continue to increase them. This would affect American citizens because environmental issues, like air pollution, caused by over population will have a negative effect on the quality of life and the ability to breathe clean air.
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
He believed that there would eventually be more people on this Earth than it would be physically possible to feed. Eventually, food would run out and result in a catastrophic mass starvation of the worlds population. The idea makes sense. People seemed grow on an exponential scale, eventually there will be too many people if we continued at that rate. This idea has evolved over the years, but the general idea remains the same. There will eventually be too many people, or will there? Several estimations predict that the human population will eventually level out. This means overpopulation is not the real issue. A new perspective on this topic will allow for an accurate goal post shift away from common misconceptions. This goal post shift will offer a new win-lose relationship for overpopulation in terms of environmental ethics.
Throughout the last few hundred years, humans have built a foundation. Compared to all of the other animal species on Earth, humans are the most intelligent. We have built houses everywhere, developed a system to sustain ourselves, and now inhabit almost every piece of land on earth. Humans are smart, strong, and know how to fend for themselves. But, humans have a tendency to take it too far, and we have already done so. There have been numerous advancements over the past few hundred years which could ultimately lead to the downfall of the human race. The main issue is overpopulation due to the advancements in technology and general knowledge. The statistics from an article by Kenneth Smail show that “In the year 1900, there were almost 2 billion humans living on Earth. Throughout the 1960’s, the baby boom, there were 3 billion humans on Earth. Today in 2016, there are just over 7 billion humans living on Earth.” Currently, we have taken up just over half of all available land on this planet, and with increased amounts of people having kids, our population will only increase. Overpopulation is becoming a serious problem all around the world, especially in countries such as China and India. There are many global problems associated with overpopulation that are becoming more and more prevalent, which will all have dangerous effects on the foundation that humans have
“When we have peace, then we have a chance to save the planet. But if we are not united in peace, if we do not practice mindful consumption, we cannot save our planet.”(Thich Nhat Hanh) We as the human race have entered a new age of the Earth: the Anthropocene, a term that became popular in the early 2000s. It means “ Man New”, because of the new world we have created and the amount of extinctions, pollution and alterations in the world’s functions that has come from our expansion. Due to the large amount of waste a small portion of the world produces, it affects the whole world in terrifying ways. People that argue that overpopulation is the largest issue have to understand that it is not the majority of the world that creates so much waste
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
The best-selling novel by “DaVinci Code” author Dan Brown “Inferno” has a plot that is driven by the human overpopulation crisis. Brown depicts a mad scientist that believes he can rid the world of the majority of its health and environmental issues by simply purging the world of two-thirds of its population. But is the assertion brought forth by Brown’s antagonist that far from the truth? When we look at the effects of human overpopulation on food, air quality, water shortages, and other natural resources it’s hard to disagree.
The Worlds population was once of seven billion just fifteen years ago but now? Now after a paralysing epidemic that leads to an almost certain imminent death the numbers are just under borderline of two point five billion. It's hard to keep exact count, the population grows and decreases daily, new births of unfortunate babies being brought into this corrupted World, deaths of old beggars, starving children. The numbers change daily. You lose people, you gain people, it's been that way even before the epidemic struck. People die, people leave yet there's nothing you can do about it and in this measly, broken world we've all lost someone, whether it be parents, brothers and sisters or your Great Aunt Margret who lived down the street with her
Everyone knows that overpopulation is a major issue; an issue is only going to increase over the next few decades. Every person should have a general understanding of this problem because it is going to affect everyone on the planet if it has not done so already. Many countries on our planet now are already overpopulated. In many third world countries, parents do not have enough money to feed themselves, let alone food for their own children. It is estimated that over one billion people wake up every day and do not have enough food or safe drinking water. In addition, according to many scientists, we are supposed to exceed 14 billion people by 2100 and nine billion by the year 2048. Even though we will most likely all be passed on, imagine a world with seven billion more people. How will people be able to have jobs and support their families?
"Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim." This was said by Martin Luther King, Jr on May 5, 1966. If this was said almost 49 years ago by one of the greatest leaders of American history, why hasn’t the issue of overpopulation been solved yet? Simply because we lack the universal consciousness of the serious issues overpopulation bring and the education required on how to prevent it. The world just can’t support every single human being if we continue to ignore the issue. So what would happen globally if the demand for natural resources is greater than the supply? There will be conflicts and wars, environmental degradation and climate change. In addition to having a high demand for natural resources and a low supply, it will also cause a rise in unemployment and raise the cost of living.
Overpopulation is blamed for many of todays problems around the world including poverty, hunger, and war. In reality, overpopulation is not the issue. In fact, the term “overpopulation” shouldn’t even be used because it makes one infer that there is too many people on this planet. That, however, is not true. There are plenty of resources to go around and the population may actually be declining instead of growing. Overpopulation will not be an issue for the future of planet Earth because the poverty rate is decreasing, there is plenty of food for everyone, and birth rates are going down.
In the year 1 A.D., the Earth’s population was 300 million. In 1850, after many decades of consistent population growth, it eventually surpassed one billion. From that point on in history, the world population began to climb rapidly (Haub). Each year, the world population surpasses what any scientist has ever thought possible. Some would consider this expansion as a sign of success considering the causes of a rapidly growing population include improved health care, new technology, progressive eras such as the Industrial Revolution, and an overall developing human race (Kinder). However, the current world population no longer signifies progression; it signifies regression. Today, the Earth’s human population is approaching overpopulation. Overpopulation is more than just a crowded planet. The definition of overpopulation is, “…too many people for the amount of food, materials, and space available…” (Cambridge Dictionaries). This means that overpopulation will impact crucial aspects of the planet and not just increase city sizes. Robert Kolb suggested in the Encyclopedia of Business Ethics and Society that the Industrial Revolution is one of the main causes of the spark of rapid population growth. When industry developed, family sizes expanded, economic health boomed, and populations spiked all over the world. Since the Industrial Revolution, the Earth’s number of inhabitants has been consistently growing, which could lead to overpopulation. Overpopulation will affect every
Research physicist for the American Center for International Policy Studies, Gioietta Kuo, in her article “Mega Crisis? Overpopulation is the Problem” describes the possibility of a global mega-crisis, a “perfect storm” of political, economic, and environmental instability resulting from overpopulation and leading to the extinction of mankind (Kuo, 23). The purpose of Kuo’s article is to stress the fact that overpopulation has been over looked as the source of many of the problems afflicting the world today, including climate change, food and water scarcity, environmental degradation, as well as other economic and social effects like unemployment. She adopts logos, ethos, and pathos as well as an urgent tone in order to persuade the United Nations, government officials, and the general public to acknowledge the fact the current high population is the main cause of the problems affecting the world today and also to stress that the unchecked population growth will lead to a mega-crisis.