The Impacts Of Population Growth

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.

As the human race continues to grow older the population starts to grow. Population growth is a change in the size of a population over time, depending on the balance of births and deaths over a period of time. For the world, population grows when the amount of births exceeds the amount of deaths. As shown in figure 1, the world’s population grew very slowly until about 1750 that is when the population growth started to increase rapidly. Figure 2 shows the growth of the global population from 1950 onwards, it also shows the projected population growth up to 2050. The global population is estimated to rise to approximately 9 billion people by 2050.

population increase, now approximately 1.7 percent a year will decline to a little less than 1 percent sometime between the years 2020-2025” (Ehrlich). The more people added on to this earth the more resources we will have to use

While it may be observed that the exponential rate of growth is slowing, the world population is still growing rapidly. Perhaps the biggest concern is not the actual population increase but the distribution of the growth (Wilson, Population).

Population around the world is rising hastily, so fast that the world’s population has just reached

However, I would more rather believe that our ecological systems will self-fix the population problems as the natural resource pressure and social pressure increase.

Our world’s population reached the seven billion people mark in at the end of 2011. We experienced an increase by over 100% since 1968, a timeframe of just 43 years and it is expected to keep growing [1].

1) What is exponential population growth? I found this a bit confusing the more I researched it. My understanding of Exponential is when something grows at a rate that doubles – 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc. However, it has a little different context when applied to population. The explanation I found that seems the clearest is as a population's per capita (individual) growth rate stays the same regardless of population size, the population grows faster and faster as it gets larger (Khan, 2017).

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.

According to Aviles (2015) “Concerns about over population are still prevalent in many public policy and scientific debates.” One example is that the Chinese government had passed the “One Child Only Policy” more than three decades ago. The One Child Only Policy promoted late marriage and late childbirth in order to control the populations ' usage of limited natural resources. In this modern society, population pressure is a problem associated in many areas, such as economy and society. The major issue that occurs under this pressure is our environment issue.

1.The earth is considered as one of the most beautiful planets in the universe. It is the only planet in our galaxy that supports life. Unfortunately, our planet is suffering due to population and resource availability. If these problems are not recognized, and the appropriate actions are not taken to slow down or put an end to them, then the consequences could be overwhelming. The global system will need to adjust to this massive population growth. Over the past few decades, the world has seen major advancements in health and largely as a result, people are generally living longer, healthier lives. The number of people on the planet is set to rise to 9.7 billion. Nearly 220,000 people are added to the planet every day, further compounding most resources and environmental problems. This will mean shifting the current focus on treating sick people towards preventing illness and preserving the health of populations. It makes more sense for humans to bring growth to a halt by adjusting birth rates downward in humane ways rather than waiting for death rates to move upward. why should anyone be concerned about population? The simple answer is that virtually all of the major problems that confront the world today relate in some critical way to population growth.

It took the beginning of time until 1804 to reach a world population of one billion people. Population statistics show that there were 1.6 billion people in 1900 and this figure reached 6 billion before the end of the 20th century. Over the past several decades, the world 's population has been growing exponentially. According to the population statistics, this figure is going to ascend to more than 9 billion people by the end of 2050. Recent studies shows that the growth rate of population has somewhat steadied from the prior projections due to various things such as increased education, along with higher death rates due to the spread of numerous diseases. Despite these recent projections, the overall trend of rapid population growth remains, creating numerous challenges for engineers. The main concern for engineers is that this rapid increase in population, along with fast paced industrial growth, places a tremendous strain on land, energy, and water resources that are essential for human survival. These challenges for engineers will required them to use their talents in effort to improve these situations.

To anyone even remotely acquainted with the situation, the ever-expanding world population can easily be a cause of grave concern. Indeed, the simple realization that the total world population will most likely be doubling within the next century may seem to imply catastrophe. Considering the strain our current huge population puts on the world, is it not natural to presume that two times our number will spell disaster? While this is the view held by many prominent voices, there also is a less-noticed group of people who contend that the resiliency of the earth and the ingenuity of its people will keep the planet a decent place to live.

The rate of global population growth has declined significantly from its 1970s highs (see Figure 2). Current estimates anticipate a continued decline to about 0.5 percent in 2050. This corresponds to a doubling time of 140 years, a rate that has fostered concern about how the world will cope with 18 billion people in 2190.

In the bible when god created man he had stated “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth”, (Genesis 1:28). It would seem that mankind has responded to our fathers request quite well. But is seven billion that big of a number? “If everyone in the world stood shoulder to shoulder, we could all fit within the city limits of Los Angeles”, (cbsnews.com, n.d.), so then what is the big deal about the growing population? Well, humans must eat, use energy, consume water and also humans will need more space to live as the population grows. This means that there will need to be a lot more food to be grown and produced, a lot more raw materials used to make energy and a lot more land to build infrastructure for humans to live and more water. Which is all fine and dandy until one is reminded that land, and raw materials are limited and the rate of food production is linear and land availability is also a factor for production. If that is not bad enough, according to prb.org (2011), “There are now seven billion people on earth, and projections show that we will top eight billion in just twelve years from now.” It is quite obvious that policies need to be implemented which limit or control the population growth rate or we might use up the finite resources which we have on earth.