Jingjing Zhang
Instructor Shay Tschirhart
ENGL 1311L
13 November 2015
The Impacts of Population Growth
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
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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.
The capacity of natural resources is one of the most essential information to indicate how many people would fit in this planet. Aquifers and river basins are two of the natural water resources that to supply drinking water, industry and agricultural irrigation. In the analysis report of the water supply and demand in the Colorado River Basin, water use from the Colorado River Basin has tripled since 1923, and started passing beyond the amount of water supply in 2000 (Katel). Since then, the reserved river resources became imbalanced and started decreasing every year. The rapidly growth of population and impropriated human activities are two of the main reasons that destroy the pervious balancing ecosystem. With the population growth increasing, the world will consume more water, grain, and food, and creating more wastes than before. In fact, there are around 70% of accessible fresh water to use globally in agricultural businesses and to produce grain to feed people and livestock, but 60% of this is wasted due to the leaky irrigation system and inefficient application of methods as
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
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.
It is a widely known fact that the population of the world increases by a great factor every year. However, not many people know what exactly is causing this upsurge. In the past century, the population has radically grown. The main things increasing the world’s population are medical care and infant mortality rates because both have changed drastically over the past century.
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.
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).
In 1810, the world’s population was 1 billion; 200 years later, it is over 7 billion. What caused this tremendous jump in population growth? Better healthcare caused death rates to plummet, and caused successful birthrates to soar. Population growth rate is calculated with a simple formula (Birth rate – Death rate = Growth rate). The human population increases by about 80 million per year; and that number is actually increasing steadily. In another 140 years, the population could be close to 27 billion.
In exponential population growth, a population's growth will remain the same regardless of the population size, making the amount of people in that area grows faster and faster as it gets larger. In nature, populations may grow exponentially for some period, but they will ultimately be limited by resource availability. For example whenever you have any kind of organism you must be mindful of the exponential population grown because they could take over an area just by reproducing. “An organism is “An individual form of life, such as a plant, an animal, a bacterium, a protist, or a fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life” (The American Heritage® Science Dictionary, 2017). Imagine that we bought two fish with a pair of male and female fish in a fish aquarium. Now, if these fish and their offspring reproduced at top speed over a 10-year period of time, without any fish dying, we would run out of room in the fish tank.
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].
It is common knowledge that the human population is increasing. There is an influx of controversy surrounding the question of “should we be worried about a growing population?” According to Hans Rosling, in his Gapminder presentation The Facts About Population, we shouldn’t be worried. Rosling claims that a growing population is not something we should worry about. Even though the population is increasing, due to technology increases, education, slowing birth rates, and a shift in poverty, we can continue to move forward with all these people. “We undeniably face huge challenges, but the good news is that the future may not be quite as gloomy, and that mankind is already doing better than many of you think!”
Since 1914, global population has increased dramatically. Before 1914, there had been about 90 billion people ever born. Since then, the approximate number of people ever born has increased to 100 billion. Life was very short for the first 90 billion people and until World War I, the death rates and birth rates were neck to neck. Eberstadt (2014) believes that the number of humans born over the course of 50,000 years before the 1900’s could not have possibly grown by more than three one hundredths of one percent on average per century. The recurrent disappearance of nations and sometimes even entire civilizations enforced “population balance” for most of history. Around 1900, the human population was at around 1.5 billion and over the course
The world currently has about 7 billion people and with so many people reproducing, even if a slow rate, the population is still growing exponentially every minute. In only slightly over two decades, the world population increased by 2 billion people (Gribble and Haub, 2011).
“Infant and childhood mortality. The common and often personal experience of children dying leads people to try to make sure that some of their children will survive
Life is a precious thing but when does producing life become a problem? Human population growth has been a topic of discussion, among one of the many concern the world faces now. Human population growth in the twentieth century has become a slow growth rate. And even though population growth rate has decreased does not mean we are in the clear. Human population growth issues are influenced: health concerns, accessing education and technology
Another result that has occurred from population growth is a change in consumption and waste. This subject has arguments on population growth hindering economic development as well as not affecting it at all. As argued by Robbins, population growth has caused a high demand on resources, such as water, food and fuel. With population growing, that is why some communities are dealing with famine, poverty and an increase in mortality rates. According to Massimi Livi-Bacci, population growth has not had an effect on the economy. He believed that human population growth can be dealt with technology. With the development of technology, tools and equipment for agriculture can help to increase food production, to support the growing population. In the past, things were modified and invented to hunt for food, to heat, cook food and preserve it. High grade fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides were invented to help farmers grow crops that were better and stronger. Consumers do not want crops that will rot in a few days after purchase, so these things helped crops last longer once they were purchased. More importantly, without these developments in technology, individuals would suffer from food shortages, starvation and mortality rates would go up. Ester Boserup, was another supporter, he commented that population growth would not hinder the economy, but through the use of agriculture and technology they can produce more food supporting the population increase. Boserup did mention
With each miraculous birth the world’s population heads further towards destruction due to overpopulation. Globally, the population is increasing at a rate of 1 billion every decade, a rate that mankind has never seen before (Bongaarts). Most of this huge increase in population is in developing countries where the population is currently 4.3 billion and is expected to more than double within the next hundred years (Bongaarts). Considering that the world’s resources are already being stretched to sustain the current population a high birth rate will be catastrophic if if is allowed to continue. This population boom must be stopped in order to ensure that future generations can experience