I believe that the human population has drastically increased due to significant advances in science, medicine and education and that this drastic increase is likely to have adverse effects on our planet and society. On the other hand the lack of education is also a cause of overpopulation. People lacking in education have little knowledge and awareness of the effects of overpopulation and how to control it.
During the 20th Century, it is estimated the population of the world almost quadrupled from 1.65 billion to 6.1 billion. Current population is estimated at 6.7 billion. It is predicted that by the year 2100 the population could reach 12 billion. We are experiencing problems at the moment with the population of 6.7 billion. What is it going to be like with double that amount?
Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpp.
2 Causes and Effects
All things on the planet co-exist and are co-dependent. When one area is unbalanced, it has a knock-on effect on other areas which can have adverse consequences. Overpopulation puts :
a further burden on our food and water resources
There are finite food and water resources on the planet. As a result there is a finite limit to the total mass of living matter that can exist at any one time. The demand for food has risen, which means the demand for land to produce that food has also risen. To provide that land vast areas of the world have been deforested. Overfishing by humans has caused a decline in the species of fish in the oceans, which has led to restrictions on fishing around the world.
The demand for water has also risen. Farmers need more water to produce more crops. Factories need more water in manufacturing more goods. Households need more water for drinking, cooking, washing and hygiene(Lateu, 2009). Around 2.5 per cent of the earth's water supply is fresh water but another problem is the fact that only 0.5 per cent of this fresh water is accessible to people. Worldwide fresh water supplies are running low. As population increases, water supplies are only expected to get worse. The oceans are mistaken for available water but this is not the case as the cost of converting saline water is prohibitive. Israel, due to the lack of accessible fresh water resources has constructed a water desalination plant on the Ashkelon coastline to produce fresh water. This desalination plant represents 25% of the country's initial goal of 400 million cubic met res of drinking water annually. Of course Israel has the financial resources to manage this project whereas many other countries would not be in the same financial position. A shortage of water brings problems of sanitation and health
effects our environment
More people take up more space. "Urban areas are expanding, over 2 billion hectares of arable land have already been lost with 16 million more hectares being removed every year"Derek and Ryan (No year). Forests are being torn down to provide more wood and land to support the ever increasing population Beamon and Cargill (No year). The loss of these forests and the fact that they are not being replaced means that in future there will be a shortage of wood for building, manufacturing and fuel. Deforestation also leads to the extinction of plants and animals. These plants may have contained cures for diseases which are now forever lost to mankind. More than one fifth of the Amazonian Rain forest has been utterly ravaged due to cattle ranching, commercial logging, agricultural production and for firewood.
Deforestation also interferes with the equilibrium of gases in the atmosphere like oxygen and carbon dioxide. Our atmosphere contains gases in a delicate balance which are necessary for life on Earth, one of these gases is carbon dioxide (CO2). Trees/plants help to moderate the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The decrease of trees and plants through deforestation make it harder to maintain the range of carbon dioxide and other gases contained in the atmosphere. The growth of the carbon level and other greenhouse gases will eventually lead to an increase in temperature and a change in climate and weather.
Similar to deforestation, desertification is intensified by the ever expanding population although population is not the main cause. The heart of the problem is the extravagant population densities and the replacing of poverty stricken people on the frail lands. "Currently desertification claims 6 million hectares worldwide. An additional 20 million hectares become degraded annually"Beamon and Cargill (No year). The UN Environment Program has theorized that 35 per cent of the earth's land is at risk of desertification, this also takes into account that 66 per cent of Australia's agricultural land Beamon and Cargill (No year). However arid regions are not the only regions with which desertification occurs at. The factors which result in the degradation of soil are over cultivation, deforestation, desalinization and water logging, and overgrazing (Welch, 2008). "As a result the carrying capacity for animals and people are lower, crop production is reduced, environmental deterioration is increased, flooding of lower lying lands is increased, and the capacity to support human life is reduced"Beamon and Cargill (No year). Even though land degradation is increased by droughts, they are not the cause, as well as the fact that a nearby desert has no direct relation to desertification. The degradation of soil can start in any cultivated field Beamon and Cargill (No year).
pollution
More people generate more waste. They need more things which in turn lead to more factories, more products being manufactured, more transportation. This means more fuels being burned. More fuels being burned means more pollution. People produce tons of solid waste both organic and inorganic (Nahle, No year). This waste is emitted into our atmosphere and into our land and water systems. The pollution kills off animal habitats and plant life. This can result in the eradication of some of the primary food chain, and the effects can continue up the food chain to reach humans at the top. The chemical effect on lower life forms may be small, but the chemical levels become more concentrated as they travel up the food chain. One example is pollution in our lakes, rivers and seas. The pollution is caused by litter and rubbish, oil spills, chemical run-off from farms and manufacturing. A lot of these poisons are in small concentrations that build up over time and their effects occur over time. These poisons enter the plant life. The fish consume the plant life and so the poisons. Humans eat the fish. Eventually the poisons will kill off the plant and fish life thus removing a food source for humans.
economy
Overpopulation can put enormous stress on the economy. There is not enough food to feed the people. There is no surplus left over to trade. To prevent starvation the government then has to rely on foreign debt. They then have to repay this debt somehow. It becomes a vicious cycle.
There is overcrowding. There is inadequate housing to meet the needs of the people. There may be high unemployment as there are not enough jobs for those needing them. Health services, education services, welfare services will be stretched to the limit and will eventually break down. All these things will lead to an increase in crime rates and civil unrest. To combat the crime and civil unrest resources will be diverted away from the services which are essential to the people and the people who need them and so the cycle continues(Derek and Ryan, No year).
The Modern Developed Countries (MDC's) are insulated to some extent against these effects. Their population is expanding at a slower rate and they have vast resources. The Lesser Developed Countries (LDC's) are much more at risk. They are already facing problems of higher populations which are expanding more rapidly (Lutz, No year). They can be victims of inequitable distribution of the world's resources and international trade and financial arrangements which can work against them. They can have inadequate infrastructure, unstable governments, civil unrest and wars(Shah, No year; Shah, 2002). A lot of work is being done by various agencies to try to help less developed countries but as problems mount for modern developed countries, they will be less inclined to offer and sustain help and assistance. Some of the MDC's have an imbalance in their populations, the grey economy (over 60's) outnumber the young employed economy and this imbalance has the potential to cause a lot of problems for them(Lutz, No year).
energy
Not only must we consider the food needs of each person, we also need to consider the energy needs of each person. We need energy for virtually anything we do on this planet. We need it in the agriculture sector, in the manufacturing industry, in transport and infrastructure, in services, heating and light. Our main sources of energy at present are coal, oil and gas. All these resources are finite. No one really knows how much we have left. Some people say that we only have enough supplies for the next twenty years, others say that new discoveries of reserves are happening and could go on happening. Some evidence implies that the occurrence of these discoveries has been decreasing for some time. We are finding other sources of energy mostly renewable resources. Wind turbines and wind farm technology are being used more and more. Solar energy is also being used and it has amazing potential for development. The sun provides more power per square kilometre than a large nuclear plant. California is one the places leading the way in tapping wind, solar and other renewable resources. They are spending millions of dollars into research projects. Their urgency is because they have massive problems with their electricity supplies and have had to greatly reduce their consumption to try and preserve the resources they have.
3 Solutions
The world is over populated, so, what are we going to do about it? The quickest and most appealing answer is we don't need to do anything at all: technology will eventually solve the problem. But, the solution is not as clear cut as that. People argue that as technology advances it will help increase the amount of food that can be produced. History has proven that this is not the case. Sociologists talk about the "green revolution"Johnston (No year). This revolution started because of the invention of hybrid grains. Third world farmers were now able to increase production by two to three times by using these hybrid grains. So far so good. This was hyped up as the solution to world hunger but it was not to be. After five years had passed, due to the increase in the amount of food produced, birth rates also increased in proportion to the surplus amount of food. The technological effect of these hybrid grains was nullified by the increase in the population.
Another solution is government regulation of birth rates. The government of the county would restrict the number of children a woman could have. The government of China have enforced stringent family planning measures for many years. Most urban couples can only have one child and have to pay hefty fines if they have more than one. Farmers can have a second child if the first child is a girl. Minorities are often allowed to have two children or more. It has had mixed results. In the larger cities of China the policy appears to work (Yardley, 2008). Population growth is static but in the countryside and the borderlands the government edict has been less effective. China's entire population continues to grow and so too does migration from the countryside to the cities (Hardin, 1993). It is a very unpopular ruling and it has also lead to a severe imbalance in the ratio of boys to girls. Chinese culture favours boys and this has led to large abortion rates for female fetuses, (110 boys for every 100 girls). Outside the cities it is more difficult to enforce the One Child law. In recent years the policy has been relaxed somewhat as China realizes that it now has an aging population. In many countries government regulation of a woman's fertility would be deeply unpopular with the people and would be vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church.
An idea that has been raised is the government should pay women to not conceive any offspring. The woman would receive a payment each year the woman does not have a child. This scheme could prove very costlyJohnston (No year). It would also, I imagine not be very popular, most people like to make their own choices and as I said in the last paragraph the Catholic Church would not be very pleased with it. Far better maybe to encourage people to manage their fertility better. Better education in sex education and contraception would help decrease birth rates.
We talk about people having the right to manage the number of children they have, should people also have the right to manage their deaths that is they have the right to end their life whenever they see fit. These people may be living with cancer or other terminal diseases. They are in terrible pain and have very little quality of life. Should these people be denied the "right to die". This is a very controversial argument and has very little support at present in society. Of course this may change if population numbers become unmanageable.
There is obviously a problem with the amount of population in today's society. The solution is less clear. A lot of people today aim for the protection of an individual's rights and freedoms. They may want to do this even at the expense of society as a whole. Garrett Hardin I believe was correct when he quoted Hagel, "freedom is the recognition of necessity" (Hardin, 1993). We have to recognize the necessity of population control but do we. In my opinion it is not a major consideration for the vast majority of people today. They are more concerned with trying to have dinner ready for their children and managing their daily life and this is something that is going to happen sometime! (Oak, 2008). In my opinion there is no doubt that the effects of overpopulation this century, to this date are the hardest problems the human species has ever faced and they must face them and in order to do so they may have to make some very difficult and morally conflicting decisionsJohnston (No year).
4 Conclusion
As I said I think people are unaware or are unwilling to face the fact that our population is increasing so dramatically and of the environmental, social, and economic problems that will occur. We are facing large scale famines, unemployment, poverty, pollution, drought, energy depletion. In todays world the population needs to have a firm grasp of what is happening and the effects it will have on the upcoming generations and the future of mankind. As humans become aware of problems, they become more cautious and will try to make more intelligent decisions to solve the situation. To become aware we need to be educated as to the problems, we need governments that will help in the recognition of the problems. On a global level people must band together to change the issues that are causing overpopulation, and find strategies and solutions to overcome these issues so as to build towards a brighter future for society. To quote (Busam, 1995) "countries and individuals must work together to achieve zero population growth".
