Overpopulation and the Carrying Capacity of the Earth
As humans start a new millennium, we have close to 4 billion more than we had at the beginning of the last millennium. In the next 50 years we are looking at adding another 3 billion people. Such a rapid increase has placed great strains on the Earth and leads us to ask – how many people can the earth support? The answer is rather obscure, however it seems like we are approaching our limit rather soon. With decreasing aquifers, shortages in food, and increasing pollution, the Earth has reached its limit.
Carrying capacity is defined as the maximum population that can be supported by the available resources while still leaving resources for future generations. All living organisms have this concept behind them. The main factors of food and water and space give a ballpark figure as to how many of one species can live in a certain area. Humans also have a carrying capacity however; unlike our lesser-developed counterparts in the animal kingdom our “certain” area encompasses the whole world. On top of that, our carrying capacity seems to change from time to time. Technological advances in agriculture and in health services have vastly increased life expectancy and other factors of carrying capacity. The first major, change of carrying capacity probably came around the Industrial Revolution, safe water was becoming available, refrigeration was being used, and the advent of the automobile and ship travel allowed humans to spread out and sustain themselves. Even today our carrying capacity is changing, with medical and agricultural breakthroughs being heard of everyday, life expectancy in developed countries is increasing all the time.
As the Industrial Revolution came ...
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... land degradation also contributes to overpopulation. Land once full of life sustaining minerals and resources have been destroyed by deforestation and desertification, rendering them inhabitable and pushing people closer together.
In the end, damage has been done so extensively we can only hope to control the situation. Optimistically, we as humans can hope technology can somehow find a way to keep sustainable resources and to increase the carrying capacity of the earth. However, if the technology did present itself, the countries that need it most would not be able to afford it. The only key to controlling the spin overpopulation has placed the earth in is through education. Education in family planning, education in eco-friendly practices, and educating minds to help solve the problems that we have created basically in the last 100 years are our only hope.
“ignored population growth,” since writing their book in 1968, is one reason “collapse now seem[s] ever more likely” (63). They suggest we can avoid collapse if we reduce our population to an “optimal number” and they reinforce the message of their book, earth has a finite capacity and a growing ...
All of these are consequences of one question deep at the heart of the quest for sustainable human existence; the question of the maximum capacity supportable by the planet Earth. As is true of a good deal of the puzzles plaguing our time, little consensus is to be found surrounding this topic.
Population growth affects the earth just as much as it does the people. With the population continuously growing at an alarming rate, earth can’t keep up with the resources needed to survive. Eventually we will run out of oil, land to build houses, and air. The reasoning behind running out of air is if the world is covered in houses, there is no room for trees – which supplies our oxygen. The factors effecting population growth are: fertility rates, life expectancy, migration, and death rates. More and more people are migrating to North America because of the high life expectancy, average fertility rates, low mortality rates, and of course, job opportunity. Even though population growth isn’t as high as it used to be, overpopulation can still
Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, progressing through several eras and phases. However, questions have begun to appear, with questions if the “Earth is Overpopulated?”, if “With the Earth’s Current Population, will it be capable of maintaining life at a sustainable level? (Heaton)”, and if the Earth is at risk at running out of Resources at the rate we’re consuming them? My answer to all these questions is no, that although the population is currently at 7 billion people, it is not at a point where it could be considered to be overpopulated, and it is not a point where the Earth cannot sustain humans with its resources.
The human population passed the 7 billion mark in October of 2011, and will pass 8 and 9 billion probably before the middle of the century. All these people will need resources such as places to live, food to eat, and water to drink, and they will use energy and create waste. Essentially, human population growth can effect all other causes of extinction. For example, more people on the Earth means more people contributing to global warming and pollution. More people also means more clearing of land for agriculture and development.
Yet there are good reasons to attempt to do so. Meteorologists have warned us that pollution linked to the tremendous and growing resource use of the immense and expanding human population will lead to a greater frequency of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes, as well as a rise in global temperature; the last decade would seem to support such a suggestion. Biologists have gloomily predicted that many of the Earth's species will be exterminated within the next century, as a direct result of the human domination of the landscape. Social scientists are well aware of the putatively causal link between overcrowding and social conflict, violence and war, and we already have no shortage of these three evils. Even now humans have seriously impacted most ecosystems on Earth, and use more than half of the fresh water accessible for consumption. It is a fundamental truth that on a planet with finite resources, unrestrained growth is an impossible practice to sustain; all of the signals woul...
As of October 1999', the world obtained 6 billion people. Predictions have been made that by the year 2075' there will be 12 billion people. The major question asked by concerned people is "Is our planet able to provide a healthy and prosperous life style, which we are all a custom to, and can it, be for twice as many people in the future?" "If not, what measures can be taken to prevent such population growth?" "If the United States does take precautions, will these measures be fair, just, and not interfere with natural human rights?"
Humans are very quickly dominating the globe. Today, the human population is around 7 billion people. Humans are populating at a rate of almost 220,000 per day! Humans are rapidly heading towards Earth’s carrying capacity.
This problem of population growth leads to a number of solutions that could have significant implications on the quality of life. Taking no action and allowing population to grow unchecked could possibly risk the entire human species if food or clean water were to become unavailable worldwide. Aiming for zero population growth would in theory maintain the existing quality of life since a stable population would not increase their use of resources. However not all resources are renewable, so scarcities could still occur with a fixed population size. In an extreme case permanent resource depletion under zero population growth could have the same extinction effect that unchecked growth can lead to. Despite the escalating risk of unchecked population growth, technological advances necessitated by the increase in population will at least maintain the quality of life and could possibly improve conditions.
Stancheva, Tina. "Effects of Overpopulation on the Environment." Human Nature, Technology & the Environment. Swarthmore College Environmental Studies, 6 June 2003. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Overpopulation is a growing problem all over the world. This is a very important environmental issue and needs to be dealt with. This environmental problem is affecting many countries around the world, but mostly the poor and impoverished countries that don’t have the resources to help deal with these issues. It also affects the environment like plants, animal life and air quality. When the population of people expands we need more natural resources from the environment, so we consume more than we can produce.
There are various systems in handling population rates and its various issues that connect with threatening our environment. The population and environment debate will forever be a back and forth problem because there is possibly no way to completely stop carbon emissions but ease its production. To help the environment, we must incorporate all potential solutions in governing population such as family planning and governmental involvement and practice renewable resources and stop on using nonrenewable resources, as well as ways to tackle overconsumption to support our corrupting environment.
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...
Overpopulation can be seen as one of the key factors responsible for the state of our rapidly decaying earth. Developments in medicine, agriculture and technology have allowed for the human race to take over all other species and be excluded from the natural food chain. Humans, particularly westerners, lead lives of extreme consumption that take huge tolls not only on the earth but also on certain groups within society. A great division has developed between the western world and the third world.
The reduction of the Earth's resources has been closely linked to the rise in human population. For many thousands of years people lived in relative harmony with their surroundings. Population sizes were small, and life-supporting tools were simple. Most of the energy needed for work was provided by the worker and animals. Since about 1650, however, the human population has increased dramatically. The problems of overcrowding multiply as an ever-increasing number of people are added to the world's population each year.