Environmental Effects Of Overpopulation

Effects of Overpopulation

In recent years, environmental issues have become more wildly discussed. This could be because the world has a deeper understanding of climate change, or it could be a simpler reason. The world has more mouths to talk about it. China and Japan are becoming more crowded every year. In fact, the whole world’s population has steadily increased. This is due to lack of access to birth control, and lack of quality sex education classes. In California alone the pregnancy rate for teen women is 72 per 1000, 47% of high school students report having sex, and 59% of sexually active students report not using condoms (Walsih-buhi). These are staggering statistics. A better education in this aria can help lower pregnancy and STD

Researchers are doing everything in their power to keep up with these new infections. They track the infections and attempted to create new vaccinations. This, however, becomes harder to do as the population increases. Epidemic are not the only way humans have hurt themselves via overpopulation. Overpopulation causes an increase rate of crimes. Alon Tal explains a study done on rats to see the effects of overpopulation. Rats were put in an environment where they were overly crowded. In a short time, the rats began to act very aggressively. The rats abandoned their young, perform “aggressive sexual acts”, and even killed each other and resorted to cannibalism. As the human population increases, the crime rates are expected to do the same. If the rats are any indication as to where society is heading if the global population continues to increase, there is cause to be alarmed. Overpopulation doesn’t only cause problem for its own species. It has been shown to have devastating effects on the earth as a whole. It is common knowledge that humans cause pollution. As the world’s population increases so does the amount of pollution entering into the atmosphere. More people are

This causes the carbon footprint produced by humans to increase. The amount of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is damaging to the environment. In the article “Connecting the Dots Between Species Extinction, Overpopulation, and the use of Resources” Marshall Marcus explains that the amount of animal extinction is affected by the amount of people. The larger the global population, the more the ecosystem system is disturbed, leading to larger amount of extinctions. For example, as carbon enters the atmosphere, it comes back down in rain. This rain goes back into the oceans and causes them to be more acidic. This acidic water is unlivable to many organisms and they soon begin to die off. These organisms include certain types of fish and correl. Overpopulation is not only