Can the World Sustain an Increasing Population?

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Recommended: Population growth and its impact on the environment

Countries in the world hold different attitudes to the population policy, some of them tend to delay the increase of population while others introduce policies to encourage childbirth. After centuries of continual growth, which started at the first industrial revolution, the global population reached over 7 billion individuals in 2013. Research by Ezeh, Bongaarts and Mberu (2012) states that increasing population is a threat to individuals and societies by bring problems based on unsatisfied demand. The “increasing population” in this essay can be defined as net rising in birth rate during a period, especially in the poor developing countries. This essay will argue that the world cannot sustain an increasing population. The reasons for this are firstly, limited nature resources can hardly maintain huge population and environment may be polluted; next, economic problems, especially the gap between the rich and the poor can be caused by increasing demand; and lastly, social wellbeing pressures brought by population growth.

Initially, it is argued that increasing population may lead to environmental issues to the world by consuming nature resources and causing variable pollution at the same time. According to Hinrichsen and Robey (2000), with a rapid growth of population, the needs of most developing countries to improve living standards are urgent. To meet the demanded of developing, both developed and developing countries consume resources much faster than they can regenerate. That means humans are destroying resources needed for future to satisfy present needs. This is supported by Loucks (2005) who reports that with population tripled in the 20th century, the water withdrawals have increased by 6 times, that means water use inc...

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Loucks, D.P. (2005). Facts about Water. Retrieved from https://dspace.library.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/2808/1/Facts%20about%20Water.pdf
National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (2013). NASA Scientists Relate Urban Population to Air Pollution http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-scientists-relate-urban-population-to-air-pollution/#.U2xNdNoaySM
Martín-Guzmán, P. (2005) Population and poverty. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.wwwproxy0.library.unsw.edu.au/stable/29789273?seq=5&Search=yes&list=hide&searchUri=%2Fopenurl%3Fvolume%3D61%26date%3D2005%26spage%3D167%26issn%3D00166987&prevSearch=&resultsServiceName=null
Society. ( November/December 1990) Social Science and the Citizen. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02695173#
The World Bank. (year unknown). Topic: Poverty & Equity http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/region/SSA

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