Patterns of Consumption
In the beginning, the human population had little to no growth as famine, natural disasters, and sickness kept it in check. Only since the industrial revolution has the population began true expansion, due to the society-shaping events, notably the industrial revolution. Now, population has grown out of control. Every decade, around a billion people are added to the total population. Many polices have been created to try to slow the growth, and scientists claim that by 10 billion, our population will stabilize. Only one problem, we have no means to feed 10 billion people with our current rate of consumption. In order to feed the population over the next 40 years, we will need to produce more than the accumulative agricultural output of the last 10,000 years. To make matters worse, agriculture production is predicted to decline due to soil degradation, erosion, pollution, and desertification, all which are expanding rapidly. Clean water, another massive factor in the sustainability of life, will be rare in China, the most populated country in the world. Ener...
As small mobile groups of hunter-gatherers adopted a sedentary lifestyle, they mastered both agriculture and animal domestication. These small settled groups quickly evolved into cities and towns that encompassed the entire globe. Today the estimated population of the world is over 6.2 million people.1 As the population has grown, it has had several deleterious effects on the Earth. These include climate changes, the spread of diseases, declining food production, deforestation, and environment pollution (particularly air pollution). As people have become more conscious of these harmful effects, they have begun to devise strategies to combat this problem. Among the suggested responses include a switch to renewable energy, a call for zero population growth, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices.
The Neo-Malthusian dilemma is the worry that our food stocks will not match the population growth leading to famine and disease. This is a growing concern since our population is quickly increasing, we are not bringing new land under cultivation, and we are damaging the environment that is producing our food and sustaining our people. Between 1999 and 2011, the world population increased by one billion, Middleton(2013) noted that it took until 1804 for the world to reach its first billion. The population growth we have exhibited is exponential, and it is only scheduled to peak some time between 2050 and 21003 . Many countries are still expected to go through major population growth. We constantly hear about China and India but Africa is expected to overtake them both by 2050 and make up 23% of the global population4.These large populaces depend on land to grow their food. Urbanization is transforming some farmland into urban areas, like in China for example5 .This land is no longer being used for farming. Until the 1950s, we were able to develop new land for cultivation and thus produce more food, but since then we’ve had no new land to
In order for us to maintain our lives, we need to consume food to supply nutrient-needs for our bodies. As the global population increased, the demand for food also increased. Increased population led to mass production of foods. However, even with this mass production, in under-developed countries, people are still undernourished. On other hand, in developed and developing countries, people are overfed and suffering from obesity. In addition, the current methods of industrial farming destroy the environment. These problems raised a question to our global food system. Will it be able to sustain our increasing global population and the earth? With this question in my mind, I decided to investigate the sustainability of our current global food system.
In today’s society that we live in, there are countless of environmental problems that we face, such as global warming, fishing, pollution, and many other topics of that matter. These issues have affected our environment for the worse and have caused problems physically and economically. Yet, out of all the issues that effects our world on a daily basis, it is shown that overpopulation is one if not, is our biggest issue in our environment that is only getting worse due time, especially due to the rapid growth of the human population and the limited resources that are left on earth that we absolutely need to tend to our growing population. Even Dr. Charles A. Hall, who is a systems ecologist, states that, “Overpopulation is the only problem, If we had 100 million people on Earth or better yet 10 million, no others would be a problem.” Which helps prove that overpopulation is a major issue that we must act upon if we want to save our world.
Every day, thousands of babies are being born all around the earth, meanwhile our homeland earth is running out of enough space for living, farming and running out of clean drinkable water; Millions of people are desperate for any job opportunities. ’’ By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers’’ . It is estimated that the population of the earth will increase by about 3 billion people by that time and 80% percent of the usable lands for raising crops will be in use . Vertical farming is one the ideas to move forward towards a healthier and more manageable future for all the human, as well as wildlife and our environment. “Ecologist Dickson Despommier argues that vertical farming is legitimate
Today, as we near the 21st century, overpopulation, as some may call it, still seems to be a concern. There have been reports that, if the current rate of population growth were maintained, the world will be home to some 694 trillion people by the year 2150, almost 125 times that of today's population (Bender, p. 65). On October 12th, 1999, the world was presented with the associated press headline that the world population counter at the UN topped 6 billion. It is evident that our society is still concerned about the increasing population. The intent of this paper is to prove that there is not, and will never be, according to long-term trends, a situation in which it is impossible to provide everyone on earth a living standard at the subsistence level.
The saying goes, “the Earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the Earth”. Society needs to remember that they do not create or sustain Mother Earth. Instead of seeking to dominate and control Earth, humanity needs to respect and protect the environment. In order to survive, an individual requires food, water and clean air. The only way to achieve sustainability is by taking care of the planet which in turn, produces the fruits and gives society the resources it needs to survive. When the agricultural revolution occurred and reached the United States, it helped produce large amounts of food to feed the growing population. Now in the twenty-first century, many agricultural methods have been modified and updated to match the growing demand for food. While it may seem beneficial, many of the modern procedures for food production and distribution across the world have an astronomically negative effect on climatic change. However, simple steps can be taken by consumers and the food industry to dramatically decrease the output
This current trend of population growth is a substantial threat to the non-renewable water and arable land that is essential to human survival. As our numbers increase, the rate of resource consumption becomes disproportionate to the degree of availability and replenishment. Although human survival is dependent...
The human population growth rate is an alarming issue that brings with it irreversible consequences, that will likely effect the way of life for future generations to come. With the serious incline in population statistics comes catastrophic processes such as global warming and deforestation that have major ‘knock on’ ramifications. It’s issues such as these that need to be considered when we think about the growth of the human population, and we must take into account why these issues are occurring. We must also explore the options available to us that may assist in limiting the problems, or eliminating them all together, to provide a better place, not only for us in existence now, but also those who will walk this earth in the future decades and centuries to come.
Agriculture makes a diverse contribution to the economy across the world and plays a crucial role in the life of an economy. Agriculture is an industry that has been associated with the production of essential food and crops for decades. Despite a very significant growth in food production over the past half-century, one of the most significant challenges facing society today is how to feed an expected population of over nine billion people by the year 2050. The industry employs more than one billion people and produces $1.3 trillion dollars’ worth of food annually (Sustainable Agriculture, 2017). It is considered to be the backbone of our economic system. Agriculture is a consistent source
Humans have become a threat to our own way of life by consuming more resources than needed, blind to the consequences that we may face in the future. As of 2016 the world population is at 7.4 billion and it is estimated to be at 11.2 billion by the year 2100. However 10 billion is the maximum population that can be sustained in terms of food security, only one of the many factors to global sustainability. Due to the fact that human consumption exceeds the amount of resources available, the United Nations “recognizes that eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge” in A/RES/70/1. Sustainable development is not only required to fulfill the necessities of the present but to guarantee the capability for future generations to satisfy theirs.
There has been a major shift from a production to a consumption based society in the western world today. Consumption has a very strong presence and can be a means by which people create their identity. Today people can consume without leaving home and can be influenced to purchase by turning on their televisions or walking down the street and being surrounded by advertising. Below, I will outline some possible reasons for this shift and discuss the dangers of people creating identities through consumption.
The problem of water scarcity has increasingly spread throughout the world as of yet, The UN reports that within the next half- century up to 7 billion people in 60 countries which is more than the whole present population will face water scarcity (Sawin “Water Scarcity could Overwhelm the Next Generation”). As well the demand for freshwater has tripled over the past 50 years, and is continuing to rise as a result of population growth and economic development. 70% of this demand derives from agriculture which shows the influence of water on food supply globally as well not just drinking water (Sawin “Water Scarcity could overwhelm the Next Generation”). But increasing water use is not just a matter of the greater number of people needing it to drink and eat; it also comes from pollution and misuse of water supplies, by either dumping or runoff of bacteria or chemicals into water. This also “causes other pollutions as well such as soil and air pollution, accelerating wetland damage and human caused global warming” (Smith and Thomassey 25). According to UN report, recent estimates suggest that climate change will account for about 20 percent of the increase in global water scarcity in coming decades.
Imagine a world with almost ten billion people, thirty percent more than the population of today, the rising standard of living in developing nations causing the global demand for food resources to skyrocket. Now, at the same time, imagine a world that has almost no way to support a population of this size. In fact, this world is slowly losing its ability to support life at all. This scenario is not a pitch for a novel set in a dystopian future, nor is it a prediction made for a time so far in the future that it can be easily ignored. This prediction will most likely come to be within the lifetimes of many alive today, researchers in the ecological field believe that this will become the reality even within the next thirty-five years if significant
One of the most complex issues in the world today concerns human population. The number of people living off the earth’s resources and stressing its ecosystem has doubled in just forty years. In 1960 there were 3 billion of us; today there are 6 billion. We have no idea what maximum number of people the earth will support. Therefore, the very first question that comes into people’s mind is that are there enough food for all of us in the future? There is no answer for that. Food shortage has become a serious problem among many countries around the world. There are many different reasons why people are starving all over the world. The lack of economic justice and water shortages are just merely two examples out of them all.