Industrial Revolution: The Effects Of Overpopulation

Before the industrial revolution, the number of people on Earth had been stuck at several hundred million for centuries. By the early 19th century, the industrial revolution was in full swing and the global population had reached one billion people. It took a little more than a hundred years for the population to double to two billion people and less than fifty years for it to double again to four billion people [1]. Today, the global human population sits at around 7.4 billion people [2]. These numbers are phenomenal and without parallel in human history.

Experts worldwide are warning that the current global population has exceeded Earth’s carrying capacity, and that current population growth trends are already leading to overpopulation. According to these experts, the effects of overpopulation could exacerbate poverty, unemployment, urban sprawl and lead to serious food and water shortages. As well as stating his position, this author will briefly explore these claims.

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Although most of the world’s people live in developing countries, it is the small percentage of them living in developed countries that play the biggest role in the resource problem. Earth’s carrying capacity could be in the hundreds of billions if we use our fair share. However, it could be as low as two billion people is we all live on many times what we need. In fact, the documentary points out that while the average person in Africa and India subsists on a fraction of their fair share of Earth’s resources, the average European consumes more than twice their fair share, with the average American consuming more than four times their fair share. Measures need to be taken at a global level to limit production of food, materials, and resources to what is actually needed. To facilitate this, there must also be fair