Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How does population growth affect the environment
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: How does population growth affect the environment
Introduction
Human wants, needs, and actions have created large impacts on the Earth’s environment. Although populations have been dependent on natural resources for thousands of years, in the past few decades our consumption of resources has rapidly increased. This has caused the depletion of many important resources like fresh water, as well as the looming possibility of scarcity of widely used non-renewable resources like oil. The planet is experiencing a lack of waste assimilating resources due to over-exploitation, which has further exacerbated climate change issues. Without sustainable resource management, the future for the world’s natural resources and a healthy planet looks grim. This paper will outline both renewable and non-renewable resource depletion, the causes of resource depletion, and the proper resource management necessary to maintain the world’s incredibly important supply of resources.
Natural Resources
Natural resources are the elements of the environment and nature that supply humans with services (Roberts, 2011, p. 7). All resources have value or utility, and can be considered ‘natural capital’ (Elkin, 2013). The services resources provide can be divided into two main groups: economic goods and attributes of nature. Economic goods are resources like oil, gas, metals, forests or minerals, which can be classified as raw materials, as well as flows of energy (Elkin, 2013). These goods are available on the market to be purchased and sold. Typically these types of resources are for human’s wants, although some can be essential for human’s survival. Attributes of nature are different in that they cannot be purchased or sold in the market, but they supply us with something priceless like clean air and water, ...
... middle of paper ...
...urce Depletion: Is Population the Problem? Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine, 64 (8), 13-26.
National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy – NRTEE. (2003). Securing Canada’s Natural Capital: A Vision for Nature Conservation in the 21st Century. Ottawa, ON: National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
Neumayer, E. (2000). SCARCE OR ABUNDANT? THE ECONOMICS OF NATURAL RESOURCE AVALIABILITY. JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, 14 (3), 307-335.
Roberts, J. (2011). Environmental Policy. New York, NY: Routeledge.
Suzuki, D. (2011). Is seven-billion people too many? David Suzuki Foundation. Retrieved from
World Health Organization. (2009). 10 facts about water scarcity. Retrieved from < http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/water/en/index.html>
Generational conflicts, political strife, environmental regulations, stakeholders in big oil, and many more hurdles affect the push to fully sustainable economies around the world and even here in America. In a world where coal, oil, and natural gas are limited, countries are gobbling it all up as fast as they can before other poorer countries come on the grid. Even though America and other countries gobble up these resources the life of the people is still a struggle to meet basic needs. Sustainability is an intermingling of resource use and protection of the “quality of life”, it is met by using resources sparingly and by recycling or reducing the use of other non-renewable resources to provide for our immediate need, but also to conserve and protect the needs of the next generation and to improve the quality of all the lives to come.
Reliance on major non-renewable resources has had, and continues to have detrimental effects on the environment. These resources found in the earth are mined and drilled so that people around the world can benefit from their use. For example, the majority of Americans, and most of the world’s population, uses gasoline to fuel their vehicles in order to commute back and forth from one place to another and gas to heat the homes in which they spend the bulk of their time. With the world’s population consistently growing, the amount of vehicles on the roadways increases therefore causing the amount of fuel being used to increase. The same goes for planes and ships that transport people greater distances, whether it be from Virginia to California, or the United States to China. The carbon emissions released pose a threat to the global climate (“Fossil”). Not only does the emission of fossil fuels hinder earth’s atmosphere, but the availability of the non-renewable resources used daily is also shrinking. Though the United States may not be greatly affected by the environmental dangers, other countries continuously struggle with locating drinkable water, maintaining consistent levels of agricultural produce and...
Wick, K. & Bulte, E. (2006). Contesting Resources - Rent Seeking, Conflict and the Natural Resource Curse. Public Choice, 128, 457–476.
As humans, people have their own free will and mind to make their own decisions. What several people are ignorant in is the fact that the usage of an abundant of necessities is depleting at quicker speeds as the population grows over the years. Due to this fact, the earth and the people living on it has been and will be suffering from the widespread consumption of the natural resources that are crucial for everyday life. As the population increases, the consumption does not decrease and people’s unawareness to the world is destroying the planet they call home. Furthermore, the future becomes grim as society continues to act without changing their ways and living up their name as a “super predator” for themselves. Without the balance necessary for the planet, this is one punishment that humans are now facing in the present and future without worrying that the earth deserves fair treatment. As the population increases, humans are facing an exponential growth relating to the consumption rate as the earth deteriorates from the unsustainable lifestyle of
Humans are living a comfortable and easy life. Most of the wants of humans are becoming needs. This is because humans have begun to rely too heavily on technological advancement. Most of the technology needs natural resources to work properly. Most of these resources are being used in different ways and after usage they are useless. Every year, billions of dollars are spent on resources. Every resource is not available everywhere. Depending on the quantity and demand of resource price are set to keep them in balance. Some of useless resource can recycle, but recycling costs more than landfilling. While exhausting natural resources remain a thorny issue, efforts are being made to address environmental concerns constructively.
Our ecosystem provides free services like water supply, waste treatment and detoxification, water purification, natural hazard protection, regulation of air quality, regulation of regional and local climate, regulation of erosion, spiritual fulfillment, and aesthetic enjoyment. We live off of these services and often use them at a rate too high for replenishing. The usage of fisheries and fresh water has reached a stage that surpasses sustainability. Fisheries are being overharvested to meet the demands of the growing population and we’re overdrafting the groundwater supplies. The main idea is that if we continue to use our resources at such high rates, soon we will have nothing left for future generations.
1998-1999 World Resources: A Guide to the Global Environment. Environmental Change and Human Health. A Joint Publication by the World Resources Institute, the World Bank, the United Nations Environmental Programme, and the United Nations Development Programme. Oxford University Press, New York, NY 1998.
Every day when looking out a window, people see a beautiful earth. The earth is intriguing, but hinges on a delicate balance. Many natural resources keep the grass green and the sky blue. Man has made quite an impression on our world, and has transformed the earth's resources into tools to make life easy. However, mans' manipulation on earth has become detrimental to the health of our planet and the safety of mankind. Through the use and production of resources such as oil and energy, man is gradually poisoning the earth. Pollution has become such a dilemma in society; there is no real control or a feasible solution to society's recklessness. Without complete change, our system will collapse. The earth will eventually retaliate with disaster, or corporate control of our economy will cause hysteria and depression. Evaluation of the consequences and repercussion of worldwide pollution, may give people a better idea of what the future holds.
Tietenberg, Thomas. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Addison Wesley: New York, 2003. pp. 561. ISBN 0-201-77027-X, pp. 7-11.
Political ecology also involves conflicts between people and institutions over resources, in both developed world and developing world contexts. The use of natural resources and the creation of a sustainable environment is a critical issue that must be observed from different perspectives. Does it permit sustainable resources? Is it a threat to local security? How is income distributed through societies, both gender and location wise? Who decides how these are to be classified? These are key problems in political ecology.
* Daily, Gretchen C., ed. Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997.
From the beginning of time, the earth has provided its inhabitants with everything needed to sustain life at its most basic level. For instance, the ratio of land to fresh water as well as Earth’s natural cycles provided enough resources for animals to survive. Unfortunately, as the human population grew, the previously abundant natural resources started to become limited. In fact, engineers have recently been tasked with discovering new methods of harnessing energy, harvesting food, and collecting fresh water because the population is quickly depleting traditional techniques. Not only is the sheer number of people on Earth using up all of its natural resources, but humans’ modern desires are furthering the destruction of Earth. In developed
70% of this demand derives from agriculture which shows the influence of water on food supply globally as well as 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 a UN report, recent estimates suggest that climate change will account for about 20 percent of the increase in global water scarcity in coming decades. One of the main causes of water scarcity is water mismanagement worldwide.
Global heating and cooling has occurred on a cycle for millennia, however in the past thirty years the increased use of energy and fuels by humans has drastically changed this natural occurrence (Juerg, 2007). The largest cause of this warming is the release of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels are twenty-five percent higher than they were in 1957 (UCS, 2013). This seemingly insignificant change has caused a myriad of negative effects. The endangerment of species, rising of sea levels, and increased natural disasters are just a few examples of change brought about by global warming (Juerg, 2007). Even though global climate change presents a massive problem there are many proposed solutions to fix or delay it. These theories range from creating a giant sun shield in space to the simple practice of “reduce, reuse, and recycle” (Gray, 2009). However the most effective solution is to find different sources of fuel to power our day to day lives. The earth is in need of renewable, effective, and long lasting fuels. Global warming can be slowed through the use of renewable energy as it is versatile, clean, a good investment, and can easily be put into place in several different climates and environments.
Currently, the world population shows no signs of slowing and with that the demand for resources is growing as well. As these two components strain society, the urgency and need for sustainability becomes more and more important. In the near future, environmentalists hope that humans will collectively take responsibility for the harm human activities have inflicted on Earth so that the aspects of sustainability- the principles, major components, and topics of concern come to the forefront of discussion for global action before it is too late.