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effect of over population on our environment
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The Issue of Overpopulation in Developing Countries
Overpopulation is a circumstance where the amount of existing human population outweighs the natural resources that people indisputably need to survive. Unfortunately, many developing countries are presently dealing with the issue of overpopulation and are in desperate need of finding resolutions because of the dire consequences that it may lead to. Population growth is increasing at an alarming rate and this high population density will lead to a reduction of natural resources, impoverished areas, food shortages, lower life expectancy, high mortality rates, susceptibility to disease, habitat loss, and so on. David Suzuki suggests that the ideal way to tackle this issue is to “learn from
That it is not a question of whether or not the countries are being overpopulated, but that developed countries are consuming the most of the world’s resources and that this is why environmental destruction and resource depletion is ensuing. David argues that to solve this issue we must, “reduce waste and consumption, find cleaner energy sources, and support other countries in finding ways to develop that are more sustainable than the ways we've employed.” Personally, I agree with David on his opinions about population growth. I feel that we are so privileged in North America that we have became numb to the thought of many people suffering from starvation and poor living standards. Many of us take for granted the products and resources we are able to utilize and consume on a daily basis. Individuals might think just because it’s happening on the other side of the planet it should not be a concerning issue for them, but it is happening and we just can’t let so many people on the planet undergo these adversities while we, the fortunate few, pretend that it’s not taking place and continue on our lives as if nothing’s happening. It’s not as easy as it sounds though, and I know you’re asking yourself, “What can I do to help?” and “what can I possibly do that will change the lives in developing countries?” The solution to this problem is not the task of one person
There needs to be limitations in these lesser developed countries, birth rates undoubtedly need to be lowered because the amount of births are not possible for the space and living standards that these countries have to offer. When you have to live on $1/$2 a day it’s hard to make a living and support yourself let alone a family. No one could ever live a decent life with that sort of income, it’s asinine. This leads to income inequality, when the wealth in a country is inadequately distributed amongst its citizens. “Overpopulation” wouldn’t be an issue if people didn’t live in poverty; if individuals were able to get a standard education, access to fresh water, adequate nutrition, suitable shelter and incomes this would not be an issue. It’s frustrating to think that many people—more than three billion—are not able to have the privileges we so easily overlook everyday. This overpopulation issue can only lead to negative outcomes such as lower life expectancies, increasing complications to supply resources (water, food, energy, housing), increases in infectious diseases, etc. By 2050 the population will have surpassed 9 billion and more and more individuals will have to deal with the overpopulation issue and many more people will have to suffer because of it. Food production is not evenly distributed globally so developing countries are increasing
Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” is an article that identifies the nation’s current problems and predicaments that can’t be resolved through the use of technical solutions. Hardin’s work heavily focuses on overpopulation, a prominent and unceasing issue that significantly distorts and affects the stability of the Earth and the abundance of the planet’s resources. In his article, he mentioned some reasonable and important solutions to overpopulation, but he also explained its downside and how the said solutions may not be ideal and practical. “Tragedy of the Commons” revealed that the human population will continue to flourish and how it will be greatly detrimental to our society unless individuals get the education that they need and
A growing population can mean two very different things for a developing nation versus an already developed nation. For example, in developing nations many people live off of less than a dollar a day, with multiple mouths to feed, clothe, and shelter, poverty remains a large looming reality for many people living within underdeveloped nations. Sernau explains these realities, “One billion of the world’s people are in abject poverty, earning less than the equivalent of a dollar a day (see Collier 2007, The Bottom Billion). The United Nations places this group in the category of “extreme poverty.” Another billion earn less than $2 a day, enough to escape starvation but not enough to move out of poverty” (Sernau 21). However, population rates continue to grow throughout developing nations while these same rates continue to drop within already developed nations. Meaning that
With Australia’s population rapidly nearing 23.5 million people, the issue of sustainability and the number of people Australia can allow to live comfortably without significant damage to the surrounding environment is extremely important. The misconception that Australia is underpopulated with plenty of room to accommodate the worlds rising population is widespread. With the majority of Australian land being arid and inhospitable, finding available land and resources to accommodate a rising population is placing a huge amount of pressure on the Australian environment. Australia’s population growth consists of two main components; births minus deaths and net migration. While Australia’s birth rate sits at 1.9, lower than the 2.1 needed to replace our aging population, our expanding population comes from overseas migration accounting for around 60 per cent of our growth (Department of Immigration and Border Protection). Currently the total migration rate is set at 210,000 people per year making Australia’s population quickly on the rise. This poses an important discussion regarding the impacts of such a rise and if there is a specific number that constitutes a sustainable Australia regarding population. The issues that may come to pass as a result of overpopulation are great and varied. These include and are not limited to; resource shortages, social conflict, overcrowding, pollution, habitat and biodiversity loss and a lowering in national health standards. The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has put forward arguments opposing a rising population due to the predicted environmental damage we would face as an outcome. A few of the main problems associated with an unconstrained population are outlined in this essay.
Ellis states that the overpopulation of humans is not a problem for the planet. Dissimilar to bacteria in a petri dish, the rapid increase of the humankind population does not propose dreadful outcomes or come to “the limits of a finite planet (Ellis 1).” According to Thomas Malthus’ theory, “population growth tends to outrun the food supply” (qtd. Ellis 1). Moreover, Ellis argues that humans’ systems that support us, such as social and technological require development (2). Additionally, Ellis claims that there is no necessary intention for utilizing supplementary land for maintaining humankind or being famished for environmental purposes (2). In order for the posterity to be satisfied with the Earth, we must limit “our imaginations and our social systems” (Ellis
The developing countries, are the main concerns for overcrowding. 1996 statistics show that 75% of the worlds population live in both Africa (13%) and Asia (63%). The overpopulation in these continents, is so much higher for many different reasons. The main reason being culture. When comparing a continent like Africa, to a continent like North America, there are many different, noticeable, differences. An example of this being the fertility rate. In Africa’s particular culture, having many children equals high fertility rates and this, they believe, is a great blessing from God. Also, here women are not educated, as well as the developed countries, and there is no or very little knowledge of contraceptives.
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...
The past many decades have revealed a dramatically large increase in the global population. For example, the population increased from about 2.5 billion in 1950 to over 7.3 billion in 2015. This huge increase in population resulted in a need for many changes to be made in society. Global population growth is leading to deep changes in the demographics, economies, ecology, health, and governments of the world.
If it weren't for natural disasters, famine, or policies set for limiting birth rate, the present as we know it would be very different. In the beginning of the development of human beings, we probably had a big explosion of a population. Compared to today, it was most likely a narrow population. It is probable that many diseases that we know of today, were not around at that time, so it grew fast enough to keep us from going extinct. Back then, It was very beneficial for us to reproduce, now, on the contrary, it will be why we might go extinct. Due to the world already being considered overpopulated, some policies have been established. According to National Center for Biotechnology Information, between the years of the 1930s and 1970s China had a massive growth of population; specifically, an increase of 500 million people. In 1979 China introduced the One-child-Policy for the reason to keep a stabled economy. As of today, that policy has slowly faded out. This is a big concern to many scientists because it is alarming that the results of the policy are implying that we have insignificant control over overpopulation. Equally important, The Economic and Social Affair stated in the book “World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision”, “by 2100, the world population will reach 11.2 billion.” That being the case, These statistics are agitating and should be concerning everyone.
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.
Individuals can play a role in helping with the fallouts as outlined in the previous paragraphs though. Whether this is volunteering to help clean up a dirtied beach littered with garbage or switching to a water efficient nozzle so less water is wasted when you shower, these are just a few examples of immediate solutions that can make a collective difference. It ultimately won’t help the issue of overpopulation but can help deter the consequences as in the end, the concern revolves around the ability to sustain our world as more bodies are introduced. Keeping in mind that as society grows, the world makes advancements that work as viable solutions that tackle these problems. There just needs to be a mindset of utilizing more efficient measures into our daily lives right now so that we can make a positive difference. Even if it does not solve the issue in the long run, it does influence those around us and pushes the world towards a common goal one step at a time. It was said by Brundtlan (WCED, 1987) that:
Overpopulation is a growing problem all over the world. This is a very important environmental issue and needs to be dealt with. This environmental problem is affecting many countries in the world, but mostly the poor and impoverished countries that don’t have the resources to help deal with these issues. It also affects the environment like plants animal life and air quality. When the population of people expands we need more natural resources from the environment, so we consume more then we can produce. This leads to the lack of resources in many areas. When expanding we create a lot of pollution in the air, water, and land. The pollution affects many humans health. Overpopulation is doing more harm than any other environmental issue. Overpopulation also causes many of the other issues we are dealing with. This is very dangerous to not only us humans but the planet. Even though many wealthy countries are not affected by this overpopulation, I feel like they should help the cause. There is always two sides to an issue like this. Some people don’t think that overpopulation is a big problem and the ones who say it is an issue that needs to be dealt with.
“Mouths multiply more quickly than our ability to feed them- yet we’re still feeding them”, written by the famous English economist Thomas Malthus, describing the rate of population increase and the disregard to the economy and resources correlated with the increase by the world today. Overpopulation is the population of the country in excess of the availability of resources to sustain without hurting the environment. As the population continues to increase, the environmental impact does was well. The general equation used for environmental impact is population × consumption × technology. These three factors provide a large importance to the existing overpopulation and reasoning for lack of action taking place to fix them. Environmental impact is defined as the effect on biodiversity, natural resources and ecosystems. Without these, people around the world would lose the many privileges, opportunities and enjoyment in our world today. Countries around the world contribute to the massive population growth were beginning to experience. Although some nations are larger or denser than others, the world as a whole continues to be in jeopardy. Each country adds or contributes various supplies and resources to the planet, where if one country’s resources expire, it would affect the entire world. The threat of overpopulation involves scarce resources, family size, quality of life and immigration. Overpopulation is a serious problem that will lead to an extremely negative impact on our country and our planet.
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...
...contemporary environmental crisis, we are able to gather a concise understanding of issues that are often hard to explain yet alone understand. Wealth has become a power system evoking dualism of the western and third world. Power and quality of life is measured against the wealth of an individual. This is a result of human’s tendency to over utilize and eventually deplete the resources available to them inevitably leading to overpopulation. In the next fifty years, the success of the environmental movement may depend much more on its ability to change ethics and values. Environmental philosophy gives an invaluable lens into the issues of overpopulation by deconstructing complex dynamics within society. By spreading ideas within environmental philosophy to all different corners of the globe then everyone will have a chance to learn how to live rightly in the world.
... one relating to the distribution of resources between and within countries. First-World, has the ability to provide amount of resources, is rarely considered overpopulated. In this sense, the problem of overpopulation boils down to the problem of poverty as it is to poverty itself. To solve the overpopulation, the first solution is that of overpopulation is indeed a problem, family planning/contraception is only one way of constructing a solution, it is a solution that does not threaten the vested interests of the elite. Another solution is the empowerment of women in Third-World countries because they are forced to bear many babies. However, when she has formal education and jobs outside of home, she becomes financially dependent on her husband and is able to speak her own mind. In this regard, Third-World countries should effort to educate and empower women.