The Importance Of Population Growth

As of July 2015, the Earth is home to 7.3 human beings. And even with high death rates of those who live in poverty, the world’s population is expected to increase to 11.2 billion by the time 2100 rolls around (Quick Facts…). This rapid increase has put us in a predicament; we are left to answer questions about our home’s ability to sustain itself as a home for our future generations. Studying population growth in accordance with climate change and human health is an important aspect of understanding how to best intervene in this situation. While that may have seen straight forward, the idea of “more people, more problems” is naïve at its core. It fails to recognize that complications arise when population is couples with issues such as agriculture,

With the increasing industrialization of our planet, pollutants such as greenhouse gases emitted from cars, motorcycles, coal-fired power plants, and fossil fuels continue to be a prominent problem. The destructive nature of these contaminants not only causes significant changes to current climate but also how future climates are. Critics may argue that as population grows, so does the amount of people who are directly affecting the amount of contaminants produced. But upon closer examination, this is not the case as distinct areas of the world play a different role in how much harm they cause. For example, the United States emits over six times the amount of the global average of carbon dioxide per capita. While the U.S. maintains the highest level of pollutants emitted, it does not maintain a similarly high death toll. That honor is bestowed upon the third-world countries of Africa. This lopsidedness highlights the responsibility countries like the United States have to keep our planet safe. But whose responsibility is it exactly? The polluter? The beneficiary? These questions are sometimes uncomfortable to wrestle with, but making sense of these questions is the first step to fixing the problem. Countless migrations occur every year due to the effects of climate change. Individuals are often inflicted with circumstances like drought, deforestation, and natural disasters in general. These events affect population migration which in turn affects the growth of a population