Impacts of Population Growth

In more recent discoveries it has become clear to many researches that there is a global problem growing within our day to day lives. The population growth of humans has been increasing at an alarming rate going from under five-hundred million in 1050 with estimates exceeding 9.8 billion in 2050.  According to George Morris, Overpopulation can be described as exceeding the amount of people in which the earth can sustain comfort, health, and happiness without destroying opportunity for the generations to come “when there are more people than can live on the earth in comfort, happiness, and health and still leave the world a fit place for future generations.”. This sustainability is slowly becoming an issue for the foreseeable future due to the amount of pollution caused by the current population of 7.7 billion. The spike in the human population leads to other issues, for example, how to provide for the population. Housing, Food, creature comforts, etc. all require land for resource gathering and building of new architecture and industrialization. This gets in the way of the other living things here on earth such as wild creatures and plant species. The leading cause of extinction in most of the world is habitat degradation, “Habitat loss and degradation affect 86% of all threatened birds, 86% of mammals and 88% of threatened amphibians” This is caused mostly by the steadily growing human population planned to hit numbers double current in less than one hundred years.

The one child policy was a program created by the Chinese government to attempt to combat the population influx of the new generations. “The one-child policy was a program that was implemented nationwide by the Chinese government in 1980 in order to limit most Chinese families to one child each. The policy was enacted to address the growth rate of China’s population, which the government viewed as being too high.”. The idea behind the one-child policy was that by limiting the number of children a family could have it would “bottleneck” the population into a more controllable number in the future. If the policy worked successfully it would benefit the future of the global ecosystem due to the slowed progress of the human population. A slower population growth would allow the wildlife and natural ecosystems to flourish. The one-child policy lowered fertility and birth rates of the national population after it was put into action. Now that the policy is no longer being enforced the population is stagnant due to the male to female ratio, however, when the population starts to hit alarming rates yet again the pollution caused by the humans will leave the ecosystem surrounding them in disarray. The one-child policy would have been a solid plan if it was also illegal to favor one gender over the other and it was international instead of nationwide. Slowing the population growth in one area of the world doesn’t benefit the entire earth’s ecosystem.

If a clear depiction of the affects Overpopulation has on our global ecosystem is in need, an article by Doris Lin will give you some answers. Bringing reference to Easter Island as an example of what can happen when a society consumes more than is provided by the land. Solutions to the issue at hand are offered such as less consumption of the natural resources and choosing more wisely where in fact we gather what is necessary, focusing on the fact that the solution should not violate human rights either. This article gives a good solid idea of how humans can better the situation in our favor while benefiting the rest of our ecosystem. Simply put contraceptives and education are the two most important things.

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A Washington Post article by Frances Kissling, Jotham Musinguzi and Peter Singer mentions why the topic of our rapidly increasing global society is taboo to speak about, and why there is not much media coverage on the subject. A solution brought up by Paul Ehrlich, a biologist, suggested the idea of a “Population Bomb” which would cut the aid of resources to less better off countries and let the population die off. The idea of this was greeted to a few mixed responses. Although the support for the concept was there, there was much more support for the people who it would impact, this meant the idea was ruled out and focus on contraceptives was found to be more important. There is a theme in most cases for how exactly humans handle the thought of slowing down “progression”.

India is one of the leading countries in population growth and their numbers are expected to increase if measures are not taken. An article written by Vinay Lohar on the website International Policy Digest goes over how exactly the population of India is setup for failure and why the global population is booming. Advancements in medicinal care have allowed once natural deaths to be stopped by human creation, giving more chances at living and in turn leaving more chance for reproduction. This makes sense until the population can’t sustain itself, you can’t simply get rid of the medicinal care once offered. International policies would have to be put into place and that will not happen due to a lot of countries being ran by the wealthy. According to Vinay Lohar, out of 57 billionaires, they collectively own 70% of Indias wealth leaving everybody else poverty ridden. Intervention with force is the only realistic way of taking action on the matter of medicinal hindrance.

The recent discoveries have showed that the Human population is growing rapidly. The population issue not only affects the comfortable lives of humans but also ruins our global ecosystem around us in which we take for granted. The lack of knowledge most people have on the subject is alarming to say the least and with the amount of digging needed to get any good articles it is a genuine shock that it isn’t seen as a big concern. Thanks to medicinal advancements, lack of contraceptives, and knowledge, the population growth is growing and shall continue to grow until people become self-aware and want to make a change. If the masses do not want to change government force will most likely have to take place as this violates the comforts of our societies however, it benefits the fate of our ecosystem.

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•  https://populationmatters.org/biodiversity – Effect on plants and animals
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12281798 – George Morris Quote
• https://people.uwec.edu/jolhm/eh4/extinction/causeslink.html – Habitat Degradation
• https://www.britannica.com/story/the-effects-of-chinas-one-child-policy – One Child LAW

• Article 1 – Contraceptives
• https://www.thoughtco.com/effects-of-human-overpopulation-127867

• Article 2 – Draconian future
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/talking-about-overpopulation-is-still-taboo-that-has-to-change/2018/06/18/ca7c1838-6e6f-11e8-afd5-778aca903bbe_story.html?noredirect=on

• Article 3 – Medicinal Care
• https://intpolicydigest.org/2017/06/19/impact-of-overpopulation-on-india-s-growth/