How will our continuously growing population affect our way of life, our planet, our environment? No matter how you look at it, we have a big problem
At the rate we’re going, we are already using up the available resources of 1 ½ Earths, even though this planet is all we have at the moment. Unless we can find another Earth where we can move half of our 7 billion population, it’s very obvious that we are using up our finite supply of resources. The effect of growing population will be an increased demand for resources and space. Both of which we are running out of. The Earth just can’t keep up with us and our habit of wastage is not helping.
Some scientists believe that our advances in Science will help augment the demands of a growing population. They don’t believe that further population growth should be a cause of concern.
By year 2025, we should be reaching a population between 8 to 10 billion. By year 2100, we will need 3 Earths to continue living the way we do. Where do we find the other 2 Earths?
Is the concern real? That’s up to you to decide. The evidence is everywhere.
It’s worthy to note that most of the projection for population growth in this century will happen in developing nations - nations that are having difficulties coping with their current population and struggling with their economies. They have poor sanitation, illiteracy, wars, poverty, dwindling natural resources, poor waste management and so on.
These countries have more pressing problems and they devote less time, budget and energy to addressing environmental issues – unlike the more developed countries. How will they cope if their population doubles? If you do the math, there will be a very big deficit.
More: Earth Population Counter
One good model of over population is India. How has their growing population affected the country?
Now multiply this problem a dozen fold and we can see how it’s going to have a global effect. It will put pressure on economies and even halt whatever progress the country has managed to achieve.
However, rate of growth should not be the only measurement of overpopulation. Density of population should also be considered. As an example, there are many countries in Africa whose growth rate is higher than India. However, they are not considered overpopulated since their density is less than 100 per square kilometer as compared to India’s 324.
Future population growth can only result to further degradation of our environment. It’s going to take some time before our efforts to correct our mistakes will have an effect. Not mentioned here are the effects of global warming, which will surely worsen due to the increased carbon footprint.
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