Angie
Fernandez
November
3, 2015
Human
Overpopulation
Some
people’s priority is to make money and have high standards of living while other
people worry about getting to live past adulthood and being able to survive the
daily living. One current major problem that humanity experiences these days is
overpopulation. If optimum world population is two billion (Daily et al. 1994)
then we have a significant issue of 7.3 billion people right now, and according
to the United States Census Bureau in only sixty five years the world
population should be expecting even more billions of people. Countries with the most population like
China and India have developed policies or campaigns in an attempt to lower
their birth rates, China successfully implemented this strategy that couples
could only have one child and throughout the years we can see how the older
generations dominates over young ones. Even
though birth rate is lower, population keeps on increasing thanks to the
advances in medicine death rates are lower than birth rates.
People
do worry about overpopulation because the more people we have the harder it is
to sustain our planet, more people need to eat, more people need to consume
electricity, more people need to use water and land, and more people produce
waste. We already see the problems that come with high human population, out of
seven billion people we have in our planet today 3.3 billion live in poverty
conditions struggling in meeting their basic needs and only earning two dollars
or less per day (Berg et al. 2011).
I
do think that many countries and not only United States should implement
strategies to control population, of course it will be difficult and unfair to
the people that are used to live with a certain level of freedom if they aren’t
allowed to conceive as many times as they want, because of this the government
plan should be to educate their citizens starting with the young community. People
should learn about the problems that come with overpopulation, and also
everyone should learn about their ways of living and their ecological
footprint. People in developed countries such as the U.S. consume a lot more
resources than people in less developed countries and this is because society
is in the cycle that the more money you earn the more you spend and consume. One
child raised in a developed country has more environmental impact than twenty
children in a developing nation (Berg et al. 2011).
The
problem with the planet carrying capacity and overpopulation isn’t just a
problem emphasizing the large population we have, but it also implicates how
large masses of people live their life, utilization of sources and distribution
of these (Ip D. 1997).
Educating
our community not only about reproduction but also about ways of recycling,
waste, and wise usage of our resources could make a positive impact in our
planet. Developed countries represent about twenty percent of the world
population, but ironically these developed nations are also responsible for
seventy five percent of world’s pollution and waste and consume more than half
of word’s resources.
I
do think the U.S. should spend time on campaigns trying to educate their
citizens about all these facts and maybe population growth can slow down even
more and people can be more mindful about our planet.
Literature
Cited
Berg L, Hager M, Hassenzahl D. 2011.
Visualasing Environmental Science.4rd ed. Hoboken (NJ): John Wiley & Sons,
Inc. 492 p.
Ip D. 1997. Full House: Reassessing the
world’s population carrying capacity. Sustainable Development. 5(2):99-99
Wostl RL, Walsh MJ. 2015. Biology 1442:
evolution and ecology laboratory manual. Laboratory 8: Human population
demographics and impacts. Version 2015.06.FA15. University of Texas at
Arlington. P 83-95.
