Overpopulation Is Not An Issue
Yes, the population is rapidly growing, but it does not mean that overpopulation is a problem. In 1804 the world population hit the one billion mark. 208 years later the population hit the seven billion mark in March of 2012. Since then the population has increased to 7,615,970,482 people, which is the current population today. For this large population number I can see why people may be worried, but when you look at all the resources to have, there’s nothing to worry about. Overpopulation describes a situation where the number of people exhausts the resources in a closed environment. Such that it can no longer support the population. The population can always be supported, just as long as we know how to distribute all of our resources properly.
There is an article called “Population Growth Is Still The Biggest Problem Facing Humanity” written by Gary Peters. In this article he states “resource limits and environmental degradation are becoming more apparent every day”. This statement has been proven false from studies done by the UN. In these studies it has been shown that our resources have been growing with the population. IN the past 10 years our food productions have even passed the population growth rate. This means that we have plenty of food for everyone. People are starving because we aren’t distributing the food properly. All the worlds nearly 1 billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than ¼ of the food that is wasted in the US, UK, and Europe. With 1 billion people in the world malnourished, others are afraid that they will be next with the growing population. I agree that we had many people who are malnourished, but that’s not from our growing population. It has been proven that we have enough food for our entire population. We are just not distributing that food properly. Peters also says “We can no longer wait for increasing wealth to bring down fertility in remaining high fertility nations; we need policies and incentives to stop growth now.” China already created the 1 child policy and it was shown to have many negative effects. Some effects include the sex ratio, female infanticide , and many more. The ratio between male and female children drastically changed. Many families wanted boys so that they could keep the family name, so when they did have girls, many of the women would have an abortion until they conceived a boy. Looking at the Google Public Data Explorer we can see that fertility rates have naturally gone down already. They have been decreasing because the need for multiple children is gone. Until the 1980;s fertility rates were very high, this was due to 1/5 children dying. The mothers would have more children in-case one of them did die, there would still be other children.
There are many worries about land space in the world. People are worried that there is not enough land to hold our growing population. With research done by the United Nations Populations Fund (UNPF) it has been known that there is approximately 7,600,000,000 people on earth. The landmass of Texas is 268,820 square miles (7,494,271,488,000 square feet). If we divide 7,494,271,488,000 square feet by 7,600,000,000 people, we get around 986 square feet per person. This is enough space for everyone on earth to live in a townhouse while altogether fitting on a landmass the size of Texas. With this information we are not even accounting for the average four-person family who would most likely share a home. The condition of overpopulation only exists in cities, not rural areas. With a promise for jobs and prosperity more people are drawn to the city. Poor air and water quality, insufficient water availability, waste-disposal problems, and high-energy consumption are exacerbated by the increasing population density and demands of urban environments. It is understandable that many places are inhabitable, but there are so many places that have a less dense population that are suitable for living. Many places in Canada and the UK have low populations yet they have resources available to allow more people to come.
Singapore is a great example of a country with a high population growth rate that is able to support the population. Singapore has a 1.3% growth rate which lands it in the top 40 countries with the highest population growth rate. Singapore is a developing country that has the resources it needs to support the population. It has been said that Singapore’s economy is at a high right now because of the bigger population. The thing we don’t realize is the good that can come with having a larger population. With more people it means that there are more opportunities and ideas. Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, suggested that in an overpopulated world we would have “a dozen Beatles and a few Shakespeares” at any given time. Julien Simon who is an optimist on population growth says, “Resources come out of people’s minds more than out of the ground or air,” he says. “Minds matter economically as much as or more than hands or mouths. Human beings create more than they use, on average. It had to be so, or we would be an extinct species.” This means that with more people on this earth there are so many new possibilities. Humans were made to create, and these ideas can lead to something wonderful. Who knows, maybe in 30 years somebody will come up with a cure for cancer. If we had a child policy like China did in order to maintain the population then it might not happen.
In conclusion, overpopulation is not a problem. We have enough resources to contradict the growing population. The problems that we are facing today are a huge concern, but they are not formed because of overpopulation. The problems we are facing are caused by not being able to distribute out resources properly. Now these problems we are facing are not easy to fix, but with some time, effort, and dedication we have towards helping others, and out planet, they are possible. Looking back at our history, our population has always been growing. With the population growing our world have never been overpopulated, some cities may be, but the world has never been. The definition of overpopulation states that the number of people needs to exhaust the resources, and that has never happened. People are scared of the world now, and in the future being overpopulated, but what they don’t realize is that Earth has yet to become overpopulated.
Citations:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html (The New York Times)
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/urban-threats/ (National Geographic)
http://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/why-should-it-be-a-bad-thing-why-overpopulation-isnt-a-crisis-at-all (Scotty Hendricks)
https://www.google.ca/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&ctype=b&strail=false&nselm=s&met_x=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_x=lin&ind_x=false&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&met_s=sp_pop_totl&scale_s=lin&ind_s=false&dimp_c=country%3Aregion&ifdim=country&iconSize=0.5&uniSize=0.035#!ctype=b&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=s&met_x=sp_dyn_le00_in&scale_x=lin&ind_x=false&met_y=sp_dyn_tfrt_in&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&met_s=sp_pop_totl&scale_s=lin&ind_s=false&dimp_c=country:region&ifdim=country&pit=1429340400000&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false (Google Public Data Explorer)
https://www.pop.org/debunking-the-myth-of-overpopulation/ (World population)
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ (World Population Clock)
http://www.businessinsider.com/population-growth-must-stop-2010-7 (Gary Peter)