Overpopulation as a Major Crisis in the 21st Century - Coursework Example

"Overpopulation has become a major crisis in the 21st century and has negative effects on our quality of life, the environment and necessary finitenatural resources." Title page .1 Table of contents...2 Introduction a. Impacts of Overpopulation....4 b. Possible Solution for Overpopulation....5 Conclusion ..6 Bibliography . 7 I-Introduction The overpopulation is one of the major problems in the world. Of all issues effecting the environment overpopulation is the most controversial. The serious implications of an overpopulated world is obvious. Accompanied by increasing effects and disadvantages that really affects the quality of life of many people. Event though, many researches have been done to solve this problem but still human population is gradually increasing. In this research the cause and effect of overpopulation is discuss and solution that can be done to solve this kind of problem. The human population has increased gradually throughout most of human history. The most rapid population growth has occurred during the past 300 years. Overpopulated countries like Africa, Asia & America increases its crime, epidemics and workforces. Overpopulation can be defined in several ways. One way is in terms in carrying capacity. Other way to define overpopulation is in terms critical factors. Critical impacts such as malnutrition, lack of food supply, unemployment, lack of education, destruction of ecosystem, poverty, lack of housing & uncontrollable diseases indicate that there is overpopulation, regardless of the carrying capacity of ecosystem. The third way is population size and resource use to their environmental consequences (Addison,1994). The world is over populated if the environment is damaged by factors like pollution and habitat destruction on large scale. A. Impacts of Overpopulation A. Lack of Food Supply "One cause that affect the amount of food produced is because the amount of land available for growing crops".(Persell, 1990). Due to overpopulation the supply for food is affected. For example in a irrigation area, extensive irrigation may deplete underground water supply more rapidly than they replenish. In the long run, overusing those areas may cause them to dry up and also become unfit for farming. And because of this it does not seem to offer an easy solution to the problems of world food production. . Food is not the only resource that determines carrying capacity in the ecosystem. (Manongdo,2003). B. Housing Problems "Inadequate housing is not just one of a lack of housing, it also a problem of unaffordable housing."(Kerbo,1989). Due to overpopulation, many people are homeless. According to (Newsweek, March 23,1981) 30,000 people were homeless in LA in 1984. During the high employment many people were seen sleeping in the street because they can't afford to buy homes. C. Human Behavior Human behavior of overpopulated area believed that is harmful to humans. The extensive daily contact with strangers, due to overcrowding can affect the behavior of a human. According to (Kerbo,1989) "The lack of strong social - were believed to cause many problems such as mental, illness and crime". With this kind of environment certainly has a higher crime rate but seems due to the often found poverty and many children without adequate support. D. Lack on water supply because freshwater have been polluted and there's inadequate water treatment facilities. Overpopulated country suffers from different diseases such as tuberculosis, parasites diseases and leprosy. And almost 75% of this came from the water that they are using. Commonly polluted water causes death to thousands of children all over the world. Diseases contribute to poor heath conditions in many parts of the world. Diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis are becoming common again, even though effective medical treatments once made them rare. E. Destruction of nature. Because of this problem many people especially children will be malnourished because of lack of resources or supply but decrease in demand that can cause famine. Overpopulation growth directly affects the global ecosystem. The destruction of land and overused of natural resources is the cause of over population. Meaning, our ecosystem is under strain. F. Unemployment. This problem is of grave concern because of the poverty that afflicts the people, High rate of unemployment is caused by burgeoning population. With the rapid growth population there will be a need for opening more jobs to check unemployment problem but which can hardly be done because some industrialists prefer to machines rather than manpower. . . Fig. a. illus. World Population In this figure shows the increasing population continuously up to 20th century and possible to the coming years. Overpopulated areas places a greater demand on all resources, both renewable and nonrenewable. The concern over the exploding population has become close to alarm. B. Possible Solution for Overpopulation The only way to resolve rate of population growth is by conscious control of reproduction. The key then to controlling population growth is reducing fertility. "There are those who predict that in the future, there may be suggestions for mass sterilization or genocide to reduce the earth's population". (Sanchez , 1979) a . Family planning One key to reduce this problem is family planning. The aim of this method is to promote healthy, happy families to meet the possible enjoyment of family life for both parents and children. They can be solved through proper knowledge about sex, family planning, and being responsible person. The effects of the aging population can be exaggerated but increase in foreign aid for the family planning program especially to countries who are poor and lack of resources must enhance proper knowledge in population growth. b. Population Planning Activities. The government plays a very important role to reduce or control population growth by means of establishing national state population policies.(Ordinario,2003) The school should also teach the students about population education, teach a better sexuality education for students, media should have the coverage about overpopulation. The government must provide a full contraceptive availability for all parents in the world, there must have a greater reproductive responsibility, and the limit of teenage pregnancies. II. Conclusion Overpopulation resulted risks and challenges to people as well. If every country could make a commitment to stabilize population growth and conserves our resources, the world would be a better place to live in and would be able to meet challenges. Practicing sustainable development requires effective natural resource management as it less the pollution and slower the population growth. As population and demand for natural resources continues to grow environmental limits will increasingly apparent. The government can help their people as well. Their local staff must educate the people how family planning is and the advantage of this not only for the world but also to the next generation. This would help them and other people in the world to escape from worldwide poverty, lack of education, not to suffer from pollution, crimes and lots of diseases. The people as well they should be more responsible in all the things they are doing. Couples must be most responsible to gain more ideas what family planning is all about. They should be more informative and open to all information that comes their way so that this problem can be solved. Bibliography: Books Agpaon F. (1979). Contemporary Social Problem Issues: Population Growth: Textbook Addison, P. (1994). Biology: Overpopulation.USA: Textbook Eesenfeld B. (1995). Population Growth. New York: Sociology Book Hansen, P. (1974). The Study of Organization. New York: Social Science Book Newspapers Ordinario U C. (2003, December 3). High population growth problem or a resource. Manila Times. pE5. Ehrenstein C. (2001, May 4). World population. Inquirer.pA10. Manongdo F. J. (2003, September 9). Population explosion due to sexual behavior. Manila Times. B12. Persell C. (1990). Understanding Society. Inquirer. p. 6. Sanchez, C. (1979, December 17). Social Problems and Issues. Manila Times. P.12 Website http://www.crunchtime.org/EducationConservation/EnviromentalIssues/Overpopulation.aspx Read More