The Human Population Explosion on a Finite Planet - Essay Example

 The Human Population Explosion on a Finite Planet Introduction In the year 1798, one Thomas Malthus, a British economist published a long essay in which he echoed a valid criticism for the Utopians who held to the belief that the earth would eventually improve. His reasoning was simple and straight, “human beings increase, exponentially while food supply increase, arithmetically something that sparks a serious problem for the future populations”. Population explosion on earth has become a contentious issues raising questions on the ability of the universe to sustain it in the future due to the many emerging issues and challenges compromising sustainability. The exponential growth of the world’s population is a fact that is undisputed by many scholars concerned with the ecological support the world can comfortably offer, which has created a growing concern about whether the world can eventually support future generations given that the population has shown no signs of declining (Hauser, 1979). Currently, the world’s population stands at more than 7 billion and it is expected to hit a higher record because the populations in the developing world are still growing at very high rates since people there people have not been exposed to family control methods that are, currently being used in the developed world. One of the reasons that have contributed to this is the lack of education that has led to higher levels of illiteracy. Therefore, it is, undoubtedly the world’s population would hit the expected 9 billion mark by 2050 (Meyer & Turner, 1992). Safety has become a major challenge today due to human encroachment on unsafe areas that have often led to loss of life and property. For instance, human beings have encroached areas prone to floodplains and tsunamis, and this has caused a number of loss of lives whenever catastrophes have struck. Most of these areas, which were 30 years ago sparsely populated have now registered a high number of people due to human encroachment (Hauser, 1979). Moreover, because land has become a scarce resource people have now moved to occupy lands that were formerly being used for agriculture. All these has been attributed large population explosion, which has seen many people moving to urban areas due to rural-urban migration. This has reduced the population that was actively engaged in farming and thus leading to the food shortage in some parts of the world (Bouvier & Bertrand, 1999). There has been a problem of providing medical services in densely populated countries, and this challenge is expected to escalate and get bigger because the current systems are already strained. Perhaps with the evolution of technology, new solutions may be unveiled to handle pollution, food shortages and disease control by 2050. Some countries like India and China are already in a crisis with their population sizes hitting 36.4% of the total world’s population (Meyer & Turner, 2013). This percentage represents 2.6 billion people, which is twice the number of people in Africa. Therefore, it is going to be hard for these countries to provide sufficient medical help for their people, in addition to, housing that has become a major problem. The world, therefore, is facing the hardest puzzle given that the resources available are in constant supply while the population is ever growing. When the population is dense in an area, it becomes extremely very hard to contain disease outbreaks because of the sheer numbers and of people in one area. Infection rates also become very high, and the available facilities get strained as was recently witnessed in West Africa when the Ebola crisis hit the area. Malthus nevertheless believes that the eminent problem of the population can be checked if some preventative measures are put in place. He attributes late marriage, birth control among others as the positive measures that can help maintain the world’s population at a constant rate if they are encouraged and implemented. This is, however, is not the case given that all parts of the world do not have similar population control policies. Food Security and Population Food shortage is one of the major challenges caused by the exponential population growth. Unfortunately, enough food production is also affected by other factors that are caused by the growing population (Schmidhuber & Tubiello, 2007). Growing population has seen agricultural land been converted inhabitable land, thereby reducing the amount of land available for agricultural purposes. Water shortage, on the other hand, has led to poor food production in many parts of the world. Climate change in the world has indeed led to many problems as far as sufficient food production is concerned. Today, the world is facing reduced food production, and this has become a major challenge for the ever-growing population. Moreover, the shift in the living patterns over time has also contributed immensely to the challenge of food shortage around the world. With the current trends, therefore, it requires that the world produce double the amount of food it does today, something that has become a major challenge globally. The current population of 7 billion people already has problems of its own that have plagued the world’s ability to realize equitable development for all. For instance, it is estimated that over 1 billion people face hunger because they cannot get enough food and safe water for drinking (Schmidhuber & Tubiello, 2007). Global warming is already proving to be a major problem in the world because of the increased carbon emissions that have resulted from increasing industrial activities and transportation. There is also an increasing need for energy and it should be noted that wood and oil energy are gradually getting depleted and harder to extract. Scholars who have addressed this issue, however, argue that with the changing patterns of living, people will demand a different type of food. According to the United Nation (1995), the current demand for sorghum, millet and maize is likely to reduce in future reduce to pave way for cereals that are easy to prepare, processed food and fruits. The UN experts also estimate that the world has to produce more food in the coming 50 years than it did in the past 10, 000 years (Schmidhuber & Tubiello, 2007). This has been attributed to the exhaustion of land resources globally. In Africa, for instance, 25% of the formerly productive land has been degraded already; 11% of land in Asia is considered unsuitable for farming at the moment while over 75% of land in Central America is considered infertile (Schmidhuber & Tubiello, 2007). Thus, this is expected to pose a major challenge to food security in the future if the populations continue to grow exponentially (Ehrlich & Birch, 1967). Natural Population Control Natural systems that control population have got horrific and beyond human control. Number one in the list is death caused by diseases and those that result from natural causes (Brown, 1981). There are occasional outbreaks of diseases that are killing a large number of people, a phenomenon that have been around for the past. Stories of plagues in the Bible and other books of history describe how plagues and major disease outbreaks used to wipe out populations in the past. Increased developments in technology have also contributed to a significant loss of life in the world due to factors such as war. Sophisticated weaponry has resulted in major life loss in many parts of the world. An example is when America detonated a bomb in the cities of Japan and wiped the entire population of the city. Additionally, guns have contributed to major life loss in many parts of the world (Ehrlich & Birch, 1967). Other natural systems are those caused by earthquakes and floods that occasionally occur. Countries that are worst hit by natural calamities include those in the Pacific coast such as Japan, Indonesia, and others that often experience floods due to tsunamis or heavy earthquakes and wild winds. All these help to keep the world population in balance but with the exponential growth, it is hard to say that they have achieved anything. The United Nations (1995) estimates that the population of the world is, constantly slowing owing to the shrinking family sizes. Moreover, the global fertility index is slowing down due to increasing access to education. Earth’s Carrying Capacity This is a belief held by many scientists that believe the Earth like any other space has a carrying capacity beyond which it will not be able to support life (Hardin, 1993). Scientists believe that the earth can carry 9 to 10 billion people. Edward O. Wilson is one such scientist who developed a model to calculate the earth’s carrying capacity in his book “The Future of Life” (Daily & Ehrlich, 1996). He argues that, there is limited availability of fresh water, food, nitrogen cycle, atmospheric carbon concentrations, etc. These elements and many others have led to the conclusions that at some point the earth will reach its carrying capacity. Other sources also put the earth’s carrying capacity somewhere between 2 to 40 billion people. Scientists have identified four major factors that affect the carrying capacity of the planet i.e. the impact of consumption on the environment (i), the population number (p), Consumption per capita (a), and technology factor (t), expressed as i=p.a.t (Daily & Ehrlich, 1996). Another model is by using the ecological footprint accounting that compares historic bio capacity against the ecological footprint to determine non-speculative carrying capacity of the earth. Mitigating the Challenges of Overpopulation Guaranteeing education and empowerment to all can help to reduce the number of children per woman, thus reducing strain on the available resources. Through education, women and men get to know the need to plan their families and give their children a decent life. This sparks the urge to use birth control measures to ensure that they give birth to fewer children that they can support. Education and empowerment give people the ability to support themselves and their families by enabling them to generate solutions to the local problems, thus reducing the strain being put on the local resources (Daily & Ehrlich, 1996). Birth Regulation is an increasing practice by which many states in countries where the population is high is such as China is being encouraged, the one child per couple rule. This has helped to control population explosion to relieve the available resources from being depleted. In the 1970s, one Gerard O’Neill proposed the building of space habitats that could support the earth’s carrying capacity by 30,000 times (O'Neill, 1981). This has fueled the ongoing research to find a possible life-supporting asteroid in the universe. Urbanization is another suggestion scientists argue can help reduce straining of resources since it concentrates people’s activities in one area, thereby relieving other areas. Conclusion The above suggestions and others are worth giving in the 21st because the fact remains the population will continue to grow, but the resources available will always remain constant forever. Therefore, this calls for radical measures such as education to sensitize people on the need for birth control and late marriages; use of alternative sources of energy to minimize carbon emission that has led to climate change and global warming. References Daily, G. C., & Ehrlich, P. R. (1996). Socioeconomic equity, sustainability, and Earth's carrying capacity. Ecological Applications, 991-1001. Hardin, G. J. (1993). Living within limits: Ecology, economics, and population taboos. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Bouvier, L. F., & Bertrand, J. T. (1999). World population: Challenges for the 21st century (No. 1). Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Pr. O'Neill, G. K. (1981). 2081: A hopeful view of the human future. Simon & Schuster. Hauser, P. M. (1979). World population and development: challenges and prospects. Meyer, W. B., & Turner, B. L. (2013). Human population growth and global land-use/cover change. Annual review of ecology and systematics, 39-61. Malthus, T. R. (1798). An Essay on the Principle of Population Or a View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness, an Inquiry Into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal Or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions by Rev. TR Malthus. Reeves and Turner. United Nations. Population Division. (1995). World population prospects: the 1994 revision (Vol. 145). United Nations. Brown, L. R. (1981). World population growth soil erosion and food security. Science, 214(4524), 995-1002. Schmidhuber, J., & Tubiello, F. N. (2007). Global food security under climate change. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(50), 19703-19708. Ehrlich, P. R., & Birch, L. C. (1967). The" balance of nature" and" population control". American Naturalist, 97-107. Read More