Over-Population - Term Paper Example

Majority of this population is in Asian countries. The concept of overpopulation is broader than merely population densities. It includes the ability of the environment to sustain a growing population. The increasing human population exerts lot of pressure on the available resources to extent that the carrying capacity may be surpassed. The effects on the environment may be coupled with other effects such global warming and overall climate change. Overpopulation would occur when the human population will exceed the earth’s resources.

With the current reductions in child mortality rates, better medical care and good life present in some parts of the world chances of the earth becoming overpopulated are high. However, the problems of overpopulation are more common in the developing world compared to developed nations due to fertility rates. It is the responsibility and role of everyone in the world to help reduce population growth. There are different opinions explaining the trends and effects of global human population growth.

Malthus population growth theory was based on the concept of carrying capacity. The prediction was that the human population was growing at a high rate in relation to the available resources to sustain the population. The result of such population growth was that there will times when the resources will not be able to sustain the human population which, will eventually crash. Such school of thought and other opinions by new-Malthusian believe that there are still chances of a population crash triggered by various environmental factors such as climate change.

The “Malthusian” theory is one of the well known and most criticized theories explaining the relationship between human population growth and the environment. The theory emphasizes on the fact that as the population grows people will utilize all the resources to the extent that there will be hunger, famine and environmental degradation. However, many