Population Growth Essays - Environmental Issues, World Population

Population Growth POPULATION GROWTH We are in grave , grave trouble. There are 3,6 billion human beings on the face of the Earth.According to our best estimates, there are somewhere between three and seven times more people than this planet can possibly maintain over a long period of time. ?Non-renewable resources are being exhausted at a horrendous rate, and we are destroying the capability of the planetary ecosystem to renew the supply of renewable resources. (Hinrichs,8) The worse however is yet to come.here are some numerical data that are present in John Laffin's The Hunger to Come: ?About 2050 the population will be 15.000 million, a century later 82.000 million and by 2350 a frightening 440.000 million will be reached?(47).We need to realize the necessity of a population plan which will make us more optimistic as far as our future is concerned.This plan must be based on the fact that the control of the rapid population growth is necessary globally; otherwise, earth's environment will be put into greater danger,the overexploitation of natural resources will continue and poverty will rise in most of the world's countries. In order to understand why rapid population growth is a threat and why we need to control it we must examine the problems which population expansion generates. First, population growth has serious effects on the environment. As we all know we consume materials and energy from earth and then return heat and wastes to earth. It is only logical to say that there is a limit at which these wastes can come to our planet without having serious effect on humans. According to Noel Hinrichs the basic reason for the decrease in the quality of the environment is the absence of control over technology, land-use and especially over pollution. Nevertheless, due to the fact that population growth makes worse all those unfortunate situations, and the control of population density can buy us some time to control the rest of the problems, one has to recommend the control of population explosion.(45) As the human numbers increase, deterioration of water quality and destruction of animal and plant communities increase too. Water pollution has been partly caused by population growth. ?Humans consumed, stored and diverted water and used it to carry away wastes without regard to health or ecological consequences, which were considered inconsequential? (Turner II et. al. 254). These human actions plus population expansion and the necessity has as a result the deterioration of water quality in rivers, with effects by human actions and development on or close to them (267). As mentioned previously animal and plant species are in danger due to population explosion. The serious effects of population growth apply even on the protected locations of this planet. Even in the USA, that has a statistical low population expansion, the natural parks experience a loss of species and habitat degradation due to immense numbers of people and their actions (365). The regions of Brazil with the highest human densities over the greatest period of time show extensive degradation of plant and animal communities? (364). But rapid expansion of human numbers does not have effects only on the environment in general but also causes overexploitation of natural resources and provides pressure on food supplies. As a result it will not be long until we observe a remarkable decline in our living standards, or in other words a decline in our quality of life. Specifically land, forest and water are some of the vital resources that are threatened by enlargement of population density. Because population growth has expanded greatly over the last 500 years , as larger numbers of people needed more food supplies and commodities from natural resources and agricultural activities, more and more people occupied biger land spaces in big urban areas. Populatin growth in today's world, therefore, plays a vital role to changes in the land. Growing need for food supplies and commodities contributed to the growth of croplands all over the world and to the ?consumption of natural resources?. Labor forces, which were available, resulted to ?land-clearing?, alteration and loss of the land's quality. Globally, population growth is mainly responsible for land pressures (Turner II et. al. 167). Forests -one of the greatest natural resources- have also experienced major damage due to immense