Human Overpopulation Causes, Effects and Solutions
We have about 6.8 billion people on a tiny orb only 8,000 miles wide and 24,000 miles in circumference that we call Earth. We add about a million and half people to our world population every week! How have we reached the point that many describe as global overpopulation? What is our Planet’s carrying capacity? Is zero population growth desirable, or attainable? What are the causes and effects of human overpopulation?
The family of humans, known as the hominids, has populated Earth, according to the fossil record, for 5 to 6 million years. The hominids transitioned from one genus to another before our genus, homo, appeared about a million and half to two million years ago. We transitioned through a number of homo species before our species, homo sapiens (“sensible humans”) emerged about 150,000 years ago.
For the 5 to 6 million years we hominids have been here (Earth has been here for 4.56 billion years in a universe that has been here 13.7 billion years), we have mostly been Stone Age hunters and gatherers. For the 150,000 years we modern humans have been here, we too have mostly been hunters and gatherers. About 12,000 years ago, with the domestication of plants and animals, our Agrarian Age began. Since then, we’ve mostly been agrarians. A little more than 200 years ago, in the late 1700s, the Industrial Age began in England. By 1850, it spread to Belgium, Germany, France and the United States. Over time, it spread to other industrial countries. About sixty years ago, we transitioned from the Industrial Age to the post-Industrial High Tech Information Age we live in today. It is an age that allows us to disseminate information almost anywhere instantly.
Over time, we accumulated people. Two-thousand years ago, our population was at 250 million. In the year 500 A.D., it remained the same. By 1000 A.D., we climbed to 500 million people. We reached 750 million people around 1500 A.D. We hit our first billion mark in 1800 at which time the Industrial Revolution kicked in. We added people more rapidly and began to move quickly in the direction of human overpopulation. Between 1800 and 1900 we added 600 million people. At 1900, we were at 1.6 billion. By 1960, in 60 short years, we nearly doubled that as we reached 3 billion.
In 1960, we humans had been here about 150,000 years. It took us that long to accumulate 3 billion people. How long did it take for us to double that number? Thirty-nine years! In 1999, we reached 6 billion people. It is estimated that we will be at 9.2 billion by 2050. This is an exponential increase in birth rate, leading to questions concerning Earth’s carrying capacity.
The Effects of Human Overpopulation
The effects of human overpopulation are multiple and ominous. As birth rates climb, natural resources get used up faster than they can be replaced, creating enormous economic pressures at home while the standard of living plummets throughout the rest of the world. As the result of having so many people who do not understand our reality and its behavioral demands, we have created an interrelated web of global environmental problems. We are depleting our natural resources: our forests, fisheries, range lands, croplands, and plant and animal species. We are destroying the biological diversity on which evolution thrives (this is being called the sixth great wave of extinction in the history of life on earth, different from the others in that it is caused not by external events, but by us).
With powerful new electrical and diesel pumping techniques, we are draining our aquifers and lowering our water tables. We are systemically polluting our air, water, and soil, and consequently our food chain. We are depleting the stratospheric ozone that shields us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. And, we are experiencing symptoms of global warming: heat waves, devastating droughts, dying forests, accelerated species extinction, dying coral reefs, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, more frequent and intense storms, and a more rapid spread of diseases.
What is the solution for global overpopulation?
What must we do to ensure that population growth is not out of control? The answer lies in education. We humans are a very young species. We have been here for only a short time. We are like a child just learning to walk. We face grave challenges that demand a rapid shift in our behavior. Our teacher is our parent. Our parent is the natural world from which we emerged. In every way, in every facet of our existence, we must learn to align ourselves with that which supports life. There is no alternative if we are going to avoid catastrophic consequences.
With so many of us on a very small planet, and with the addition of so many more every week, we can no longer continue to relate to each other, our environment, ecological systems and biosphere as we have or we will succumb to the effects of human overpopulation. Nature, which could not care less, will eliminate us. We humans must grow up and learn to walk…hand in hand with each other and with our natural world. There is no alternative if we wish to sustain humanity and advance our civilization.
The Solution: Seven Words That Can Change The World…the DVD
Filed under: overpopulation
Thanks for this clearly written article. It is a thorny issue and central to all others, I think. No amount of recycling will cut it if we are adding a million new humans per week to our global population.
The article was a bit short on solutions and I just wanted to thank you for and recommend to others the DVD which I bought that explains more clearly the solution to this and other environmental issues facing our planet.
If you want further clarity on how we got here and where we go from here, get the excellent DVD, based on the book by the same title, The Seven Words That Can Change The World (from this site) As your many testimonials attest, these principles are well presented in your material and are key to our very survival as a species. Thank you!
Thank you for your response, Wayne.
Much appreciated.
Best,
Joe Simonetta
I found this website very interesting and informative. It was cleverly written and well researched. It was lot of help, as I’m currently doing a group project on overpopulation,( I’m only in grade school). Before I read this article I only had a basic understanding of overpopulation(I thought it was just too many people), but now I know alot more. Thanks heaps! I owe you!
Thank you very much for your comment. I’m pleased that you find the information helpful. Good luck with your project.
Best, Joe
This was a very informative article. I’m in high school and every week I have to find an article that relates to human geography and summarize and tell how it relates. Most of the time, the articles aren’t all that great and i don’t get all the points for it.
In my opinion, the worst has already occurred. The uncontrolled breeding of Homo sapiens coupled by their anthropocentric mentality has virtually wiped out the majority of animal species of the world (especially, the mamals, birds, and fish). At the risk of sounding misanthropic, living in a world alone with only this plague called “humans” is hardly worth it. Sometimes I don’t care that humans will eventually turn on themselve, and they will… whether it is via the nuclear bomb, genocides, etc., for, to me, the world has already had its biodiversity destroyed so much that it is no longer healthy enough to evolve into anything viable.
Tell me, why is there so much fuss in the streets about global warming and never any fuss about the human population explosion? I can go on and on with this sort of retorical questioning. But, you understand my rant. …. And, sorry for my ranting emotions poured out here.
Thanks for your note, Mark. It’s not quite that bad. We haven’t “wiped out the majority of animal species of the world”. Not yet and, hopefully, never. I agree that humanity is anthropocentric. We are a young species sorely in need of understanding the reality in which we exist, that has produced us, and the behavioral demands of that reality. Global warming (climate change) is perceived by many as life-threatening. It is (finally) being talked about seriously. Many don’t take population growth as the threat it is albeit there are many organizations dedicated to the issue.
I enjoy the essay and I am using it for a paper for my AP environmental geoscience class, but I would like to offer you another solution to the problem which has not gotten as much of a thought as it deserves; Space colonies. I know it sounds like I’ve watched too much star trek, but why is it so impossible to if not populate other planets, to create stations like space homes for people to live on? I think it would be more possible if we had better solar energy converters, but I still think it is a plausible idea.
Thanks, Nathan. It would take a great amount of time and technological prowess to do what you suggest. We have neither. We need to learn how to live on the planet on which we exist currently.
I liked your work a great deal and cited in my essay on overpopulation. However, despite your title, I havent been able to find any causes within your work. From the additional research that I have done on the topic, I have found the following to be the leading causes of overpopulation: increase in fertility rates, mass production and distribution of food, improvements in public health, advances in medicine, the relentless pursuit to combat disease, and most importantly education. Thanks for your insight.
Aaron, thank you for your comments.
The causes you listed for overpopulation are valid except education. I would think just the opposite. The more education, the less children women have. That is a fact.
When women are better educated and treated more equally, reproduction decreases.
Reproduction decreases also (countries go to Zero Population Growth) when the people become more successful (and better educated). This typically happens in First World countries.
Most of the population growth, I believe, continues to be centered in Africa and India.
Best,
Joe
I was surprised to find a few sites concerned with over population when I googled it.I’m 58 and can remember thinking that we had a population problem even when I was a kid.It surprises and angers me that conservation societies that solicit for money and help don’t mention over population as the root to all of modern earths problems,seems nobody in the public eye has courage enough to say anything about it.Sadly I don’t believe that there are any solutions to it,with TV shows like TLC’s 18 and counting and others like it that glamorise having huge familys.I think humans are just too stupid and greedy to ever do anything about it.Earth itself will be the one that handles the problem by killing us all off with starvation,disease and murder brought on by over crowding.
There are a few things that can create a more peaceful transiton to control the population growth. 1)Birth control/cotraceptives 2)tubularligation/vasecomies 3)education in third world rual areas about food chain versus population density 4)creating an international park/wildlife presserve service 5)in the meantime vertical farming and seed vault projects like the one in Norway
Until the Petri Dish Breaks
By
Stephen Lewis
lewis.stephen101@gmail.com
Climate change appears to be a symptom, population density and over-consumption of fossil fuel products being the cause. I have recently become an alarmist and have scoured the internet for information. I have found very conflicting information regarding the extent of the population problem. However, I am at this time convinced that at this growth rate, the Earth cannot humanely sustain life and will rapidly rid itself of the parasites within the lifetime of my grandkids. oooOOOHHhhh.
Even if my true vision is on a global scale and is possibly unnecessary, it could be beneficial in smaller pockets of over crowded areas, like Los Angeles or India. And the vision goes like this…
With the collective effort of all human beings and the understanding that this will help mankind, we set a date on the calendar at which time we all stop having sex for one month. (This proposal seems a lot easier to deal with than any of the other zero population growth scenarios.)
Nine months after this one month cease fire, and you can see that we are going to have a lot of highly trained nurses and doctors with nothing to do. Of course we prepared ourselves for this event, having thought it out completely. Those people that are affected by this lack of work would be assigned duties that assist the already going family planning centers world wide, dealing with the worst areas of population first. Well conceived missions that can they can complete in one month’s time.
Using the population growth estimate online, 150,000 people added to the population each day equals 1 million per week. With this proposal an estimated 4 million people will not be born because of this one month of abstinence from everyone. I used 61 years as the doubling time and that gives me 8 million people not having been born by the year 2071. Another 61years would equal 16 million people not having been born.
I realize this number is quite insignificant compared to the almost 7 billion population number, but once this idea has been put to the test and worked out, it can then be implemented several times at regular intervals until the population is not only under control, but the standard of living across the globe is exponentially increased. It can later be used as a dampening process to keep population growth rates in check and it doesn’t require extreme measures. Human beings are simply not having sex. It’s not like 70% of the population being sterilized by the other 30%. You know, the haves and the have not’s.
The big problem is how do we get everyone to abstain at the same time world wide? We all ready have the technology to globally make this process happen. The internet and phones are making communication possible anywhere. People are seeing the world in a larger view when they sing “It’s a small world after all”. Most importantly, I would rather struggle with mankind trying to complete this enormous task than to struggle with massive poverty, genocide, famine, war, caused by doing nothing at all. I am not in the delusion that man will instantly be better, however, doing something that large together would form some sort of bond. Plus without the strain of overpopulation, we could work on our other really terrible social skills. One of the bonuses of this plan is that just the act of trying increases communication on a global scale about problems that affect us all.
I like to think of life as the human experiment. I see the planet as our cage or Petri dish. So far, I believe there are no examples of an experiment that sustained its own life and moved out of the Petri dish and into the point of view of the scientist. I don’t know about the point of view of the scientist, but I do think we can rally for life at least until the Petri dish breaks.
Thank you for your time
Stephen
Dear Overpopulation Organisation,
You are elcome to use my overpopulation song “Know the Seeds We Sow” (free mp3 download at http://www.ilike.com/artist/Swayseeker/ ). Perhaps you would like to record it with your own musicians.
Regards
Eddie Miller (Swayseeker)
Well, that’s a very interesting article. I’m just thinking this way, why the number keeps increasing? can we do something to handle the number for, at least, remains the same?
World human population is expected to level off at about 9.2 billion around 2050.
I think the reason the population numbers keep going up and the reason some don’t see it as a problem is because we have been operating in this “fight for survival” mode for a very long time. It’s been what has kept us alive in the food chain. Now we are slowly waking up to the fact that we do not have to breed for survival anymore and that we have learned so much that we have taken ourselves out of the food chain. Education and family planning have been very helpful in slowing growth rates in underdeveloped areas of the world (as is evident in their lower than the United States birth rates). In my view, a pause of sexual activity is nothing more than planned abstinence which would have a measurable effect and buy some time in just 9 months. We as a society are getting smaller as knowledge and our world view are expanding. It is time to re-think who we are and our purpose.
Some people feel that the planet is plenty big enough and it could carry trillions. That may be so. The only thing that bothers me is that we are only at 6.8 billion and look how many problems we have. Some say we have enough resources to feed the planet now but we would rather play war games that make the problem worse than spend the military budget on worldwide issues. Even more, if we spent our military budget on feeding starving people, educating the 3rd world people to the current standard of knowledge and creating a comfortable standard of living for everyone, these nations would view the United States as peaceful and humanitarian and we would not be at war. Not that there would be no problems just that war would not be the solution. I’m pretty sure we can all agree that we are viewed as war mongers.
So to me, whether or not the planet has the ability to hold more people is moot because the issue is that even though the technology to provide for everyone is here, our system does not provide for everyone equally. It provides for the self serving first then trickles down so a majority of the people have to divide whatever is left, if anything. There has to be a bottom because there is a top and we can clearly see that people at the bottom are living our doomsday scenario right now.
It’s not realistic at this time for the planet to be involved in a mass reduction in population using a planned abstinence period as described in my article. However, it could certainly work for India where population is already the problem and when the population is at a manageable level, we maintain those levels using the family planning methods that have proven to be effective.
If we view ourselves as being different from one another, then I must sacrifice YOU so that I can live, if we view ourselves as one complete system then I must protect the one and begin to repair the damage caused by separatist actions.
My greatest fear is knowing that this overcrowding does not lead to a healthy life style so either nature will take care of that issue with plague, or HIV aids or man will take care of that issue with war and then indifference to the loser or even the idea of sterilizing the population to save the planet for a select few. This is why a very simple non invasive way of reducing the population is essential. It unifies individuals in a cause greater than themselves and leads us toward the truth that we are one and then to the further realization that even our planet is part of the solar system, part of the universe.
(Paradigm Shift)
People can know a thing and not apply it. Meaning, we can understand gravity and its effect on the planets but not consider the implications that has on our connectedness. We must understand our larger world view first and apply it to our daily lives in order to know exactly what to do to help ourselves.
In my opinion.
A bigger population causes more pollution from burning more coal in power stations. This causes acid rain and other problems.
One thing that could really help is to find an alternative to coal. Pyrolysis to produce fuel from hemp stalks, corn stalks and so on exists and this fuel could be used in power stations. http://saenergy.blogspot.com/ gives information about pyrolysis
To the earlier post from nathan – space colonies are an eventual solution, but as joe said they are very time consuming. i disagree however with the technology part of that. i have no doubt that we have the ability to create a habitat in the atmosphere, however the cost of doing so would be astronomical (no pun intended).
since there is very few viable options to curb the population growth, in an attempt to support it i would suggest research in ocean farms. a floating farm that relies on salt water to grow the plants. not only would this provide acres upon acres of new farming space but it would severely cut back on the amount of land used which could be re-grown into it’s natural state
I find in reading those sites that say that population problems are a myth that their evidence is very sparse and inconclusive. Recently I read Book 1 of the free e-book series “In Search of Utopia” (http://andgulliverreturns.info), it blasts their lack of evidence relative to their calling overpopulation a myth. The book, actually the last half of the book, takes on the skeptics in global warming, overpopulation, lack of fresh water, lack of food, and other areas where people deny the evidence. I strongly suggest that anyone wanting to see the whole picture read the book, at least the last half.
The outdated fertility replacement rate of 2.1 is also clarified.
i m happy to see that there are some organizations who take care for these causes and contributes to spread awareness among the people for saving our planet earth
I cannot thank you enough for the blog post.Thanks Again.
your work really helped me with homework. thank you.
It seems to me that a much wider general understanding of the productive forces, of political economy, is prerequisite before much will ever be done to stem the rising tide of human proliferation that is destined to emiserate and finally destroy everything like a second Deluge.
The ruling element of the human family is competition for private property, has been since our Agrarian Age began. It has condemned the globe to a systemic, expanding consumption of the earth’s natural resources directly contrary to a cooperative, educated society necessary for a scientifically sustainable, healthy world.
At some point in the future, unless the friends of the earth break out of our factory prison and put the corporate criminals out of business, human value will continue to deteriorate to the that of roach bugs.
hmmmm educational, i need a report next tuesdy (its thursady). So im kinda stuck but this got me unstuck thank you.
Your article says in 1960 we were at 3 billion people and then it doubled to 6 billion by 1999 (delta T = 39 yrs). Then you say it will be at 9.2 billion by 2050 (delta T = 51 yrs). Then you say this represents and “exponential increase in birth rate”.
The slope for the first 39 yrs is 77 million people/yr. The slope for the next 51 yrs is only 63 million people/yr. This would suggests the world population may be topping out. not increasing exponentially.
Plus birth rate is usually measured as births per (say) 1000 people. So even if the rate is constant, you can still have a rapidly increasing population.
Anyway, I am not disputing the dire nature of human overpopulation, but I think you need to work your numbers and terminology a little better if you want to get your point across.
Thanks to you I have finished my assignment.
Only solution is limit child birth, one child per family policy that practice in China decade ago. Aggressively promote and educate contraceptive, if necessary introduce anti-futility drug into water and food to induce birth rate with nations with problem to deal with populations control.
All govt worldwide should also implement policies that direct transfer salary from parent employee to support children for at minimal 20 yrs, percentage basis per child. Any 2nd, 3rd child or more will be double on such transfer. Therefore, couple , especially men, will think twice before consider more children.
Such rule should be actively enforce in countries such as India, or part of Asia, Latin Americas and Africa. The matrix may help maintain population growth at current level or reduce a little within 50 yr.
I must say that overpoplution has surely become a quite serious problem. Human beings are the reason for ozone depletion. We create aerosol sprays, which contain chloroflourocarbons (CFCs). These are waht is desroying our mother earth. We must find a substitute, and quick.
Thank you,
Jennyfer M. 14 years old!!
I agree that overpopulation is the very root of our environmental problems and that we should start by decreasing birthrates. However, if we implement China’s one child limit policy, it will cause complete disaster. As in China, this law encouraged families to kill any baby with a possible disability, female babies in desire for a boy to carry on the family name, and no the ratio of men to women is an absolute disaster in China. Women are being raped and violated by men since there are not enough women to sustain the male population. I’m not sure there is a solution to this problem really..
While I agree that education is key to reducing our numbers, I, btw am 40 years old, married 16 years and childless. I have understood the population problem since my mid 20s. The problem with education is the fact that it’s been largely hijacked by religion and mysticism. This dilutes the affect that education can have on a society. I learned some time ago that in largely uneducated societies, religion can be a necessary and efficient means of controlling the mob. As individuals in groups become more educated, religion must be either redefined or abolished to allow for intellectual growth. I call it the Santa clause effect. We believe until we are either old enough or know enough to know better.
I think that most people in the world are either uneducated or undereducated and here in the 1st world, we are still debating God and evolution. In closing, Education may be key to solving the problem of overpopulation but the greater problem is proper education and conditioning in a world where mysticism is king. Waiting for a messiah abstract is not a solution. Faith and belief is one of the great obstacles.
When we ate from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, we lost the sanctuary of Eden but inherited the responsibility of self and the world. Perhaps it is time to leave the womb of religion and grow up as a species.
You are absolutely correct, Jonathan.
Populate and Perish
Fact: Five billion people is as much as our planet can sustain – think water, food and resources.
Fact: Those who can least afford it, populate at a geometric rate; that’s the only productivity they are capable of. Those particularly in the developing world, expelled the Western colonizers, proudly declared independence, only to beg for help a few years later, their countries ridden by corruption, crime, brutal tribal wars and AIDS. Sorry, but they are not “developing countries”; they are countries with no ambition to ever develop – and why should they? Having developed, they would lose the foreign aid and do-gooders like Sir Bob Geldoff would lose their popularity.
Fact: You will feed those constantly starving, uneducated and unproductive parasitic unfortunates and they will not only survive but multiply out of control, create more famines and cost the developed world trillions of dollars every year (a truly bottomless pit); they will send their uneducated, violent and useless children to your country for you to feed and you will end up with ethnic ghettos and gangs. Their tribal and religious wars should be waged in their scumholes and not in our suburbs. Don’t send them food – send them weapons so they can sort it out over there; those wars are good – this is how nature deals with the overpopulation issue. Peace will only encourage and enable them to populate further and drain the world of precious resources.
Here is the remedy: Feed and otherwise assist only those who agree to undergo sterilization, or sterilize them stealthily, without their knowledge; sterilize their children too. Yes, it is humane. No, it doesn’t hurt. No, it’s not a crime against humanity – to the contrary. Do you remember Indira Gandhi’s sterilization program in the early 1970s, with financial enticements and gifts of radios and TV sets for the irresponsible poor or China’s one child policy? Have you ever seen China beg for food? Desperate times call for desperate measures. Sterilize 95% of starving Africans and you’ll see a change for the better in about 20 years. (No need to thank me at this stage). Native Europeans, Americans, Canadian and Japanese reproduce responsibly, parasites do not. Oh, and please spare the religious mumbo-jumbo about sanctity of human life – reason and logic must prevail over all dogmas.
Think globally, act locally – charity begins at home (may God bless Himself first!): sterilize all ferals, junkies and criminals because their kids will have wrong role models and you will need more rehabs and more prisons. Definitely sterilize all retards, spastics and schizophrenics – let them enjoy sex but not produce so very predictable offspring. Also have in mind all unemployable migrant families who refuse to integrate, rely on welfare, already have five children and want two more, inshallah – at your expense, of course. (I can hear the Left cooing: “How cute – long live multiculturalism and diversity!) If they refuse to get sterilized, cut their welfare payments after the second child.
Other factors contributing to the catastrophe waiting to happen are: obscene waste of resources and corporate greed – but I will leave that topic for others to discuss.
Remember, you’ve been warned. If we do not act now, we can only hope for another world war, or maybe the Yellowstone volcano or some massive cosmic disaster will put an end to this madness. Mine is a voice of reason and I am sure that it makes sense.
Thank you, Leftists, do-gooders, bleeding hearts and humanitarians for allowing me to have my say without crucifying me or having me stoned to death or beheaded by the multicultural community for stating the obvious. Truth isn’t always pretty.
Thomas J. K.
Thomas J.K., you need to do a little research on China’s escalation of food imports in the past 10 years, and the impending agricultural crisis there. Even with the one-child policy, that nation has long ago overshot its land base…and is rapidly eroding what is left.
The main cause of human over population is spiritual.
Judeo-Christianity and Islamic perceptions of the world are an attempt to divide light from darkness.In so doing we seperate ourselves from the natural world and create tremendous imbalances.The solution is to acheive a consciousness shift and restore the balance between light and darkness by understanding that they are rooted in each other like the ying and yang symbol.
You can not have democracy as long as there is overpopulation because you must have an authoritarian system to regulate the population, by means of conflict and harsh conditions. When I say harsh conditions-I’m referring to poverty , disease, starvation, genocide and war.
I needed some imformation about overpoluation for my college english essay. I found this article and it has greatly helped me! It was clearly written and gave me a great topic. It helped me get my A
Thank you SO much for this VERY helpful artcile! I’m doing an english project on Overpopulation of Humans, so this was most definitly helpful. I’m very grateful that I am able to access resources like this!
Thanks again,
O.B.
I agree that we have a real devastating situaion. Perhaps we could control population by every boy in the world to have a vasectomy at an early age. When a couple desires a child, they apply, and if accepted, a sperm is extracted from the male and inseminated in the female. Far fetched? What’s the alternative?
Insightful article, Joseph. Will really help with English essay. Thank You.
Our government pushes initiatives on Family Planning and Reproductive Health, but the church of Roman origin doesn’t like the idea and has its own agenda. Population is growing and getting larger every day with many people homeless. We’re heading to the finish line. Those who oppose the idea of birth control are responsible for this.
Read David Brooks, The Fertility Implosion, Opinion New York Times Mar 12 2012 exhorting reproductive efforts and my response to it.
David Brooks contends the declining impetus to have children jeopardizes human prosperity and societal well-being. I agree that the dilemma lies in matching the subsidized needs of a burgeoning number of retirees and the long living elderly (the demand) with children raised to tax-paying independence (the supply).
However, this co-dependency holds potential to generate an accelerating demand-supply loop. Today’s children will grow old and in turn seek their due from generations raised to adult productivity that come after them. The cost of raising a child to independence, an increasingly deferred milestone, is not just met by the parents and families but also the rest of society.
The demands of bringing up a child would need to be deducted from the potential tax revenue gained from a life time of work to determine whether Brook’s exhortation to reproduce leads to net benefits for retirees, the aged and the infirm.
I agree with some of the points brought up in this page, however i feel that some have been overlooked.
If the population continues to increase and resources such as food and water become ever more scarse more stresses are put on a country or society as a whole. These stresses could potentially lead to war over resources, war over ideals as well a genocide and neglect of others.
The perpetrators of these potential will most likely be the ‘richest’ and ‘strongest’ countries/societies. Meaning that the ones with the most advance technologies and biggest armies.
What pains me most about this is that realistically only around a billion people at western standards of living (maybe 2 billion at lower standards) would likely be able to coexist within the capabilities of the planet.
Unfortunately we have gone far beyond where I would call the tipping point (or point of no return) and no amount of education and family planning will have the least bit of effect on the end result in my opinion.
More than 99% of all species have been made extinct during our planets bid to keep life. But life bounces back and so does the planet.
Effectively what I’m saying is that something has got to give and it won’t be the planet. The planet will carry on long after we are gone.
Good luck to you all and remember survival of the fittest means you have to be the fittest!
There is much speculation as to whether the earth can actually sustain this population boom of humans, but one thing is for sure all the wrong countries are experiencing the over population growth. http://www.americanlivewire.com/overpopulation-how-sustainable-is-earth-as-the-population-rises/
I believe the problem of human population is out of control. We have set ourselves separate and superior to nature and to other predatory animals. All we have to see is the history of man when invading (conquering) new lands from indigenous people and wildlife…pattern of superiority, shows the destruction of all preditory animals and indigenous people then land grabs and complete destruction of what was ecosystem. All balance between man and nature is destroyed. If we dont do something in the next 200 years we will have destroyed all ecosystems, the ocean and atmosphere. Nature will prevail and a virus or disease that can override any scientific means will wipe us out. We have poverty and starvation, we allow cruelty to people to happen…is this the way to control populations? I say that one of the ways to prevent overpopulation is to educate woman and allow them to be empowered by knowledge and free health clinics in third world countries and poverty stricken areas to have access to contraceptive products . Its up to us women to get educated and quit having unwanted births.
Thanks a lot JOSEPH R. SIMONETTA.YOUR WRITING HAS HELPED ME A LOT IN MY ESSAY……………….THANKS…..
There are many theories out there on the causes of overpopulation. Some people say it’s because people live longer because of better healthcare. Others believe it’s because of the abortion laws. While others believe it’s caused by illegal immigration or religion. These theories are arguable and debatable, but there is one root cause of overpopulation that cannot be argued. This may sound strange, but I strongly believe that the ultimate cause of overpopulation is the fiat monetary system of every country all over the world. A fiat currency is money created without the backing of gold and silver or any other commodity. Normally, there should only be enough money available as there are resources, and there should only be enough money in circulation as there are people, but there’s this problem of people relying on credit and debt without producing anything, and this problem have become increasingly widespread since the credit boom started when the U.S. dollar went off the gold standard 40 years ago. How many people do you know who take care of their families mainly from getting into debt? How common is it that unproductive people irresponsibly start having children and taking care of them by getting into debt? You see, if our currencies were tightly regulated by gold and silver, there wouldn’t be all this credit creation, and people will be forced to earn their money, forced to be productive, forced to have a moral mindset, and forced to think twice before having children. For thousands of years, gold and silver have been the medium of exchange. They are the stabilizers of society. If gold and silver become money again, it would bring back morality to society, and it would stabilize both economic growth and population growth. It’s an unpopular theory, but I believe it’s true, and I hope people would start digesting this into their heads.
Sadly my feelings that are some people are not capable of understanding this concept and no amount of education will change their blindness. The amount of simple minded people I know that think it is their sole duty to populate the world by having as many children as possible is scary and they are mostly the ones who offer the least as a parent – it seems that it is the less fortunate that have the most children without any kind of clue and thought process as to what will happen to the world if we continue to reproduce at this rate. Many do not even take care of the children that they have, not to mention the amount of children having children – I have seen animals take better care of their young, so many people who will not even acknowledge the child they helped make in a moment of weakness. There are just too many problems with today’s society to contemplate most of which is a result of greed and or ignorance. Today’s rich are yesterday’s thieves who were smart enough to then protect themselves from today’s potential thieves with due diligence procedures and the like – making themselves look oh so respectable as a 2nd generation inheriting questionably acquired monies.. (but that is another argument and problem altogether, forgive me for digressing) as a supposedly intelligent race we have sure done a good job of screwing up any chance of a prosperous future for our children and the generations to follow.. perhaps we need to start again from scratch.. if it were down to me the only people I would keep on the earth are children who are young enough to learn a new way and people who are out there fighting for good causes, mistreated children, animals etc. people who understand the true values of life, to help each other for a better way forward. Not that I expect anyone to read this but it feels good to say part of the many thoughts I have on a daily basis, I just feel blessed that I am not one of the ignorant I just wish there was more that I could do but am caught up in trying to keep the rent and bills paid like everyone else – we are no better than a hamster running endlessly round in a little wheel until we drop dead! My opinion is the only way to save us is to wipe out most of human kind and start again… forget about money what about caring and loving one another building communities that help one another – a society built around money will always have corruption, greed, and war. My conclusion – people, for the most part are assholes who believe in their own self importance so much they don’t see further than their own noses.. anyhow we shall see what happens but it won’t be good – I guarantee that and am glad I will more than likely be long gone when the shit really hits the fan.. its not going to be pretty
I like the page very much. It has helped me in an essay I am writing.
Thanks, Joseph.
I can imagine two strategies to cure human overpopulation.
Both depend on bioengineering.
One: Bioengineer the early morphogenetic development of the human male testes such that viable sperm can only be produced between the ages of (say) 25 and 35 years.
Two: (more complex) There exists a bacterium called Wolbachia. It can be killed with tetracycline. Curing a species of wasp from Wolbachia has resulted in the wasp becoming a
dual sex species (whereas previously though to be only female). It should be possible to make humans a single sex species (female). This would later be reversible. You will be aware that male sperm is only useful to produce genetic diversity to protect the species from specific attack by a particular bacterium or virus. Only the transmission through generations by mitochondria and mitchondrial DNA is required for species continuance, and these are present in human female ova, not sperm.
It would be required to bioengineer Wolbachia to remove surface proteins which in Egypt have caused river blindness after the construction of the Aswan dam. I suggest that this would be possible without altering Wolbachia’s reproductive strategy.
Whatever strategy is used, I feel that we must act almost immediately to begin such a process. The window of opportunity for success is rapidly closing.
I live in South Africa. Near where I stay there used to be a sugarcane plantation, they are now cutting it down to make place for a housing development, overpopulation, I can see it with my very own eyes! It’s said that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that’s only because the poor make themselves poorer! They can’t afford to take care of themselves yet they have children, it’s senseless really. In this country women deliberatly have children just to claim the child support grant! I’m going to be very honest, when I read or see people dying on t.v., a part of me is happy as there are too many people that this planet can support. My personal mission is to get out from South Africa and live in Europe or Canada where people are more intelligent and sensible. The problem of overpopulation is the root of many other problems on the enviroment (pollution, deforestation, etc.) and society at large (large scale unemployment is rife in S.A. alongside high crime levels). I can see it with my own eyes, cropland being destroyed for housing, now I’m starting to believe that wars will be fought for food and water one day. Hopefully a lot of people will be killed to restore the planet’s equilibrium. Don’t hate me for my opinion.
What are the seven words?
Be healthy. Be kind. Resect the environment. Those are the seven words. They come out of the three foundational relaionships of life: our relationships with ourself (be healthy), with others (be kind), and with the environment (respect the environment).