The solutions to our social and environmental challenges are many, and they are progressive. Your donation helps solve some of today's most pressing challenges. Conversations about overpopulation can quickly become controversial because they beg the question: Who exactly is the cause of the problem and what, if anything, should be done about it? But with a population approaching 8 billion, even if everyone adopted a relatively low material standard of living like the one currently found in Papua New Guinea , it would still push Earth to its ecological breaking point.
Incredibly, the average person in the United States uses almost five times more than the sustainable yield of the planet. Experts say this has been the case every year since , with each successive year becoming more and more damaging.
Today the Earth is home to more than 7. By the population is on track to hit Many factors contribute to these unsustainable trends, including falling mortality rates, underutilized contraception, and a lack of education for girls.
The primary and perhaps most obvious cause of population growth is an imbalance between births and deaths. The infant mortality rate has decreased globally, with 4. This is welcome public health news, of course. At the same time, lifespans are increasing around the world. Those of us who are alive today will likely live much longer than most of our ancestors. Global average life expectancy has more than doubled since , thanks to advancements in medicine, technology, and general hygiene.
Falling mortality rates are certainly nothing to complain about either, but widespread longevity does contribute to the mathematics of increasing population numbers. The global fertility rate has fallen steadily over the years, down from an average of 5 children per woman in to 2. Yet, on the whole, contraceptive use is still underutilized. For example, according to the WHO, an estimated million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy are not using modern contraceptives.
Overpopulation will place great demands on resources and land, leading to widespread environmental issues in addition to impacting global economies and standards of living.
The issue is compounded by the difficulty in providing solutions for this problem and the misunderstanding of the causes and effects of overpopulation. Here we will cover both causes and effects of overpopulation in order for you to have a more informed view of the risks that come with it. Causes of Overpopulation are different for many countries but are mostly associated with poverty, reduced mortality rates, poor medical access, poor contraceptive use, as well as immigration.
With overpopulation comes a decrease in resources and an increase in symptoms of illness and disease. There are a number of factors that contribute to overpopulation. These are the leading causes:. Poverty is believed to be the leading cause of overpopulation. A lack of educational resources, coupled with high death rates leading to higher birth rates, result in impoverished areas seeing large booms in population.
The effect is so extensive that the UN has predicted that the forty-eight poorest countries in the world are also likely to be the biggest contributors to population growth. Their estimates state that the combined population of these countries is likely to balloon to 1. This issue is exacerbated in underdeveloped areas. As distressing as it may be to hear, child labor is still used extensively in many parts of the world. UNICEF estimates that approximately million children are currently working, primarily in countries that have few child labor laws.
This can result in children being seen as a source of income by impoverished families. Furthermore, children who begin work too young also lose the educational opportunities they should be granted, particularly when it comes to birth control. Improvement in medical technology has led to lower mortality rates for many serious diseases. Particularly dangerous viruses and ailments such as polio, smallpox and measles have been practically eradicated by such advances.
While this is positive news in many ways, it also means that people are living longer than ever before. Though it only plays a minor role in comparison to the other causes of overpopulation, improved fertility treatments have made it possible for more people to have children. The number of women using various fertility treatments has been on the rise since their inception.
Now most have the option of conceiving children, even if they may not have been able to do so without such treatments. On the other end of the spectrum, those with the highest incomes consume disproportionately large levels of resources through the cars they drive, the homes they live in and the lifestyle choices they make.
On a country-wide level, economic development and environmental damage are also linked. The least developed nations tend to have lower levels of industrial activity, resulting in lower levels of environmental damage. The most developed countries have found ways of improving technology and energy efficiency to reduce their environmental impact while retaining high levels of production.
It is the countries in between—those that are developing and experiencing intense resource consumption which may be driven by demand from developed countries —that are often the location of the most environmental damage. While poverty and environmental degradation are closely interrelated, it is the unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, primarily in developed nations, that are of even greater concern. For many, particularly in industrialised countries, the consumption of goods and resources is just a part of our lives and culture, promoted not only by advertisers but also by governments wanting to continually grow their economy.
Culturally, it is considered a normal part of life to shop, buy and consume, to continually strive to own a bigger home or a faster car, all frequently promoted as signs of success.
It may be fine to participate in consumer culture and to value material possessions, but in excess it is harming both the planet and our emotional wellbeing. The environmental impact of all this consumption is huge. The mass production of goods, many of them unnecessary for a comfortable life, is using large amounts of energy, creating excess pollution, and generating huge amounts of waste. To complicate matters, environmental impacts of high levels of consumption are not confined to the local area or even country.
For example, the use of fossil fuels for energy to drive our bigger cars, heat and cool our bigger houses has an impact on global CO 2 levels and resulting environmental effects. This enables them to enjoy the products without having to deal with the immediate impacts of the factories or pollution that went in to creating them.
On a global scale, not all humans are equally responsible for environmental harm. Consumption patterns and resource use are very high in some parts of the world, while in others—often in countries with far more people—they are low, and the basic needs of whole populations are not being met. A study undertaken in showed that the countries with the fastest population growth also had the slowest increases in carbon emissions. The reverse was also true—for example the population of North America grew only 4 per cent between and , while its carbon emissions grew by 14 per cent.
Individuals living in developed countries have, in general, a much bigger ecological footprint GLOSSARY ecological footprint The impact of a person or community on the environment, expressed as the amount of land required to sustain their use of natural resources.
The ecological footprint is a standardised measure of how much productive land and water is needed to produce the resources that are consumed, and to absorb the wastes produced by a person or group of people. When Australian consumption is viewed from a global perspective, we leave an exceptionally large 'ecological footprint'—one of the largest in the world.
While the average global footprint is 2. To put this in perspective, if the rest of world lived like we do in Australia, we would need the equivalent of 3. Similarly, an American has an ecological footprint almost 9 times larger than an Indian—so while the population of India far exceeds that of the United States, in terms of environmental damage, it is the American consumption of resources that is causing the higher level of damage to the planet.
How do we solve the delicate problem of population growth and environmental limitations? Joel Cohen, a mathematician and author characterised potential solutions in the following way:. Advances in food production technologies such as agriculture, water purification and genetic engineering may help to feed the masses, while moving away from fossil fuels to renewable power sources such as wind and solar will go some way to reducing climate change.
In the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP released a report titled ' Decoupling 2 ', which explored the possibilities and opportunities of technology and innovation to accelerate decoupling, and an analysis of how far technical innovation can go. Funding and research should be a high priority in these areas, but we must accept that technology can only do so much, and is only part of the solution.
Birth rates naturally decline when populations are given access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, education for boys and girls beyond the primary level is encouraged and made available, and women are empowered to participate in social and political life.
Continuing to support programs and policies in these areas should see a corresponding drop in birth rates. Similarly, as the incomes of individuals in developing countries increase, there is a corresponding decrease in birth rates.
This is another incentive for richer countries to help their poorer neighbours reach their development potential.
Providing a health, educational or financial incentive has also proven to be effective in combating some population issues. For example, paying money to people with two or fewer children or allowing free education for families with a single child has been trialled with some success. However, there are debates about incentive programs such as paying women in India to undergo sterilisation. Opponents question whether accepting these incentives is really is a choice, or whether the recipient has been coerced into it through community pressure or financial desperation.
Fewer forks can also cover another complicated area—the option of seriously controlling population growth by force. China has done so in the past and attracted both high praise and severe humanitarian criticism. This is a morally-, economically- and politically-charged topic, to which there is no easy answer.
The better manners approach seeks to educate people about their actions and the consequences of those actions, leading to a change in behaviour. This relates not only to individuals but also governments. Individuals across the world, but particularly in developed countries, need to reassess their consumption patterns.
We need to step back and re-examine what is important and actively find ways to reduce the amount of resources we consume. Taking shorter showers, saying no to single-use plastics, buying less, recycling our waste and reviewing our mode and frequency of travel may seem trivial, but if millions around the world begin to do it as well, the difference will begin to add up.
Governments too need to instigate shifts in environmental policy to protect and enhance natural areas, reduce CO 2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, invest in renewable energy sources and focus on conservation as priorities.
Developing countries should be supported by their more developed neighbours to reach their development goals in sustainable, practical ways.
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