Human Population Growth Long Gone

¶ … Human Population Growth

Long gone are the times when the population was encouraged to procreate and as such produce future labor force. Since those periods, the nations have been faced with tremendous challenges, such as wars or famines. All these challenges revealed the stringent need for an improved quality of life, which would be attained through education. Subsequently, the more educated people would adopt various techniques of birth control and family planning and they would give birth to fewer children, for which they could better provide. Additionally, in the more socially and economically developed countries, a trend is observed in the delaying of procreation until the individual has established himself / herself professionally and until they can provide for the future child / children.

Yet, in spite of these advancements observable within the developed countries -- where the population growth rate is negative as the death rate is higher than the birth rate -- the trend at global level is that of an increasing population. This status quo leads to unimaginable implications for all inhabitants of the Earth.

2. Models and Trends in Population Growth

The past years have witnessed significant increases in the global population, with the largest increases being observable in India and China; in the latter country, restrictions were eventually imposed and family planning was introduced among the families through the one-child policy (still, it has to be noted that several exemptions are made from the one-child rule). The population of the United States has maintained a constantly ascendant trend, similar to Europe.

An interesting point to make is that, despite its growth, the proportion of the European populations in the global population has decreased. In the future however, the population of Europe is expected to register decreases altogether. The largest growths are expected to occur in India and China (where the population increase will continue despite the one-child policy), but intriguingly enough, the largest growth rate would be registered in sub-Saharan Africa. The table below reveals the population growth trend projected up until 2060:

Source: Population Growth and Migration, the Web Site of Gaia Watch of the UK, 2010

The same source indicates figures according to which the global population is expected to increase from its current total of 6.7 billion to a total of 9.2 billion by 2050. "This increase of 2.5 billion is roughly equivalent both to the combined present day populations of China and India, and the size of the whole world population as it was in 1950" (Population Growth and Migration, the Web Site of Gaia Watch of the UK, 2010). And most of this growth would be generated by the less developed countries. While the more developed countries (countries in Europe and North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan) would also register increases in their population, their growth levels would be insignificant. In other words, the population structures in the more developed countries would virtually maintain their current course. Yet, in three more decades, the size of the populations in the more developed regions is expected to commence to decrease.

An important theoretician debating the problem of the population's growth is Thomas Malthus, who, starting in the late eighteenth century, urged the nations to decrease their procreation rates in order to protect the world's finite natural resources. His model concluded that the population and the food supply grow at different rates, in the meaning that the population grows exponentially, whereas the food supply grows arithmetically. Due to this realization, the British scholar concluded that it would only be a matter of time until the food becomes insufficient to feed the entire global population. "Malthus' model is commonly called the natural growth model or exponential growth model. For this model we assume that the population grows at a rate that is proportional to itself. If P. represents such population then the assumption of natural growth can be written symbolically as dP/dt = k P, where k is a positive constant" (Duke University, 1999).

3. Earth's Human Carrying Capacity

The concept of the Earth's human carrying capacity was created to refer to the ability of the planet to hold populations. The carrying capacity differs based on the variables taken into consideration upon computation (such as living standards, consumption levels and so on). Given a context in which the populations aim to all live by the living standards in the United States of America, the human carrying population is decreased, but when the standard is reduced, the human carrying capacity increases.

As it has been previously mentioned, the general trend is that of an increasing global population. From the standpoint of the human carrying capacity, this growth should cease when environmental concerns of food sufficiency become impending. Given this understanding, when the carrying capacity is below the population size, the response would be that of reducing the population's growth rate; on the other hand, when the carrying capacity is higher than the population size, the growth rate would increase. In other words, an equilibrium is sought at which point the population size equals the human carrying capacity. The actual computation of the carrying capacity is an extremely challenging task due to the multitude of variables considered, but also due to the advent of technological innovations, which constantly change the variables of the equation (McGinley and Casagrande, 2007).

Ecologists promote the concept of carrying capacity as the maximum population the planet can host and feed without damaging the stability of future generations. Today, the Earth's carrying capacity is in severe imbalance with the size of the global population, in the meaning that the carrying capacity has been severely outpaced by population growth, and this generates a series of negative impacts upon the current well-being of the human populations, their future stability and the health of the natural environment. "The current population […] is being maintained only through the exhaustion and dispersion of a one-time inheritance of natural capital, including topsoil, groundwater, and biodiversity. The rapid depletion of these essential resources, coupled with a worldwide degradation of land and atmospheric quality, indicate that the human enterprise has not only exceeded its current social carrying capacity, but it is actually reducing future potential biophysical carrying capacities by depleting essential natural capital stocks. The usual consequence for an animal population that exceeds its local biophysical carrying capacity is a population decline, brought about by a combination of increased mortality, reduced fecundity, and emigration where possible" (Daily and Ehrlich, 1992).

4. Global Food Consumption Demands

As the populations increase, the demand for nutrients increases alongside. In a relatively short time period, a situation was achieved in which the planet will not be able to ensure food stability for its entire population. In 1979 for instance, the average global individual would consume 66.1 kilograms of vegetables within one year; by 2000, the statistics indicated that the food supply was of 101.9 kilograms of vegetables per individual, at a global average. The more developed countries supplied their populations with 112.8 kilograms of vegetables (as opposed to 107.4 kilograms in 1979), whereas the emergent countries supplied their individuals with 98.8 kilograms of vegetables, as opposed to only 51.1 kilograms in 1979.

In terms of actual demand, this has maintained an ascendant trend, but it has grown at growth rates inferior to the previous decades. "The annual growth rate of world demand for cereals has declined from 2.5% per year in the 1970s and 1.9% per year in the 1980s to only 1% per year in the 1990s. […] the growth rate in the demand for cereals is expected to rise again to 1.4% per year up until 2015, slowing to 1.2% per year thereafter" (World Health Organization, 2010).

While the globe remains currently able to feed the populations, the following decades are expected to reveal food insufficiencies. In response to this modern challenge, governments have implemented various strategies which allow the increase in food production. Yet, the ethics behind these decisions are questionable -- to say the least.

A relevant example in this sense is offered by India, where the growth of the population put stringent pressures on the production of food. The Indian authorities as such implemented aggressive agriculture techniques through which they increased the size of the crop and the resulting vegetables, but they also made it so that the land could be exploited twice a year, instead of just once. Yet, the people who worked those respective plants became ill and the land was contaminated that it cannot be used for an undetermined period of time. This occurred during the 1960s Green Revolution in India, and the outcomes were severally criticized by the international community.

A positive sign comes from a more recent trend of buying green products. This trend has emerged from the realization of the population that buying eco products is no longer a fashion trend, but a real life necessity given by the negative impact the human race and its consumption and pollution levels have upon the natural environment.

5. Environmental Impact of Human Population Growth

The growth of the global population generates a multitude of impacts upon the natural environment. At a most simplistic level, the growth of the human population generates higher levels of consumerism. And the higher levels of consumption place supplementary strains on the already scarce natural resources. Additionally, the incremental levels of consumption translate into higher levels of waste. This waste comes from both individual consumers, as well as from industrial agents and it directly impacts the quality of the water as well as the availability of fresh water resources. Garbage dumping near waters contaminates them and leads to three primary impacts:

The death of the species living in the respective waters

The illness or even death of the non-water animals which drink from the respective source

The illness or even death (in rare cases) of the people who consume the animals that drank water from the contaminated source or who themselves use the respective source of water in the household

Waters are also contaminated through the incremental need for more natural resources. Since the large majority of oil, gas and other sources have already been extracted, the rest of them lay in areas which are difficult to access. This implies the necessity to use hard drilling techniques and strong chemicals which destroy the elements standing in the ground and preventing the access to the resources. The use of these strong chemicals once again impacts the quality of the waters and the soils, to eventually impact the bio-diversity of the region.

The increasing population leads to deforestation due to its need for land on which to construct homes, offices, retail centers and other locations, but also due to its necessity for lumber in order to satisfy the increasing need of the population for furniture, paper, cellulose and the rest of the items manufactured from lumber and timber.

The incremental levels of deforestation virtually destroy the lungs of the planet, leading as such to significantly decreased quality of air. And this quality of the breathing air is also reduced through the incremental levels of pollution generated by automobiles, airplanes and other daily elements of the modern day society.

Overall, these impacts -- alongside with several others -- lead to global warming, which is the ultimate threat upon the environment and the society.

6. Impacts on the Quality of Life

As it has been mentioned throughout the previous section, the increasing population impacts the environment, which consequently means that the quality of life will be decreased through water and air pollution, but also through the decay of the bio-diversity. Yet, aside from these environmental concerns, fact remains that the quality of life would be negatively impacted due to other dimensions as well. A first example in this sense is offered by public services and locations, such as commercial centers, parks, zoos and other such, where crowdedness becomes unbearable. This virtually means that the personal space of individuals will be invaded and this will negatively impact their quality of life. As a response, developers construct new facilities, on deforested land and by dumping the residues in waters, to deepen the degree of environmental threats.