Population Growth Essay, Research Paper

Of all the issues we face as the new millenium approaches, none is more important than population growth. The numbers speak for themselves. Earth s population, which totaled 1.7 billion people in 1900, is now nearly 6 billion – and growing. (National Geography, 4) In the 20th century the population tripled, and it s expected to double in the next 50 years (Hager, 12). Big metropolis like New York, Tokyo, New Delhi, S o Paulo, and Paris are getting bigger everyday, while small towns are getting smaller. This is happening because people keep moving to different places. They move from rural areas to urban areas, from undeveloped to developed countries. They are always looking for a better place to live and a better live. Another reason for the explosive growth in the population is the high birth rates in the developed countries.

With the mechanization of the rural areas fewer people are needed to work there, so migrate to urbanized cities looking for a better life and a better job with better paychecks. People have been moving since they are people. (National Geographic, 14) When a person is not happy with the place that he/she lives, what would be the reasonable to do? In this case the best thing to do would be to move to another place that pleases he/she better. Humans are not the only ones that do this, and other animals and insects have also been doing this. Ants, for example, they move to another place when the place that they current are run out of resources to let the farm grow. People have been doing the same thing for centuries, looking for places wi9th better life conditions.

Forty-five percent of the world s people now life in urban areas. Urbanization is occurring fastest in developing countries, since 1950 their urban population has more than doubled to 39 percent. Today, the world has 41 cities with more than 5 million people, and other 23 cities are expected to join this group by 2015, but only 11 of those cities will be in the developed countries (National Geographic).

People that live in cities are expected to have higher standards of living and better health than rural residents do. However, when cities grow too fast, their economies and infrastructures are pressed to keep up.

People are not only moving from rural areas to urban areas, they are also moving from undeveloped countries to developed countries. They go to countries with better economy and better life conditions. The World Bank estimates that only 15 percent of the world s almost 6 billion people live in the 22 highest income countries, where the average income is more than $25,000 a year. Nearly all the rest, as well as most of the 80 million or so people added to the world each year, live in countries in which income is close to or less than the global average of $5,000 a year. (National Geographic, 21) Nowadays money means a better life, and not one single soul that lives in one of those undeveloped countries where the income per capita is less than $5,000 a year wouldn t want to live with $25,000 a year in their pockets.

Many developed countries like England have managed to lower their birth rates, but the immigration still increasing. The same thing is occurring in the U.S. where many laws were made concerning the immigrants. The border with Mexico are being more patrolled and still many people are getting in the country. Immigration is a big factor for the developed countries that offer a better life than the developing countries. Even with lower birth rates those countries haven t managed to stop the illegal immigration. Therefore, the population still growing.

There is not really a way to stop illegal immigration, new laws can be done, more patrols can be put in action, but none of those will work. People go to other countries because their own country is not good enough. They will only stay in their own country if it provides them a reasonable life. In addition, that s going to be very difficult to happen because when people move to another country, the taxes they pay go to the country where they are living. Therefore, the country where they are living grow stronger and more developed, while their home country stays the same. What it is meant is that if people stay in their countries and work to make it a better place, it will become a better place. Of course that the changes won t be immediately, but with a little bit of hard work everything can get better.

With the technology that we have today the advances in medicine from the begging of the century until today are clear. This is making people live longer, what s wonderful because people can enjoy more their lives. However, this brings us another big population problem. In 19th and early 20th centuries medical advances, public sanitation, and better living standards gradually reduced the Western world s death rates, and birthrates followed suit. . . . Between 1950 and 1998 the developing world s average life expectancy rose from 40 to 63 years, and world population more than doubled. (National Geographic)

With people living longer, some countries were forced to lower their birth rates to keep an average population growth rate. Developed countries have managed to decrease their population growth rate, but the developing countries still have a lot to lower. By decreasing the birth rate other problems appear. Low birth rates in industrialized countries and high birth rates in the third world produce distortions in the age distribution of the respective populations. The industrialized world has too few young people; the third world, too many. Not only are fewer people being born in the industrialized world, those already here are living longer. (Pat Holt)

While countries like France and Germany have really low birth rate, other countries like Kenya have extremely high birth rates. Ninety percent of the current population growth takes place in developing countries. (Virtual Globe, 1)

The best way to control the birth rate is by creating groups to help people became parents, like Planned Parenthood. People go there to understand better how their bodies work. They can buy contraceptive pills, and learn how to use them. Another way to prevent high birth rates is by allowing aborting, but this is a big issue that s argued worldwide.

One may ask, How can there be a population problem when so much land is empty? Well, if it s considered that most of the empty land is used to provide people food, and another large portion are filled with deserts and forests, then it s easy to realize that there is no empty land, after all we do need the deserts and the forests as other resources extractors. Every second nearly three people are added to the world (Zero Population Growth) and more food is required to provide them a good and healthy life. With the improve of technology people have managed to get the food they needed. However, Earth s carrying capacity is finishing. The per capita resources and productivity are declining.

Table 1: Population and Availability of Renewable Resources (Thomas Malthus, 3)

1990 2010 TOTAL CHANGE (%) PER CAPITA CHANGE (%)

Population (millions) 5,290 7,030 33

Fish Catch (millions tons) 85 102 20 -10

Irrigated Land (millions hectares) 237 277 17 -12

Cropland (million hectares) 1,444 1,516 5 -21

Rangeland and Pasture (million hectares) 3,402 3,540 4 -22

Forests (million hectares) 3,413 3,165 -7 -30

By analyzing Table1 (above) it s easy to notice that by the end of the year 2010 the average 2200cal. diet per capita is going to drop (National Geographic, 61). In an average, people will have less food to eat than they do today. Another problem concerning the food supply is the distribution.

The only possible way to provide enough food to everybody is to keep improving the technology for farms and other resources of food. It will be hard to keep up with the fast population growth, but is something that must be done.

Each year, about 90 million people join the human race. (Hinrichson, Don, 1) Every second 4.2 babies are born and only 1.7 people dies (NPG). This is generating many problems on Earth s environment.

A crowded city street, a bus with people riding on the roof, one-room apartments sleeping families of five or more, a traffic jam in a large national park, these are everyday images in the modern world, a world that seems to be bursting with people. The human population, now at 5.8 billion people worldwide, has been growing at an explosive rate since World War II. A quarter of a million babies is born everyday, totaling 90 million in one year. At this rate, by the end of the century global population will reach more than 6 billion, and in another 50 years, it will reach 10 billion. Even if each woman were to have only two children, the world population would rise by at least another 3 billion people before the year 2048. (Virtual Globe)

Meeting the basic needs of all these people like food, housing, heat, energy, etc., and dealing with the waste generated by the world population places tremendous demands on natural resources. Environmental problems, including air pollution, water pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, and loss of biodiversity, are all compounded by rapidly expanding human population.

Population pressures on the environment are determined as much by the distribution of people around the world as by total population numbers. Ninety percent of current population growth takes place in developing countries, where 84 percent of the world s people will live by the year 2025. Mozambique and Nepal, for example, are growing at a rate of nearly 4 percent per year, potentially doubling their population every 17.5 years. But developed countries such as Japan and France have much slower growth rates slow enough that it will take about 200 years to double their populations.

Although most developed countries have lower population growth rates than developing countries, industrialized place far greater demands on the world s natural resources and produces far more air pollution. Intensive per capita use of resources by industrialized countries is far greater, but these nations also have developed the means to catch and treat pollution as it is emitted with technology such as smokestack scrubbers, auto emission systems, and wastewater treatment plants. Although developing countries consume far fewer resources per person than industrialized countries, the sheer numbers of people in developing countries can quickly deplete soil forests, and water supplies. And these less wealthy nations usually cannot afford the technology necessary to curtail serious environmental degradation.

Overpopulation also contributes to political and economic strife. As nations expand their needs for energy, materials, and space, they often run into conflict with other nations trying to do the same.

As it is noticeable that this huge growth in the population is happening in the developing countries. There are many conferences about what should be done to those countries to lower the population growth. However, it doesn t matter to what solution they might get, it will never work if the population is not educated enough. In Brazil 14.7 percent of the people with more than 15 years are analphabet. This means that almost 30 million people from its 200 million don t know how to read and write. (IBGE) And that s not all, only 1 from 1000 students that start in the first grade every year, does go to a university. That s a sad reality for Brazil, which is one of the most developed countries among the third world countries. Researchers need to realize that without education, there s no way they can stop the explosive population growth that has been happening this last century.

Sources Cited

Francis, Davis. Population Growth Slows, and Elderly Ranks Rise Christian Science Monitor 234.90 (Oct. 98): 6. 14 Nov. 1998

Hager, Mary. How Demographic Fatigue Will Defuse the Population Bomb Newsweek 18.132 (Nov. 1998): 12. 21 Nov. 1998

Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estat stica. 21 Nov. 1998

Hinrichson, Don. Putting The Bite On The Planet Earth . 21 Nov 1998

Holt, Pat Population shifts future chalenge is here Christian Science Monitor 197.90 (Sep. 98): 11. 14 Nov. 1998

Malthus, Thomas. Human Population Growth Ch.16. 21 October 1998

Microsoft Encarta Virtual Globe. Population Growth .

Negative Population Growth. 21 Oct. 1998

Parfit, Michael. Human Migration National Geographic 194 (Oct 1998):4.

Reid, T. R.. Feeding the Planet National Geographic 194 (Oct 1998):4.

Zero Population Growth 14 Nov. 1998