Overpopulation and Environmental Degradation Essay

Jessica Carling 10/28/2010 Tues/Thur. 2:00 - 3:15 Overpopulation and Environmental Degradation The planet on which we live is dying, harsh: yes, but true. The sustaining capacity of the globe is shrinking a little bit every year and soon, if the population trend continues at the current rate the sustaining capacity will have reached its peak. The ignorance of humanity has lead all to believe that the planets resources are infinite well, Im here to tell you that research, study, and observation has proven that it is in fact very finite. The population explosion has its roots in developing countries such as China and India, the two most populous countries in the†¦show more content†¦They depleted their natural resources faster than they could be replenished. There are plenty of reasons that our minds can come up with as to how human population can spiral out of control, including religion and culture; but according to Paul and Anne Ehrlich co-authors of Population Resources Environment: Issues in Human Ecology one of the m ain reasons for the spike in human population over the last century is the rise in birth rate and a sharp decline in the death rate, due to cultural advances (9). The global crude birth rate from 2005-2010 is 20.3 children per 1000 people. Ehrlich put together a chart detailing the estimated population history since 8000 B.C. According to the chart the estimated human population in 1930 A.D. was 2 billion people, by 1975 a mere 45 years later the estimated population was more than double that at around 4 billion people (6). Arthur McCormack says that high birth rates and low death rates cannot continue without causing excessive rates of population growth that are detrimental to the quality of human life (9-10). In his view the way to achieve a balance in the global population is to find a way to get birth rates to be almost if not entirely equal to death rates (10). A feat that is not easy to achieve. Dodds refers to humans drive to reproduce, in blunt terms; people just want to have sex (118). The problem is people are not practicing the process of safe sex as much as theyShow MoreRelatedEssay on Overpopulation and Environmental Degradation737 Words   |  3 PagesOverpopulation and Environmental Degradation At the time of the agricultural revolution, nearly ten thousand years ago, the population of the globe was no more than ten million. Today the world population is estimated at over six billion. In the last hundred years the population has more than tripled. With the population rising at an enormous rate of 1.7 million a week, the world as a whole is being drained of its resources. 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