12/27/2023 0 Comments Human population 0 adThe total fertility rate has decreased, but as fertility decline has slowed to a trickle, the number of total births has continued to increase. We are still having more births per year than ever before. The number of mothers is still increasing faster than family planning is decreasing the birth rate. Truth – Birth rates started declining in the 1970s-90s due to family planning, but not low enough. Myth 1 – The human population is stabilizing, and birth rates are decreasing Jane O’Sullivan elucidates on the following six myths that make inaction a virtue. These myths may prevent even environmentalists from viewing overpopulation as an issue. An elaborate set of myths has emerged in opposition to reducing population levels. One of the biggest challenges to facing overpopulation head-on and discussing a decreasing population are the stigmas and myths associated with reducing human population numbers. If we talk about this now, the hope is to increase our options for solutions. This only defers the problem and creates collateral damage. We are already doing this by (a) using fewer natural resources per person, or (b) increasing productivity by finding more ways to use resources. What can we do? Jane O’Sullivan outlines the two options for addressing population overshoot – i ncrease the Earth’s carrying capacity or decrease population. Any plan that includes continued growth is doomed to fail.” Overshoot is the problem we must address. People understandably want to know the solutions. Overshoot is more difficult to dispute it destroys rainforests, leads to the extinction of other species, the pollution of land, rivers, and seas, the acidification of the oceans, and the loss of fisheries and coral reefs. Climate change has captured public awareness more recently although many doubt that it is an emergency. Concerns about overshoot and population raised more than 40 years ago were dismissed. The main cause of overshoot is the extraordinary growth of the human population made possible by fossil energy. Geologist Art Berman explains population overshoot this way: “Overshoot means that humans are using natural resources and polluting at rates beyond the planet’s capacity to recover. How do we revert population overshoot to a sustainable population level? We’re continuously harvesting the low-hanging fruit, for example by driving fisheries stocks to extinction” – Paul Ehrlich says. “But the longer humanity pursues business as usual, the smaller the sustainable society is likely to prove to be. Ehrlich and other scientists estimate the world’s optimum population for carrying capacity (at a comfortable standard of living – editor’s note) to be less than two billion people – 6 billion fewer than on the planet today. What is carrying capacity?Ĭarrying capacity is defined as the maximum population of a species that an area will support without undergoing deterioration. Overrun natural resources can only lead to death by starvation, conflict, and disease, and the only viable alternative is voluntary restraint on human births. Overpopulation is a human population in numbers high enough to cause environmental deterioration, impaired quality of life, or population crash. Any growth rate above 1% means we are still adding more people to the planet every year. The growth rate is declining, but not at a fast enough rate to combat the exponential compound growth. At the current growth rate, the world population will reach 9 billion by 2037 and 10 billion by 2057. We hit 6 billion in 1999 (which took 12 years) and hit 7 billion in 2011 (which took about 12 years). Then, due to the industrial revolution, humanity reached the second billion mark by 1930 (taking only 130 years), reached the third billion in 1960 (only took 30 years), then reached the fourth billion by 1974 (only took 14 years), and the fifth billion by 1987 (only took 13 years). The Earth’s first billion people milestone took from the beginning of human history until the 1800s to be achieved. There are over 8 billion people on the planet, the last billion added in less than the last 12 years. The current rate of population growth is around 80 million people per year. Jane O’Sullivan Current world population in January 2023: 8 billion The goal is actually to prevent it.” – Dr. “First off, let me get this straight, discussing addressing overpopulation does not mean discussing killing people. What will we do if we continue to grow at exponential rates? What are ethical, viable strategies to decrease population? As humanity has surpassed the 8 billion people milestone, it is more important now than ever to talk about population.
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