Our planet has a people problem. The human race has become a pandemic on the planet, it doesn’t have to be this way. Our numbers have never approached 1 billion before we discovered fossil fuels. Since we started using coal then oil our numbers have shot up to the moon. Most of us would not be here without the boon of oil and gas. If we don’t limit our numbers we will have to face an inevitable bottleneck of resource wars, food shortages and an environmental collapse that will lead to a population collapse.
Even at this discounted rate, having a child remains the single worst thing an individual can do for climate change. It’s damage that a lifetime of going carless, recycling, and eating vegan doesn’t even come close to counteracting. – prindle Institute
E.O. Wilson, entomologist and conservationist (1929-2021)
“We are in a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption that could push half of Earth’s species to extinction in this century.”
“The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical concept.”
Invasive species. We invade other lands to take land from others
When we overshoot our land base we have to migrate to ruin other areas. For example only 3% of Norway is suitable for agriculture. This was the reason for the Viking invasion of Britain.
40 per cent of the entire surface of the planet is being used for agriculture.
The remaining land consists of:
The Artic and Antarctic.
The worlds deserts and most of Australia.
Mountainous areas and areas used for mining.
Urban areas with the concrete, roads and rail networks that come with them.
The rest is the worlds last remaining tropical forests such as the Amazon rainforest which is the lungs of the Earth. Man and Woman will not stop until the whole world is under cultivation. The land area required for food will double by 2050.
Carl Sagan, astrophysicist and science communicator (1934-1996)
“Our job is to bring about a worldwide demographic transition and flatten out that exponential curve—by eliminating grinding poverty, making safe and effective birth control methods widely available, and extending real political power (executive, legislative, judicial, military, and in institutions influencing public opinion) to women. If we fail, some other process, less under out control, will do it for us.”
When a population reaches the limits of what its ecological land base can provide this leads to resource scarcity. Increases in food production to feed an increasing population leads further increased population expansion. If you have a box of rats and you add food and water the rats will breed until they have no more room left. If you constantly expand the walls of the box and constantly fill the ever expanding box with food and water you will create an infinite amount of rats. This is the same for all creatures including humans.
Human boom and receding frontiers
There are no more continents waiting in the midst, waiting to be discovered. We discovered America and Australia and covered them with our cities, roads and farms. So now we in a predicament.
Barriers to progress
Antiquated cultures and religions
Uneducated women
lack of family planning
Lack of conception
People need to be convinced not forced into reducing their population. Education and incentives will enable a peaceful population reduction.
During the twentieth century the worlds population has multiplied by four. World population has doubled (100% increase) in the last 40+ years from from 3 billion to 7 billion thus causing a massive strain on the biosphere.
Albert Einstein, physicist (1879-1955)
“Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the well-being of many people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organize peace on this planet of ours.”
We can breed like rats and endure war, famine and plague or live in equilibrium with the earth.
Any friend of mankind, our fellow earthlings and of the sheer breathtaking beauty of our planet must be concerned.
We will soon have an over-burdened earth, there are now no more continents left for us to discover and colonise.
Sir Richard Branson, David attenbourgh, Steven Hawkins to name a few of the great minds of our generation all agree on one thing
we are breeding ourselves into extinction
Are we setting ourselves up for anthropogenic mass-extinction and wars for scarce resources.
The explosion in the numbers of one species has a direct result on the quality of life and the condition of our life support system the biosphere. The Human animal over the last 50 years has been propagating its own kind into oblivion, whilst destroying all other life forms in the process
The truth is this: The earth cannot provide enough food and fresh water for 10 billion people, never mind homes, never mind roads, hospitals and schools. It’s not going to happen…Human numbers will have to be bought under control, one way or another. Either we do something ourselves, or we run out of food. Either way billions of human beings will vanish from the Earth’s books. [T]he planet cannot comfortably sustain more than about 5 billion people.
Sir Richard Branson (Reach for the skies)
A billion people could live off the earth; 6 billion living as we do is far too many and, you run out of planet in no time
Sir James Lovelock
My biggest worry is population growth, and if it continues at the current rate, we will be standing shoulder to shoulderin 2600. Something has to be done, and I don’t want it to be a disaster.
Stephen Hawking (Theoretical physicist, author A brief history of time)
“Which is the greater danger – nuclear warfare or the population explosion? The latter absolutely! To bring about nuclear war, someone has to DO something; someone has to press a button. To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values-there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally – and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing.” Isaac Asimov
The harmful psychological effects of overcrowding due to overpopulation were made clear to me in a biology class. I read about an experiment where two rats were put into a cage and allowed to reproduce freely. At first they got along fine. That soon changed. The number of rats multiplied but they remained in the original cage. As their numbers increased, they started to exhibit anti-social behavior. The outcome of overcrowding is the same with humans. The less space people have to live in, the harder it is for them to get along. As people compete, not only for space but also for food, water and air, the more hostile their behavior becomes. Crime, and a lack of respect for other people, becomes more common as personal space is reduced. Violence is more prevalent in highly populated areas, as are other forms of criminal behavior. This is probably due to aggression and anxiety brought on by a lack of personal space. San Joaquin Delta College
Population facts:
Population growth has seen exponential growth from the start of the industrial revolution, as a result of mass production of food, medicine and improved manufacturing processes. After WWII, the benefits of immunisation, clean water and sanitation, and antibiotics were made available in developing countries. As a result, their populations started to grow very rapidly.
In 1800, the world population was around 1 Billion. In 2016 it is around 7.5 billion.
We are adding over 80 million people to the planet annually – 1 Billion every 12 years.
Population growth is not slowing down – it has been an upward linear trend for 4 decades. (The ‘growth rate’ halved because the population doubled, not because we are adding fewer people.)
Fertility rates are not dropping as fast as the UN’s medium projection assumes. From 2004 to 2022, each time the UN updated world population data, it found it had previously underestimated the growth.
No country is at risk of population collapse through a ‘birth dearth’. Not even Japan. Low fertility can cause a population decline that is gentle and manageable, and brings many benefits including more equitable access to resources and a clean less polluted environment.
A stable population requires that births roughly match deaths. If people are going to live long and healthy lives, we must have fewer births to balance that improvement. This shift, from high birth rate with high death rate to low birth rate and low death rate, is referred to as the “demographic transition”. It is the central feature of modernisation of societies, which both reflects and enables a higher quality of life.
It has been estimated that feeding 9 billion people by mid-century will require between 70% and 100% more grain to be produced than was produced in 2010. This would require faster yield improvement than in the past, even while land and water resources are more restricted.
As the technology improves in terms of yields this results in a population increase.
Whether the peak human population is below 10 billion or over 12 billion will make a big difference to whether they can be adequately fed without further damaging the environment. Currently, we are heading for well over 12 billion.
About 40% of pregnancies are unintended. Over 200 million women want to avoid pregnancy but aren’t using effective contraception.
No such national program exists today. Family planning now gets only around 0.4% of international aid. The development industry either insists that population growth is not relevant to development, or that birth rates decline due to economic development, girls’ education and infant mortality rates, not family planning programs. These beliefs are not supported in evidence. They are impeding development by undermining support for voluntary family planning.
Since international support for family planning fell in the mid-1990s, the fertility rate globally almost stopped going down. In some countries, it increased again. This is despite strong progress on economic development in Africa, girls’ education and infant mortality rates.
Each dollar spent on family planning saves between $2 and $6 on other development interventions. The same dollar avoids more greenhouse gas emissions than a dollar spent on any renewable energy option.
“I speak as a planetary physician whose patient, the living Earth, complains of fever; I see the Earth’s declining health as our most important concern, our very lives depending upon a healthy Earth. Our concern for it must come first, because the welfare of the burgeoning mass of humanity demands a healthy planet.”― James E. Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia
