The term world population commonly refers to the total number of living humans on Earth at a given time. As of 15 October 2009, the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6.791 billion.[1] The world population has been growing continuously since the end of the Black Death around 1400.[2] There were also short term falls at other times due to plague, for example in the mid 17th century (see graph). The fastest rates of world population growth (above 1.8%) were seen briefly during the 1950s then for a longer period during the 1960s and 1970s (see graph). According to population projections, world population will continue to grow until around 2050. The 2008 rate of growth has almost halved since its peak of 2.2% per year, which was reached in 1963. World births have levelled off at about 134 million per year, since their peak at 163-million in the late 1990s, and are expected to remain constant. However, deaths are only around 57 million per year, and are expected to increase to 90 million by the year 2050. Because births outnumber deaths, the world's population is expected to reach about 9 billion by the year 2040.
Human Population - Global Issues
"Go Forth And Multiply!" That's what the human population has successfully been doing for thousands and thousands of years, expanding, exploring, migrating, conquering, utilizing, evolving, civilizing, industrializing, and now, destroying the very land upon which we live.
Many feel (as has been the case throughout history) that the major international wars to be fought in the future will continue to be over natural resources. Power conflicts and self-interest will perhaps mean that there will be gross violation of basic rights and death or misery for millions of innocent people. Throughout history, most wars have had trade and resources at their core (leading to ideological battles) fueled by imperialistic motives. In the future, while this pattern is likely to continue, as resources get depleted and wasted in these wars (hot and cold), additional conflicts and contention will arise through access to even more limited resources.
Many of us have grown up learning and being told that 6 billion is too much and this "over population" is primarily impacting the planet's ability to cope. But is that really the case? Sure, the planet is facing incredible stress. But how much of that is due to large populations, and how much is based on other factors, such as how we choose to live, how we produce, consume and waste our resources? The poor are numerous, but as we shall see, consume far less resources of the planet, for example.
Studies point to ecological limits to sustain people, but these limits can be different, based on the way we consume resources etc so it is hard to say for sure what over population means let alone if we are at some threshold, below, or above it. The information understood so far provides valuable insights and is very important to consider, nonetheless. Yet, the figure of 6 billion and literature about over-population naturally looks to the poor regions where there are high populations and environmental degradation as the problem.
In the poverty section of this web site, we see numerous causes of poverty, and many are found in unfair economic and trade agreements from wealthier nations and institutions. While it might be an oversimplification to say the poor are victims, a lot of poverty, if not the majority is caused by factors which the poor themselves often have no control or choice over. Yet, at the same time the poor seem to get the blame for burdening the planet. Is this the case? While the concern for the environment and the planet's health is usually the central issue here, is there a risk of addressing the issue in ways that may not get to the root causes of any problems that are perceived to require serious attention? This section of the globalissues.org web site attempts to look at and introduce some of these issues.
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth.[1]
Overpopulation does not depend only on the size or density of the population, but on the ratio of population to available sustainable resources. It also depends on the means of resources used and distributed throughout the population. If a given environment has a population of 10 individuals, but there is food or drinking water enough for only 9, then in a closed system where no trade is possible, that environment is overpopulated; if the population is 100 but there is enough food, shelter, and water for 200 for the indefinite future, then it is not overpopulated. Overpopulation can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates due to medical advances, from an increase in immigration, or from an unsustainable biome and depletion of resources. It is possible for very sparsely-populated areas to be overpopulated, as the area in question may have a meager or non-existent capability to sustain human life (e.g. the middle of the Sahara Desert or Antarctica).
The resources to be considered when evaluating whether an ecological niche is overpopulated include clean water, clean air, food, shelter, warmth, and other resources necessary to sustain life. If the quality of human life is addressed, there may be additional resources considered, such as medical care, education, proper sewage treatment and waste disposal. Overpopulation places competitive stress on the basic life sustaining resources, leading to a diminished quality of life.[2].
If resources required to sustain the organism are being consumed by the organism faster than the resource can be renewed, then the organism is overpopulated. For example, humans are consuming fossil fuels much faster than the planet can renew them and those resources are currently required to produce and distribute the necessary quantity of food to feed the population, and therefore humans are overpopulated on Earth.
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