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How To Cope with Overpopulation

A look at the ins and outs of the rising global population.

By Alissa BudzinskiPublished 7 years ago 6 min read
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There are roughly 7 billion people on this planet. No one knows exactly cause it's a little hard to keep track. But for every two people that die, about four are born. The world's population is growing by about 2.5 people per second. Now 7 billion people is a lot to take in. Let's put it this way, if you were to say a number a second, it would take over 220 years to count to 7 billion. However, we have plenty of space on earth to fit all 7 billion people. So if there's enough space for us all, then what's the big deal?

Well, it turns out people have been thinking about this for a long time. As far back as when we reached our first measly billion. At that time all of the world's economies were centered on agriculture. It was a matter of how much food we could produce with the primitive technology of the time. So one billion people was pretty much pushing the limit as far as what agriculture could support. British economist Thomas Malthus calculated that human populations typically grow exponentially while the ability of humans to feed each other tends to grow linearly. This is where problems arise.

As our growth as a population stretches beyond our ability to keep everyone fed, we encounter famine and starvation. And the people who survive that will probably be taken out by disease or war. When humans are kept well fed, we're actually a pretty nice bunch of people. But when threatened with starvation, humans will do a lot of things for food, including going to war.

However, what Thomas Malthus didn't predict was the industrial revolution. This drastically increased humans' ability to produce food with far fewer laborers. This led to a huge population boom. It took humans 50,000 years to get to 1 billion people and then to get from 1 billion to 7 billion, it took about 200 years. So thanks to the industrial revolution for allowing us to grow more food with machines and transport that food easier with machines. As well, thanks for the medical advancements that taught us the importance of soap and the way that diseases work. As a result, humans now live about four decades longer than they did 200 years ago.

So now, the world's population is growing at a rate of about 1.1% per year. If this rate continues, by 2050 there will be about 9.3 billion people on earth. The question is, at what point will the population outgrow our capacity to provide food for everyone. It turns out it's not a matter of how many people can the planet accommodate as much as how many rich people can the planet accommodate.

People in general only really need oxygen, water, and food. But rich people typically demand a little more. In first world countries, we tend to have a lot of irrigated crops that require a lot of fresh water. And in fact, the number one irrigated crop is actually grass. It takes more water to create lawns than it does to create all the corn in America. We use water like crazy. Although it's a pretty scarce resource, we can survive on less than 1% of the world's water. Most of it is salt water that we can't use to drink or water crops. And 70% of the fresh water is frozen in glaciers. So clean fresh water is non-negotiable and scarce.

That leaves us with food. The world's current food output could feed around 11 billion people and yet there are 1 billion people starving. So if there's enough food for 11 billion people and there's only 7 billion people, who is eating all of that food? The answer would be our food is eating that food. A huge amount of the food we grow gets in turn fed to livestock which seems unfair but rich people will do what they will. Now when I say rich, I don't mean the 1% rich, I mean if you have fresh running water and electricity and a computer and can regularly afford to eat meat, then you are rich by a lot of the world's standards. So assuming you live in a first world or developed country, you as a person will typically consume as much as 32 Kenyans. Recently, the number of well off people in the world has started to rise, drastically and quickly. So while it's great that we have more people on the earth that aren't starving, they suddenly require more everything.

In the mean time, a large percentage of the babies that we talked about being born are being born in the less developed countries. So the population is actually growing in a lopsided way. People in developed countries are actually having fewer children. In the Japan, the average family is having only one child meaning they aren't even replacing themselves. In America, it's more around 2 or 3 and about 5 or 6 in sub-Saharan Africa. So these underdeveloped nations are having a baby boom which happens when you have things like sanitation and vaccinations and antibiotics and safe drinking water. While it is a good thing that fewer babies are dying, it means there are going to be a lot more sub-Saharan Africans in the next 50 years or so and that is where the majority of the already starving people reside. So while people in the first world are having no babies and eating all the food, the people in the developing countries are struggling to provide for their growing population.

Eventually, those countries will get what is called a youth bulge. In fact, many nations are already seeing it which is an increase in the number of people between 15 and 29 who are all our looking for the same jobs at the same time. Some people speculate that youth bulges like these have been responsible for nearly every insurrection in history from the English revolution to the Arab spring. So while those were bad things, we should be aware that there may be more of it coming.

Through our desire for more space and more resources, we're also putting pressure on pretty much every habitat on earth. Worldwide, 52 species move 1 category closer to extinction every year. So the more there are of us, the fewer of literally everything else there is on earth. Except for the ones we like to eat or pet such as cows, cats, and dogs. This is typically why we've seen an increase in the pressure for sustainable farming and sustainable living. People are becoming more aware of the impact we're having on the environment.

While we as a species produce enough to provide for everyone, we won't be able to eliminate starvation without drastic changes. It would require big changes to the way we live in the first world, the way crops are produced, the way food is stored, shipped and distributed. And unfortunately, these are changes that would have to take place on a global scale. However, the world is too focused on fighting with each other to work together on a solution. Change does not happen quickly. Luckily more countries are working towards reducing their foot print and trying to bring about a more sustainable economy. Only time will tell how much of an impact our decisions will make.

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