Overpopulation is Not the Problem Essay -- essays research papers fc

Over macrocosm is Not the Problem As we sailed into the new millennium, earthly concern crossed a thres tie never before witnessed in our species. We flew last(prenominal) the 6 million mark in tot. This is an impressive figure, but non one that we can easily appreciate, unless we atomic number 18 Bill Gates or ExxonMobil. Lets try to understand how incredibly large this number is. Consider that this member has 9000 letters. Thus, it would hire more than 650,000 copies of it to produce enough letters to represent alone humans. Or, put in other terms, consider that if all the humans were to hold hands side by side, our species would circumscribe the equator nearly 14 clock And perhaps, most horrifying, if we all were to move to Texas (the 2nd largest state in our nation), apiece one of us would only have a theoretical mode 35 ft by 35 ft to ourselves-assuming no live for other forms of life or human "necessities" such as airports, lawns, and obtain malls. So now that you have an idea of how big a number 6,000,000,000 is, are you plane more convinced that human world has bugger off too large? The state, at first glance, appears overwhelming. The worlds population has learnn from 1 billion in the early 1800s to over 6 billion today. ii nations in the world (namely, China and India) themselves each have more than 1 billion people now. According to United Nations statistics, around 2 billion people (1 in 3) suffer from malnutrition and dietary deficiencies and more than 800 million (1 in 7) are chronically malnourished. Add to this that resources are becoming depleted and ecosystems (and their living organism and plant residents) are being decimated. Worse yet, if world populations continue to grow at the rate observed in 2000, the worlds population will whip 24 billion people by 2100 a very marvellous event given recent reductions in world growth rates (current projections put us at about 12 billion). With all of this evidence is the re any doubt that population has grown too large. However, even though the worlds human population appears to be overabundant, "super-sized"," or "gargantuan," this tendency to call about the world problems as largely driven by population pressures, as so many thoughtful people do, has its own austere problems and limitations. Population only tells part of the story. People are malnourished not because there ... ...ng to continue to contract it. In another example, recognize that when we distinguish out that our prisons are full, we dont respond that our population is too big, but sooner we, all too often, resign ourselves that more prisons need to be built. However, as long as prisoners keep being "produced" by our society (via our laws, our fond neglects, our revengeful nature), we will continue to need more and more prisons. Perhaps, alternatively than chanting that overpopulation is such a terrible problem so much, we should submit what economi c, political, and social forces exist worldwide that encourage people to have children that are almost guaranteed to suffer throughout their lives and, more illuminating, why must children natural today suffer-when food is available, immunizations are available, and technology seems so advanced. It is time to take a refreshed, rejuvenated, and more fully informed look at the "population" problem. Works Cited Brower, M. & W. Leon. The Consumers Guide to Effective Environmental Choices. The Union Of interested Scientists. New York Three Rivers Press, 1999. Cohen, J. How Many People Can The Earth congest? New York W.W. Norton, 1995.