Impacts of Human Population Growth

Impacts of Human Population Growth

By Denise Cox

ENV-201

Professor Elizabeth Danks

Feb. 28, 2015

        We as Americans all have a certain life style that we live by each and every day. That life style might include going to work, school, watching the kids, or even just lying in bed, but one thing that all of that in tales is energy and resources. Anything we do takes some sort of energy or resource from the planet. In America we have just grown a custom to doing whatever we want and taking anything we needed from the planet. Taking any resource from the planet though has its effects though and most of the time it’s that it doesn’t come back as fast as we want it to. As Americans we need to slow down and look at what we are doing to the environment. Everything we do takes a toll on it.

        The population for the world has increased drastically the last several years and continues to increase every day. Many people do not understand that the population growth has a lot to do with the environmental problems that the world faces. The current population for the world in a little over 7 billion people and continues to go each and every day, it actually states in the Environmental Science book that the growth rate for the world is about 1.14% a year. It doesn’t seem like a lot but it is when that means that there are millions being added every year. Many events have actually caused the increase in the population and you might not think that they do. Such as technology (tools and weapons), Agriculture revolution (plow and irrigation) increased food supplies, industrial revolution helped food production, boosted food supplies, and opening of the new world for settlement. All these and some more helped increase the population. A big help in increasing the population would be the invention of medicine. The new modern medicine enhanced the human condition. “New drugs such as penicillin dramatically lowered the death rate, especially in the early years of life.” (Chiras).

[pic 1]

This graph shows how the population of the world has increased in such a drastic way. People do not realize how fast the population has grew the last several years and how it continues to grow. A problem that we face though is that we as Americans can do something about our growing population. Most countries cannot control how their population grows. Each country has a different growth rate each year and surprisingly America has one of the lowest growth rates in the world. Many factors come into play when you look at a country’s growth. Let’s look at it this way; America is a developed country and has many medications to help with many things, such as birth control. Birth control has helped sustain a level growth rate, but some countries are not as developed as America such as Africa. Africa does not have birth control like America, so they have nothing to control whether or not someone has a baby. Some places you can get anything you needed like in America. In America you have all kinds of resources such as: medicines, food, water, ways to travel, and ways to build a shelter and provide protection. In places such as Africa many of those things are not available. America’s growth rate is 0.7, Africa’s is 2.14, and Asia’s is 0.2 (Chiras).  The population of these countries are not controlled and there are reasons why these countries are not controlling the population growth. In some countries such as Asia and Africa women are still being misused. In many of these countries for women to go school and to work are not allowed. This also leads to child marriages where these women are having kids at a young age and can have kids for longer as a American woman would. In America were women can go to school and have a job they are less likely to have kids at a young age.  Women in America have dreams and want to work toward those dreams. Women in other countries do not have the choice to have dreams they are told what to do.