Population And Overpopulation

Decent Essays
Overpopulation and the Threat it May Pose
Overpopulation is an issue that, if left unresolved, could lead to countless catastrophes. The depletion of natural resources, pollution, and immanent war are few of the infinite number of horrific events that pivot on human population. Society has been infected with news and information regarding countries that are currently struggling due to their excessive populations. These conflicts, at the moment, are secluded to their isolated regions containing immense populations, but if the hypothesis of those who study these societal predicaments are correct, all of society will see the negative effects of overpopulation on a world-wide scale, given that there still is a world to populate.
The world which
…show more content…
As population increases, the quantity of natural resources only decreases. In J. T. Trevors’ (2009) article "Total Abuse of the Earth: Human Overpopulation and Climate Change", Trevors addresses the abuse that human overpopulation poses on our environment. Furthermore, Trevors explains that as population grows (approximately 75 million each year from the author’s calculations), the more society needs to use resources. Trevors’ (2009) article is loaded with mental imaging of all the various ways we are harming our environment to the point that it was almost repetitive. This repetitiveness only proves the urgency of his ideas. On a similar note, the article "World overpopulation", by David Pimentel (2012), delves deeper into the issues of overpopulation. Pimentel, while briefly discussing the effects of overpopulation, additionally uses various data points to estimate future population rates and why his numbers are accurate. Pimentel hypothesizes that although the world population is estimated to double in less than 6 decades (according to his and Trevors ' approximations), the human population will never reach that amount. According to Pimentel (2012), …show more content…
The greater the size of population, the greater the number of criminal violence. Yes, the percentage of crime rate remains balanced, but the number of crimes increase, which heightens the probability of being involved in criminal activity. This is not even the most frightening part. When populations grow, resources decrease, as stated previously. When resources decrease, especially in heavily-populated locations, conflict ensues. This conflict could blossom as riots, complete anarchy, or God forbid, war. Richard Fitzpatrick, who is a sociologist and criminologist at Western Kentucky University, commented during a personal interview that "overpopulation would push our world into war and suffering", due to a depletion of resources that would eventually "cause tension between nations" (F. Fitzpatrick, personal communication, October, 2016). This conflict between countries is only asking for a new war to present itself. There have been countless wars in history caused by resource shortages (oil), recently being the Iraq War, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Gulf War. Three wars in the past 30 years due to oil shortage. The conflicts will only increase with a growth in the human

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    “Whether we accept it or not, this will likely be the century that determines what the optimal human population is for our planet. It will come about in one of two ways: Either we decide to manage our on numbers, to avoid a collision of every line on collision of every line on civilization’s graph – or nature will do it for us, in the form of famines, thirst, climate chaos, crashing ecosystems,…

    • 1531 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Worldwide population growth is an issue that grows more and more urgent with each passing day. Our earth is nearing its capacity, and its important that we address this issue to avoid a worldwide state of emergency. Garrett Hardin and Clark Wolf both discuss this issue in detail, and offer their own solutions on how we should solve this problem. However, while Hardin presents a valid view of our world population problems, Wolf provides a more well rounded argument, and goes further to provide reasonable, effective solutions that target the true source of the issue. Garrett Hardin, in his essay “Lifeboat Ethics,” describes the problem of current world population growth, and how we are making this already very serious issue even worse by living…

    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Overpopulation is a major issue in our world and will continue to be an issue with births everyday. However, consumption rises at an even faster rate, and so as overpopulation increases, consumption is then doubling. Pearce and Ellis mention that overpopulation will not reckon our planet, but that consumption will with high amounts of waste causing carbon dioxide emissions to rise and pollution to increase. She insists in her article, that our economy and environment will be a reflection of how we treat it. Even…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Immigration in the United States has been a political, social and economical controversial topic for many years now. There is illegal and legal immigration. Politically there have been many heated debates on if immigration is a good or bad thing and if illegal immigrants should be deported or not. There are important things to take in to consideration such as, the security of the border and the supply of labor in our country. Socially, there’s the barrier of assimilating to American culture.…

    • 180 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Overpopulation In America

    • 202 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Should American families have a two children max rule to limit population growth? American families should have a two children max rule because the world is already overpopulated enough, we're running out of resources, and children are already starving. Excessive amounts of children can be dangerous to the economy. America is most definitely crowded, much like the rest of the world. People live so close to each other nowadays if you both were to reach out the window of your home at the same time, you could shake hands.…

    • 202 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    TPP7123 Assignment

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages

    TPP7123 Assignment 2 Template Task 1: Essay question analysis (a) Essay Question: (Write question from Assignment 4 here. Highlight the task words. Underline the limit words) The course reading identifies no.…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    “Overpopulation in various countries has become a serious threat to the health of people and a grave obstacle to any attempt to organise peace on this planet” - Albert Einstein. Imagine you're inside a train that is so crowded people are almost bursting out the windows and the doors. This is what the population density in some parts of the world is like and this could be Canada soon. There are 7 billion people in the world, with approximately 1.2 billion in India and 1.3 billion in China. It may not seem that Canada is in danger with its population of 35.16 million, but that may not last for long.…

    • 200 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Yerisa F. Abreu Ms. Jassinya Alvarado Societal Issues 21 February 2018 Societal Writing Assignment Overpopulation happens when a species' population exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche. The United States is already overpopulated in the sense that we are consuming our national. The way we are taking space from our nation doesn’t only mean we are running out of space to live but that we are making this into a social issue. If this overpopulation continues we soon won't have Freshwater, fresh air to breath and food.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1798, Reverend Thomas Malthus said that the earth’s population would grow more quickly then we are able to produce resources, such as food (Dimick). He hypothesized that the population would grow geometrically, meaning it would double, while the amount of resources we have would only grow arithmetically (Dimick). What are the leading contributors to overpopulation and lack of resources, and what can country’s do specifically to fix the gap? Overpopulation is defined as “an undesirable condition where the number of existing human population exceeds the carrying capacity of the earth (Kukreja)”. Since the Bubonic Plague in the 1400’s Earths population has been in a constant rise, and even though there has been a number or wars and other hazards…

    • 1550 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1798, Thomas Malthus published a book titled, “An Essay on the Principle of Population”, in which he argued that population growth will certainly exceed the production of food, resulting in widespread famine. There are two reasons why some geographers today believe and two reasons why they don’t believe Malthus’ theory can be used to predict future population issues. Some geographers support Malthus’ theory today, because the population has been growing rapidly as Malthus predicted. For example, the population of many countries in lower stages(2-3) of the demographic transition model are still rising exponentially because of the high birth rates. This is the result of the limited use of contraception.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Space exploration is a vital part to how the world is today. People believe that it is just a waste of money, but in truth it could save the entire human race in the future. Without space exploration, we will overpopulate the earth. The earth does not have enough space for the rate of people being born. Also with overpopulation, means that we will also use up all of our natural resources.…

    • 1286 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Overpopulation Is Not the Problem” by Erle C. Ellis, “Overpopulation Is Not the Problem? Really?” by Robert Walker, “Overpopulation is Still the Problem” by Alon Tal and “The overpopulation myth” by Fred Pearce all discuss their opinions on the current issue of overpopulation. Both Walker and Tal believe we should recognize overpopulation as a serious issue and should not take it lightly. On the other hand, Ellis no longer believes this is true.…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    As population numbers of every country is different, needed resources are also unequal. In our crowded world, there are many people who are living good lives while two thirds of the population are living a poor life. Through Lifeboat Ethics: the Case against Helping the Poor written by Garrett Hardin (1974) it explains how there are many dangers of overpopulation through the world. Hardin goes into detail about how overpopulation and having different population’s causes for an unequal resource need. Hardin’s article has many strengths and weakness to prove his point that there are many things wrong with overpopulation and what the world is trying to do to deal with these issues.…

    • 1332 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Rachael Meinders Population Problem Essay September 30, 2014 Period 6 Overpopulation is a highly debated and controversial idea that states that the carrying capacity of the earth determines the number of people the world can sustain. The carrying capacity is a figured number or limit the world can hold and function with at any time. Earthly features such as the amount of resources, health of the environment, modern technology, basic needs, etc of the people and the land determine the carrying capacity, which always changes. The idea of overpopulation states that when the population exceeds the carrying capacity, the society fails and dies off. There is no definite evidence proving or disproving that carrying capacity exists, but there is a great deal of debate and speculation about all aspects of the idea of overpopulation.…

    • 1609 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Have you ever thought about the number of people in the world around you? According to Webster’s Dictionary, world population means the whole number of people or inhabitants on the earth. The population of the world is ever growing. Every year our planet population increases by 80 million people on average, at this rate, in 2050, our world population will hit 11 billion(Current World Populations…). Our thriving world population is becoming a threat to society.…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays