How many people can the Earth actually sustain? What is the effect of human population growth on the rest of the biosphere?
This is the link to the article that you will be responding to.
Optimum Human Population Size
http://jayhanson.us/page99.htm
Remember, you need to write a 300 word opinion/reaction to the article by Friday, July 1. You then have between Friday, July 1 and Friday, July 8 to respond to one of your classmate's posts. Please see the calendar page, the link for which is on the right.
Additionally, you should take a look at the links below to familiarize yourself with the issue a bit more. This will give you some context when you read the article. I don't expect you to spend too much time, but take a few minutes to explore the sites and get an idea for the scope of the issue.
A "real time" counter keeping track of human population. There are a few graphs and a bit more information than just the size of the population.
http://www.worldometers.info/population/
This is a 5 minute YouTube video. Highly recommended!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b98JmQ0Cc3k
A graph and explanation connecting human population and species extinction.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/index.html
It is scary to think that maybe someday our planet will not be able to sustain so many people and that there will be a limit for the world’s population. It is even scarier because currently, the population is increasing exponentially at a fast rate and resources are being used up, so there is fear that there will not be enough resources for everyone in the future. However, scientists estimate that Earth can hold up even up to 150 billion people! The problem is that we cannot really achieve an equilibrated population; therefore we will need to continue to establish policies to control population growth.
ReplyDeleteThere is a part of a commentary that states that if we reach the maximum amount of population the earth can stand, people would be nurtured and housed by using similar methods like those for bakery chickens. I cannot imagine how that would be; it would be a chaos. What needs to be done is to achieve a sustainable population so it can be maintained and future generations could be supported. I agree with the fact that an optimum population should guarantee a decent life to everyone, not necessarily involving people to be away from poverty. However, it is true that everyone should have access to their basic needs. If we keep a small population, it will be easier to achieve these standards. An important fact is democracy, since it is easier to achieve it in small populations.
Then there comes the importance of biodiversity, and how a small population ensures its preservation. We use many things from biodiversity for our different needs, and I think that if we keep it small, we would make a better use of them and not waste them in high quantities. Currently, high quantities of energy are being used by all the billions of people worldwide, strongly damaging the biosphere
The population is increasing more every time. The earth will not be able to support a huge amount of people in the future. With a huge population electricity increases, biodiversity is used, no more jobs available and many other facts. There has to be a limit on a certain amount of people so that the earth can be relatively stable with social, political and economic problems that are happening because of the amount of people.
ReplyDeleteThe best thing to do is create an optimum human population. In my opinion I think this would stable most things. With an optimum human population everyone should be able to have access to education, health care, sanitary living conditions and economic opportunities. These are difficult to assure in large populations so with an optimum I think it would be great. Optimum population should be large to sustain viable population in dispersed parts of the world to preserve and foster cultural diversity. Also large to provide a critical mass in densely populated areas where intellectual, artistic and technological creativity would be stimulated. Optimum population could also be small to preserve biodiversity. If people would use small amount of our biodiversity, the earth would have large amounts of biodiversity. But since we have a large population it is difficult to maintain it high and what we would want to do is save it with a small population. Democracy works best when the population is small to resource bases. Also to guarantee the minimal physical ingredient of a decent life to everyone. I think that there has to be an optimum population so that everyone gets their needs and resources in a stable way. In the video they said” In more than one out of 2 developing countries the population has been growing faster than the food supplies”. This is shocking in my opinion since there are more people every time and so there is no food available to everyone or there will be no food available for them. The population cannot continue to grow because it will encounter a lot of problems. There has to be an optimum population for the future!
These articles reminded me of a National Geographic article I read recently where it was estimated that if each person in the world could be crammed up into a space measuring "x" feet (I don't quite remember what the measurement was) that they could all be put in an area the size of LA. Obviously, this is unreasonable since this does not mean each person would have a life considered a decent, but what is a decent life, and can everyone really achieve one?
ReplyDeleteI watched the video on population growth, and it shocked me as to how the population is growing and how as it grows we will have to use more of Earth’s resources. I was freaked out by the statistics, which made me think, “How do we go solving this problem?” I felt the video was leaning towards the solution of controlling the population, but I have to disagree with this. I don’t think many people would be happy being told how many children to have (and well… it can lead to other problems as has happened in China. Aside from quality of life (meaning housing, education, access to food, etc.), I think people’s consent should also be taken into account when evaluating Earth’s carrying capacity for humans.
Likewise, I still believe that the Earth will tell us when it can no longer sustain us. For some reason, I remember graphs in Biology where it said that when a population in an ecosystem got too big, it would ultimately level out since the habitat reached its carrying capacity. I hope that this does happen. As for now, I just want to mention a quote by Thomas Mathus that I read a while ago that said that there would never be a need for population control, since war, disease and famine would take care of it. I don’t want to sound pessimist, but at some degree it makes sense to me. We like animals want to survive and the specie will do anything possible to multiply. Animals will also die in similar ways, and therefore I don’t see how it should be so different from humans.
I don’t mean to say that I believe we should let all people die, but I do want to convey the idea we are also part of nature and thus instead of trying to go against it, find a way in which we can work with it.
I liked how Isabella analyzed the video on population growth. She asked herself "How do we go solving this problem?" It is really true, I also thought about it when I saw the video. It freaks me out also the fact that we are going to use earth resources more each time, and so maybe there will be one time in which some of them might get extinct. It worries me to think about my future family, how will they live? I found interesting the video because many people just waste the resources while they don't think how important they are to us and for the future. I liked the video a lot because it showed impacting things that I never though about.
ReplyDeleteControlling the population growth or manipulating the amount of fertility and mortality rates is something that will be critical in order to maintain a sustainable and an optimum amount of population in order to maintain a stable environment. The limit in which the world will notice when the amount of people is optimum will be when earth cannot continue to sustain or to allow the “normal” lives that we now live. Currently the size of our population can still be maintained by the amount of resources that the earth has to offer, but what came to my attention was that the growth of populations is increasing in an exponential rate which is increasingly worrisome because there is no education about how to manipulate the growth of the population or how to maintain the size, and population growth only means the use of more natural resources.
ReplyDelete“If the population continues to increase at its current rate, we will not be able to maintain or raise the global standard of living without risking destruction of the environment.” Currently the population is increasing so much that it increases about 1 billion people each 13 years. I saw the video that you posted on the blog and I was amazed of the future calculations of increase in the world population. This video definitely impacted me because what we need to maintain this global standards of living, there has to be a stop or a decrease in the exponential growth that we are now having. “Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, maybe we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment.” This quote emphasized in the video and said by Sir David Attenborough is very powerful and true because we are not focusing on stoping or changing the population growth, we are instead focusing on controlling and changing the environment that surrounds us and that is wrong because if we continue to grow at this fast rate what will end up happening is and inevitable destruction of the environment.
I see many people are agreeing on the idea that policies encouraging brith control should be implemented. I'm not sure I agree with this... at least in the sense that consists of the government telling people how many children to have. And well, I know nobody has said anything specific about having the government tell you how many children to have. It's just me, throwing out this idea. I believe China has been succesful in decreasing its population growth, but it has also led to other problems such as an increased female infanticide rate and therefore an uneven balance between females and males. I feel controlling the population in such a way is unnatural, and would cause other problems. Still, I feel other things can be done like encouraging people to sterilize themselves if they don't want anymore children, or educating them more on sexual health and encouraging them to use contraceptives.
ReplyDeleteHuman population is currently growing at a fast rate, this will affect every aspect of human life. The biosohere will be one of the most affected if popultaion continues ti grow at the rate it is. As population grows also do the demands on products such as water, food and living space, this will affect the quality of living for many people since if the population grows there will be water shortages and more farms will be needed to produce more food therefore forest will be cut and many of the animal species would die. The carrying capacity of Earth is heavily debated since many scientist have different theories on Earth actual carrying capacity, yet I belive that Earth wont be able to withstand many more people since the quality of life would decrease a lot and many people would live in unhuman conditions. Many measures will be needed so that we can ensure the survival of the enviorment thus saving the human species.
ReplyDelete“Instead of contolling the enviorment for the benefit of the population maybe we should contorl the population to ensure the survival of our enviorment.” This quote is very important since it sums up how important it is to contol human population so that the enviorment can be saved. Although its harsh to say that brith control is neccesary, this will become a reality if people want to ensure the survival of the enviorment and if they want a better life quality for the next generations. Yet not all populations are growing at fast rates while others are, for example, China has a very big promblem its inmese population demands a lot of goods on the other hand many countries in Europe have a negative population growth meaning more people die than born and the governments in Europe actually help parents so that they have kids. This is way its impossible to say that the whole world will need birth control yet the countries which have to many people should invest more on birth control and education so that there populations stop growing at such fast rates.The carrying capacity of Earth is highly debated yet in my opinion to have a better quality of life and to have a healthier biosphere there should be control over the population this way Earth will be able to sustain its ecosystem.
I agree with what francisco had to say because it is shocking the exponential growth that our population os having due to lack of education that people or families don't know when to stop having or augmenting their family members. Chico emphasizes how China is responsible for much of the abusive treatment of space due to their billion population which is only increasing as tie passes. If we don't manipulate population growth, our lifestyle will not be the same.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Alejandro had to say because in my opinion if the population continues to grow at the rate it is currently growing there will be the need to have birth control in order to maintain the enviorment and our lifestyle safe. I disagree with people that belive that is natural for humans to grow as we are doing right now, people must understand that if the quality of life and the enviorment if they are whished to be preserved there will be the neccisity of birth control so that the Earth can support all of our demands.
ReplyDeleteAs time passes everything increases meaning the population in humans, technology, and other living things. Someday there is going to be a point where the Earth will not be able to sustain a huge quantity of people living on it. As the population increases, fear increases also. This is so because as humans are getting closer to exceed the amount of people the Earth can sustain the resources will be running out including jobs.
ReplyDeleteVarious social scientists have estimated that the Earth can sustain as high as 150 billion people. The problem is that human population size will never have equivalence in the birth and death rates. This is way we need to establish social policies to influence fertility rates. We need to get to an optimum size were we can achieve a desired quality of life and many more humans could exist if we maintain the population to a sustainable level. Optimum population size assures us the physical ingredients to a decent life. The rich and the poor have to be insuring when there comes a decline in the economic resources. Everyone has the right to have a close connecting with his or her basic needs. As we get larger in population it brings us problems as to the access to education, health care, economic opportunities, freedom etc. When populations are small, democracy works well. Also, since the population is increasing many cultures of small groups might be extinct by the existence of other dominant cultures. Optimum population size can also help to preserve biodiversity since we use many resources from biodiversity for many different needs. I think that smaller is better and we can create a phase where Earth might have more time to get to the limit of population. People right now do not know how hard they are damaging the biosphere with the amount of energy and resources they waste. We need to start caring for Earth and get to an optimum population size.
Earth’s population is growing more and more each day in a very rapid pace. It is getting so big that according to what some people think, one day it might not even sustain everyone who lives in it. Earth is capable of many things and all wonders of it surprise us. Nobody really pays attention to over population problems on Earth or any world debates. Earth can sustain a limitless amount of people. People are very fertile and they will keep on having kids. Earth can sustain them as long as people keep developing new technologies to support the big quantities in the human population. Some say that Earth one day will be not able to support the way of living of 5.5 billion inhabitants who roam the planet. Like some priests said in 1988, Earth will only be able to sustain 40 billion people and some of these predictions can go as high as 150 billion people, but as technologies advance every day so these hypothesis are considered preposterous. People on earth have to have control over how fertile they are or can be. The people will not start having a large amount of kids if they cannot really take care of them all, or to prove how much people can live on Earth. But parents should not let their kids die if sick just because the Earth cannot handle another human life. Thinking about how people do not have control while getting pregnant it reminded me of teen pregnancy. Teens make foolish choices and get pregnant and then when they do not want to go through with having the child they abort. If only all those aborted kids will be alive and would have survived the world would have even more people. With more and more people, we will eventually run out of resources and who knows to what scarcities Earth can come. But if scientist keep developing new technologies for Earth’s inhabitants their will be no problem at all with many people living here.
ReplyDelete