See what the world's population is right now!

Land of Plenty

    Our world is limitless. Oceans filled with water reach out as far as the eye can see. In any National Park the wilderness seems to go on forever. The air and sky have no end and the universe is boundless. Our world, and the universe that cradles it, are limitless, never-ending.  They goe on and on and on...  Right?

    There is a prevailing theme in our natural world and the universe. Everything has an end. Whether that means an end as in the death of a star or in the edge of a cliff everything has a beginning and an end.  There are limits. Limits as to how long things may survive how many survive and limits as to how much or how many there is of something.

    I want to talk about the limits to how much and how many there is of everything. Although our wild lands look never-ending when we stand in the middle of them, they do come to an end, they have boundaries. Often civilization borders these edges. There seems to be so much water and so much land that surely there is enough for everyone and then some. Our eyes can and do deceive us, as do our minds sometimes. There is so much food, water, and land needed for all the creatures on the earth - remember I am referring to you too - that our minds cannot conceive of the amount needed nor could our eyes ever see it.

    How many organisms (Don't look now, but you're an organism.) a habitat, or the land you live on, can support is called its carrying capacity. According to the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms carrying capacity is defined as "The maximum population size that the environment can support without deterioration."

    If a species grows too rapidly or exponentially for too long it becomes too numerous for the environment to support and carries with it heavy consequences. When a species is overpopulated natural resources such as food, space, and water become scarce because there are too many animals drinking from the well, so to speak. The earth and all its resources are not infinite. They are limited. There is a definite amount of space, no more. There is a definite amount of food, no more. There is a definite amount of water, no more. Yes, water falls from the sky but remember the rain in the clouds is just evaporated water from the earth recycled and given back to us. So when food, water, and space become scarce for a species some individuals have to do without and die from starvation or dehydration as a result.

    With a limited supply of resources and a dense population, overcrowding occurs. Fierce competition for resources results in more deaths. Stress and tension from overcrowding results in rapid spread of disease, increased aggression, more violence, and more deaths.

    Overpopulation causes degradation of the environment from too many individuals eating too much food and drinking too much water until there is nothing left, leaving a depleted environment that can no longer produce the resources it once could. The species' population crashes.

    There have been cases like I just described. One example is when rabbits were introduced to Australia. They are a non-native species, meaning they do not originate from Australia, that was introduced into a habitat that did not have any natural predators to control its numbers. Naturally with no predators to kill the adults or young but plenty of food and space, the rabbit population skyrocketed. It went beyond the habitat's carrying capacity until the rabbits were so numerous that many could not find food, predators learned to hunt them, and disease spread rapidly through the dense population. The death rate increased and the population crashed. Because of the rabbits' high reproductive rate their numbers rose a little too high again and crashed a little, again and continued to fluctuate up and down until their numbers have now leveled off at the carrying capacity of that habitat (a sustainable number).

    Nature has a way of regulating the size of a population of all species to prevent the numbers from surpassing what the environment can support. In other words nature has a way to prevent all of this.

    One way of regulating a population is with things like natural disasters; hurricanes, floods, fires, volcanoes, etc. These factors will wipe out large numbers of organisms regardless of the size or density of the population. These are called density-independent regulators (a crowd impressing term).

    Another way is through factors whose impact on the population is dependent on the size of the population. These are called density-dependant regulators (very impressive!). In other words, the more individuals there are in a population the stronger the impact these factors will have on the population and its growth. That sounds easy doesn't it? Let me give you an example. One of these factors includes competition for resources. Whether there is a large population or a small number of individuals in an area there is going to be competition for food, water and space. Now the smaller the group, the less competition there will be because there is plenty for everyone. The larger the group, however, the more competition there will be because resources are finite so there is only so much to go around for so many individuals. The more fierce the competition the more individuals lose out on food, water, and space. There are more deaths meaning less individuals alive to eat, drink, or have the space to raise young. The population size is eventually reduced resulting in less competition and a stabilized population. I told you it was easy.

    Other dependent factors include predation - the higher the prey population the more the predator population increases because food is abundant. Because there are so many prey available more are killed thereby reducing their numbers. The predator population will follow.  Emigration also controls population size in an area - individuals move out and seek other grounds where there will be less competition.

    As humans we are not excluded from these laws of nature. Just like in the example with the rabbits humans are not affected by natural selection. When an animal population, like humans, is removed from the natural influences of predation, weather, food shortages, and many diseases there is a population explosion. But just like the rabbits that explosion will be limited and the population will crash. It has to.

    There have been discussions and conferences in the last several years about the human population explosion. They tend to not be publicized by the media nor addressed by political leaders. It seems to be taboo. Well, I am going to tell you what scientists, biologists, marine biologists, and demographers around the world are saying.

   While world population growth has slowed a bit in recent years (There are 6.2 billion people occupying the Earth today instead of 8 billion that could've been.) the growth has only slowed in wealthy countries.  In some countries the population has even declined.  However, in the 48 least developed countries in the world the populations there are projected to triple by 2050 and in many more the population could double.  It is projected that if the human population continues to grow at its present rate (77 million people added to the earth each year) there will be about 7.0 - 10.9 billion by the year 2050 according to the United Nations Population Division. That is a lot of mouths to feed, water to drink, and land to occupy. Carrying capacities for habitats differ between species. Naturally a habitat can support a lot more flies than it could deer since deer need more and use more. So for humans, especially because of our indulgences, we use a lot more than we need, thereby reducing the number of people the earth can support. We take up a lot more land than we actually need, and are wasteful with our water. At the same time we have been able to manipulate plants and animals so as to grow more crops and raise our own food thus stretching out the earth's carrying capacity for us in that respect just a little.

    While experts argue as to what the earth's carrying capacity is (it ranges from 6 - 12 billion) we are already feeling the effects of nature's limitations. Remember what happens when there is an overpopulation of a species in a habitat? Competition for natural resources increases because food, clean water, and space become scarce. Overcrowding causes increased tension and stress and therefore increased violence. The environment becomes more and more degraded. Any of this sound familiar? Add to that more air and water pollution, more homelessness, more crime, a chemically altered planet with chemical pollutants, pesticides and fertilizers, and global warming and you're beginning to get the picture.

    Because of increased development and demand for more crops we are experiencing deforestation and desertification (we're losing our forests and soil folks.). We are losing 17 million hectares of just tropical forests each year. That is over one billion acres each year! In the United States forests were diminished by ten percent just between 1963 and 1982. Think of what is left now. The world loses more than 25 billion tons of topsoil from cropland each year! If agricultural practices were changed we could prevent this. For example crop rotation, planting grass and trees to help hold the soil in place, and less intensive practices like no-till agriculture.

    Because of our ever-increasing demands for food and land our oceans and wildlife are suffering. We are over fishing our oceans. Blue fin tuna in the Atlantic ocean have declined by 94 percent since 1970. For every pound of shrimp taken from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico nine pounds of fish are brought up in the nets and discarded. More than one billion pounds of these fish are wasted each year. Food taken from the mouths of other fish and wildlife. Also our demand for meat has used up so much land for grazing that half of the earth's land area is used just for grazing livestock. Our land use has forced wildlife to live in small pockets leaving very little room for their populations to grow or even reach a sustainable number like the Florida panther. There are less than 50 panthers today living in a habitat that is only big enough to hold no more than 100 panthers.  Twenty percent of all bird species occur in only two percent of the world's land. Intense beach recreation has eliminated many shore birds. Changes in the earth's chemistry with our use of toxins, pesticides and fertilizers has endangered the lives of wildlife and degraded the quality of life for all of us. Clams, oysters, and many fish are to be eaten with caution. With the mercury poisoning in the Everglades not only does wildlife suffer but any fish taken from there for human consumption carries with it a warning to limit fish consumption due to mercury poisoning. With all these poisons unleashed in the food chain the rule is; the poison becomes more concentrated and therefore more lethal the higher it goes up the food chain.

    And then there is climate change.  As the world number continue to grow, each person has less atmospheric space in which to dispose of carbon dioxide, methane, and other heat-trapping gases.  Deforestation and other land use makes this problem worse.  Carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning accounts for most of the climate change we are experiencing.  Although it is a commonly known problem global carbon emissions from fossil fuel combustion rose by 9.1 percent between 1999 and 2000.  Cumulative global carbon emissions between 1990 and 2000 was slightly over 68 billion tons.  It reflects a 15 percent increase from the 59 billion tons emitted worldwide between 1980 and 1990.

    Population has an influence on the spread and introduction of infectious disease as well.  As the population density increases it boosts the exposure and shortens transmission distance.  According to Dr. Eric Chivian at Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and Global Environment undisturbed ecosystems offer a critically important service.  They maintain equillibrium among hosts, vectors and parasites, and between prdator and prey.  As the human population increases it pushes its way further and further into previously undisturbed forests and havitats.  by opening up these areas to agriculture and development and consuming the resources we are exposed to new infectious agents capable of evolving into vectors of human disease.  It is possible that HIV was introduced this way.

    With overcrowding and an increasing love for the great outdoors our parks, the only land wildlife has left, are in danger. Sometimes preserving land for wildlife and of course for us is only temporary, that is until some people, like developers, politicians, and oil companies want it. What parks are not being developed, drilled, mined or logged are being loved to death. So many people go to these natural habitats to "get away" only to run into more people. The land gets trampled, pieces of the park are taken for souvenirs and the scenic beauty is compromised not to mention the quality of life and the life-giving resources for the wildlife.

    Since natural resources are limited and this limitation influences how many individuals in a species can live in a habitat it becomes that more imperative that encroachment into wild lands be very limited. The less habitat set aside for wildlife the less individuals and less species will be able to live on this planet. The species of plants and animals we lose and the individuals within that species are not set on a shelf when they are gone to bring out later when there is more room. The decisions we make as humans about development/habitat destruction to make room for us is in direct competition with all species of plants and animals. As we crowd out wildlife and take their food, water, and space individuals within those species have to go because their resources have just become even more scarce, thereby reducing their population size. These decisions we make are very permanent.

    The World Watch Institute is an organization that monitors the entire globe. They study the natural resources around the world, human populations and cultures in every country, and world economy. They come out with reports and make recommendations to political leaders each year. In their 15^th edition, State of the World 1998 they propose we stabilize the world population at 7.8 billion by the year 2050. This is no easy task. To achieve this goal they call for "a restructuring of the global economy, for converting a throw-away economy into a reuse/recycle economy, and for shifting from fossil fuels to solar/hydrogen energy. To do this it recommends a shift in taxes: a reduction in income taxes and an increase in taxes on carbon dioxide emissions, the generation of toxic waste, the use of pesticides, and the use of virgin raw materials." I thought you might like their recommendation. Now you can tell your representatives you know about this proposal and to get moving on it!

    In this report they state: "The good news is that we know what an environmentally sustainable economy would look like. We have the technologies needed to build such an economy. And we know that the key to getting from here to there lies in restructuring the tax system, decreasing personal and corporate income taxes while increasing taxes on environmentally destructive activities. The challenge is to convince enough people of the need to do this in order to make it happen."

    In their State of the World 2002 Report they also state that the slow down of population and even the reversal of it will come about as a result of sexual equality.  As women are given more rights and therefore equal status in countries they are more educated and given the right to choose when and how many children they will have.  Making contraceptives more available alone does not do it.  They need to be given the freedom and the right to use them.  When given more control over their bodies and their lives women tend to have children at a later age and have smaller families thereby slowing population growth and even reversing and stabilizing it.

    Political and religious leaders have ignored the opinions of the majority of the population.  Most people want population growth under control and couples given the right and the means to do so.  They want smaller families.  Despite this, the bush Administration reinstated the "global gag rule" which this abortion-related restriction has complicated funding for family planning.   The Administration continues to cut funding for family planning efforts in the United States and overseas despite public opinion.  Only a quarter of the funding agreed to by President George Bush in the 1992 Summit in Cairo for family planning overseas has been spent.

    Population cuts across all environmental problems including many not discussed here.  Everyone agrees the population explosion is a serious problem but no one talks about it. No one can even agree on what the earth's carrying capacity is for the human race. Does it really matter? Even if we knew for certain exactly how many people the earth could support comfortably, do we have to live on the edge? Must we populate the earth to its maximum capacity? Why? Does this make sense? Why don't we use our resources more responsibly and efficiently now? Why don't we clean up our air, water, and land now instead of waiting until we are forced to? What difference does it make what the limits are? Why don't we slow down our population now? That's like jumping off the top of a building and thinking how to get back on the roof while on the way down. I would much rather not jump in the first place and back away from the edge. Then that would be one less thing to worry about.

2002 Earth Summit

World Population as well as many other issues that affect the Earth and our lives on it were discussed at the Summit this last September.  See what topics were discussed.  Let President Bush and Congress know you want a real commitment this time.  Go to.
Earth Summit 2002

or

Earth Negotiations Bulletin

This site and its content copyright© 2002
All rights reserved!

Back to Top