There is no environmental group that does not understand the importance of the impact of population pressures versus the carrying capacity of the planet. However, the Center for Biodiversity is making an actual stance on the issue by telling its members to actively advocate for HR 5121, the Global Sexual Reproductive Health Act of 2010.
The bill would help address overpopulation by funding initiatives like universal access to contraception, sexuality education, reproductive health care, education on gender equity and programs to reduce violence against women.
Representative Yvette Clarke of New York, has incorporated into the bill the problem of an estimated 215 million women around the world who desire access to family planning and birth control but are not able to get it. To address this need, the bill would dramatically increase U.S. family-planning assistance globally.
Population Doubling Time Quickens
Today nearly 7 billion persons live on the planet and the roughly one billion cows to feed them (Hopwood and Cohen, N.D.). The common population figure from the last US Census was about 300 million. Projection estimates are the new 2000 Census figures will be about 310 million.
In terms of global populations, it took thousands of years for the human population to reach 1 billion in 1800 but only 130 years to double to 2 billion in 1930. After 1930, it took just 30 years to reach the next increase to 3 billion in 1960, but only 15 years to reach another 4 billion in 1975; or only 45 years to double from 1930. More recently, as growth has been slowing due to greater education and awareness, there were 12 years of time elapsed to encroach upon 5 billion in 1987, and then another 12 years to reach 6 billion in 1999. Projections are to reach 9 billion by 2050 (Raven & Berg, 2006).
- One billion persons 1800
- Two billion persons 1930
- Three billion persons 1960
- Four billion persons1975
- Five billion 1987
- Six Billion 1999
- Nine billion 2050 projected
On a graph, the above figures form a 'J curve'. Population showed very little increase out over a very long time of thousands and anthropologists would say millions of years; and then very quickly spiked to form the stem of a ‘J’ that indicated exponential growth. These projections were the stuff of Paul Ehrlich of The Population Bomb, whose work in the 70s led to a number of couples who voluntarily decided to have no children or to adopt instead.
Population Continues to Grow Overall Despite Declines in Growth Rate
Perhaps Ehrlich’s warnings were heeded. Since Ehrlich’s works went public, growth rates have shown a steady decline per US Census Data International Data Base.
The world population growth rate rose from about 1.5 percent per year from 1950- 1951, to a peak of over 2 percent in the early 1960s due to reductions in mortality. Growth rates thereafter started to decline due to rising age at marriage as well as increasing availability and use of effective contraceptive methods (US Census, 2010).
The Census notes that changes in population growth have not always been steady. A dip in the growth rate from 1959-1960, for instance, was due to the Great Leap Forward in China.
The Great Leap Forward planned to develop agriculture and industry. Mao believed that both had to grow to allow the other to grow. Industry could only prosper if the work force was well fed, while the agricultural workers needed industry to produce the modern tools needed for modernization.
Industrialization and Intensification of Agriculture Spawn Unnatural Population Spikes
Ironically however, during that brief period of time between 1958 and 1961, both natural disasters and decreased agricultural output in the wake of massive social reorganization caused China's death rate to rise sharply and its fertility rate to fall by almost half.” (US Census, 2010). Obviously however, China’s population boomed afterwards to the extent that it eventually developed its current one child policy of forced abortions on any couple having more than one child.
Environmental expert Lee Ewald, commented on the matter by referring to a graph on world population growth from the 1600s in relationship to those of the most recent Census data. “It is quite evident that the real global population explosion began to happen when societies became industrialized. Moreover, when farming became intensive with petroleum based farm implements and petro-chemicals.....the world’s population exploded.” In this way, the carrying capacity was effectively artificially inflated to accomodate the unnatural infusion of the human population.
Ewald further projected, “If we run out of fossil fuels, we cannot continue the intensive farming to feed an already overcrowded earth. We are seeing this form of starvation in many places in the world now, without even taking into consideration the additional increasing problems of drought and famine produced by global warming.” Oil industry executives have projected perhaps 40 more years of oil remaining on which to base a hydrocarbon economy say Peter Davies, chief economist at BP (Conway, 2004).
References:
Conway, E. (June 15, 2004). The Energy Bulletin. Post Carbon Institute, re-printed from The Telegraph. Retrieved August 10, 2010 from energybulletin.net/node/659.
Chefurka, Paul (2008). The Elephant in the room. Retrieved August 9, 2010 from www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html
Hopwood, N. and Cohen, J. (n.d.). Greenhouse Gases and Society. University of Michigan. Retrieved August 10, 2010 from www.umich.edu/265/society/greenhouse.htm.
Raven, P. & Berg, L. (2006). Environment. 5th Edition. NJ. John Wiley & Sons p. 4.
Karen Hansen - Biography Karen is currently an Earth and Environmental Sciences instructor at a private college. In the past she has worked on ...
