Word's Problem

The rate at which the world’s population is growing is at a high at which the world’s resources cannot keep up with. The world’s population is at a whopping 6.7 billion and does not seem to be slowing down. By 2050, the population of the world will increase nearly 50% to 9.4 billion people. The present population of the world is already causing major problems on the global economic scale. In forty-two years, imagine the impact of 2.7 billion more people will have on current problems. It is the “biggest crisis facing the planet today (Willett).” Waiting on Mother Nature to do her job with disease and natural disaster cannot be the only thing the world’s citizens do. An active approach on reducing the world population growth rate must be taken. With all the situations going on in the world such as HIV, wars, and the prevailing threat of natural disasters, the smallest action taken can have a large effect.
Mother Nature has been doing its best with the ever-growing population growth rate. In the 14th century, the Black Death, scientifically known as the bubonic plague, out broke in China where it eventually spread to Europe through Italian merchant ships doing business in the Black Sea. With this disease came new opportunities for European families. “Depopulation caused by the plague in Europe created abundant available land and labor shortage (Livi-Bacci, 42).” It became easier for people who needed jobs to get one and for those who needed land to raise a family could get some. Within five years, 25milion people died in Europe from this agonizing disease. A similar situation is happening in the world today. Presently, 39.5 million people are living with HIV with 2.5 million new cases per year (World Health Organization). This virus claimed the lives of 2.1 million people in 2007. Natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes deal quite a blow to the population. The 2004 tsunami that struck countries on the Indian Ocean coast killed about 230,000 people (Wright). Famine has become a worldwide epidemic caused by having too high a population and not enough resources to feed them. Every continent has felt the effects of famine. Several people die every day from lack of nutrients and many more suffer from there not being enough food. There are just too many mouths to feed. The problem has been feared so much that steps have been taken in The United States through acts and amendments and have “involved agricultural scientists from U.S. land-grant universities on a long term basis in the agricultural research and educational programs of developing countries (Guither, 7).”
China has the largest population in the world with 1.3 billion people. In 1979, the one-child policy was implemented to limit the population growth. This policy limits the fertility of families to only one child, hence the name. Since its implementation, China’s fertility rate has fallen from about five per family to 1.7 children per family. These days the law has been tweaked a little to prevent too extreme a drop in fertility rate. When two people who are only children start a family, the law allows them to have two children. Also, if a family’s first born is a female, and then they can have another child. There was a period, however, that this policy did not find success. Instead it found unrest among China’s citizens. At this time, the policy was at full force with strict undertakings. The intense strictness of the policy caused civil unrest “as coercive methods were implemented on a vast scale. The resulting protests and discontent, however lead to a period of uncertainty (Live-Bacci, 167).” This solution has now been recognized by the United Nations as an answer to the problem for the population growth rate making it “a case for 127 countries comprising 94 percent of the worlds population (Livi-Bacci, 162).”

If the rate at which the world’s population is growing continues its current pace than worldwide problems will increasingly get worse. The world leaders are currently not doing enough to make e difference. “A number of national delegates made clear their opposition to policies aimed at lowering population growth rates (Gilbert, 27).” Even thou they agreed that it was a problem; it was still not a top priority on their agendas. Although, “Many developing nation had come to the conclusion since1974 that rapid population growth could indeed pose a threat to their chances for social and economic progress (Gilbert, 28).” The world food supply would have to keep up. Unfortunately at its current state, millions suffer from malnourishment and hunger. “With the persistent increase of the human population—now exceeding six billion—all species face increased pressure on resources (Sibly and Hone, 1153).” This means that the increased population growth of humans also effect the survival of other species. If the supply can’t keep up now, than how will it possibly feed 3 billion more people in forty years? “About four-fifths of total consumption consists of grains, so that the increased demand for grains will add enormously to pressure on natural resources—not only on agricultural land but also on stocks of water, fish, and timber (Livi-Bacci, 212).” The supply of land will not increase enough by that time. All those people just simply will not fit.


Guither, Harold D. Illinois Agricultural Economics, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jul., 1977), pp. 7
Gilbert, Geoffrey. World Population. California: ABC-CLIO, Inc, 2001.
Hone, Jim and Richard M. Sibly. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, Vol. 357, No. 1425, Population Growth Rate: Determining Factors and Role in Population Regulation (Sep. 29, 2002), pp. 1153.
Livi-Bacci, Massimo. A Concise History of World Population, Fourth Edition. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
UNAIDS. World Fact Figures. World Health Organization. 23 Apr. 2008
Willett, Martin. “The Big Problem”. http://www.mwillett.org/Politics/bigprob1.htm. 2008. 23 April 2008.
Wright, Tom. “World Briefing | Asia: Tsunami Report Criticizes Relief Efforts.” New York Times. 6 October 2005. 23 April 2008.

Draft 1

The rate at which the world’s population is growing is at a high at which the world’s resources cannot keep up with. The world’s population is at a whopping 6.7 billion and does not seem to be slowing down. By 2050, the population of the world will increase nearly 50% to 9.4 billion people. The present population of the world is already causing major problems on the global economic scale. In forty-two years, imagine the impact of 2.7 billion more people will have on current problems. Waiting on Mother Nature to do her job with disease and natural disaster cannot be the only thing the world’s citizens do. An active approach on reducing the world population growth rate must be taken. With all the situations going on in the world such as HIV, wars, and the prevailing threat of natural disasters, the smallest action taken can have a large effect.
Mother Nature has been doing its best with the ever-growing population growth rate. In the 14th century, the Black Death, scientifically known as the bubonic plague, out broke in China where it eventually spread to Europe through Italian merchant ships doing business in the Black Sea. With this disease came new opportunities for European families. “Depopulation caused by the plague in Europe created abundant available land and labor shortage (42).” It became easier for people who needed jobs to get one and for those who needed land to raise a family could get some. Within five years, 25milion people died in Europe from this agonizing disease. A similar situation is happening in the world today. Presently, 33.2 million people are living with HIV with 2.5 million new cases per year. This virus claimed the lives of 2.1 million people in 2007. Natural disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes deal quite a blow to the population. The 2004 tsunami that struck countries on the Indian Ocean coast killed over 200,000 people.
China has the largest population in the world with 1.3 billion people. In 1979, the one-child policy was implemented to limit the population growth. This policy limits the fertility of families to only one child, hence the name. Since its implementation, China’s fertility rate has fallen from about five per family to 1.7 children per family. These days the law has been tweaked a little to prevent too extreme a drop in fertility rate. When two people who are only children start a family, the law allows them to have two children. Also, if a family’s first born is a female, and then they can have another child.
If the rate at which the world’s population is growing continues its current pace than worldwide problems will increasingly get worse. The world food supply would have to keep up. Unfortunately at its current state, millions suffer from malnourishment and hunger. If the supply can’t keep up now, than how will it possibly feed 3 billion more people in forty years? ? “About four-fifths of total consumption consists of grains, so that the increased demand for grains will add enormously to pressure on natural resources—not only on agricultural land but also on stocks of water, fish, and timber (212).” The supply of land will not increase enough by that time. All those people just simply will not fit.

Mediated Brief

There are 6.66 million people in the world today. In 2050, there will be 9.4 million people. This exponential growth in population has become the major problem of the world. Problems such as poverty and world hunger stem from this hot issue. In order to reduce the population growth, Mother Nature has its ways to fix this problem. HIV has become a major killer all over the world killing millions of people and leaving many children parent less. Millions of people die each year from hunger and malnutrition. Although Mother Nature does a good job mediating its population, there are 350,000 births a day and only 160,000 deaths a day. As exponential as the growth is, we cannot rely on Mother Nature alone. We have to take an active role in reducing the population grown. Family planning programs have been promoted in several countries and has been proven to work. Policies such as the one-child policy in China has reduced their population growth. Whatever we do, we must do our best to help the natural way of reducing the worlds populations growth.

Brief

The biggest problem in the world today is it’s massive population. This problem is also the root of many of the economic dilemmas faced by modern leaders. The fact that there are over 6.66 billion people inhabiting this world makes it exponentially harder to fix issues such as world hunger and poverty. Many countries already have implemented policies to control their populations.

One child policy
China, which has the largest population with their 1.2 billion people, has a policy called the one-child policy that allows a couple to have only one child. The population growth in China has decreased 300 million people in its first twenty years of activation.

Family planning
Over the past 30 years,many couples have gone through family planning programs, which has helped reduce fertility rates. Techniques vary from birth control pills and condoms to educational classes and sterilization procedures such as tubal ligation for women and vasectomy for men.

Euthanasia
It is the intentional killing of a dependent individual for his or her benefit. In this way of reducing population growth, millions of dollars can be saved in medicine and conservation in energy and hospital space. Besides economic benefits, euthanasia is a choice to relieve one from their excruciating pain.

People have to recognize how big of an impact the excessive amount of people in the world has on our environment and resource supply. They need to take responsibility for their actions and the well being of our future. Leaders of our world must have an active role in reducing the growth of our worlds population.