Population Control Q&A
by NDFA
Introduction and the Basics-
The world’s population problem is arguably, though generally considered, the biggest dilemma facing the human race today. Currently, the world’s
human population is 6 billion, andgoing up at an increasingly disturbing rate (doubling about every 45 years), and while there are signs of it slowing down in the industrialized
nations of the world (which only makes up about 1/3 of the world’s population, and will continue to make up less), there is absolutely no sign of it stopping in the less industrialized nations. If this alarming rate of increase continues, in seven
centuries every person will get exactly one square foot of living space out of the entire world. The world’s population currently goes up 27 people per minutes, which equals 225,000 a day, and 95 million people per year, which is 1.5% of the world’s population per year. Earth cannot
continue at this rate of increase.
The high world population is also one of the contributing factors in many of the world’s other problem such as hunger, consumption, and pollution. Let’s have some of the facts and let’s also take a
look and see what some countries are doing to try and decrease their massive populations.
Why are we so Overpopulated?-
One might ask why we are so overpopulated as the human race, but how come other successful
species don’t overpopulate as well? The answer is fairly simple. Out in the wild, it is survival of the fittest, and this cycle is a cycle that keeps all of the animal populations down. Let’s say you have some deer that keep getting
larger and larger in population. Well eventually, the food the dear eat will become scarce and many deer will die from the lack of resources. After all of this death and smaller deer population
emerges, and the cycle repeats all over again. The carnivores also help keep the herbivore population in check, and the carnivores also depend upon the population of the
herbivore, because there is on average a certain amount of herbivores for every carnivore.
However, we humans have become so
advanced that we have broken this cycle. We have become “too intelligent” one might say. We have managed to make it so that wherever we go, we dominate the landscape, consume all the natural resources, and then expand into other places where resources are abundant. With all of the
trade that is currently going on in the world we can afford to stay in places where the natural resources have already been exhausted and import resources from other parts of the
world. In this way, we have spread until we now exist anywhere on Earth. However, if this does continue, a theory is that soon the survival of the fittest will catch up with us, but on a much larger scale. This time the world’s resources will be exhausted and the human population will
drastically decrease because of it. Eventually, if we don’t stop overpopulating, probably sooner rather than later, there simply won’t be any resources left, and many people will
die. It’s already beginning to happen. Look at world’s oil situation now. Right now the world’s oil resources are producing about 1/5 the oil in a day’s time that the world is currently using in a day, and countries are having to dig deep into their reserves. Now you should have a good understanding of why we are so overpopulated. Let’s move on.
How Overpopulation Contributes to Other Problems-
While overpopulation isn’t always the total cause of many of the world’s problems, if the world’s population would go down, we could get rid of a lot of these problems at a time. First, let’s cover hunger. While there is plenty of food to go around the world, all the
industrialized countries, especially Americans, are hogging all of them and thereby
starving a lot of other countries in the world. However, if the population around the world decreased, we could still stuff out faces and afford to give all of the poor nations all of the relief they need. Population also contributes to consumption. The less population we had, we could still consume as much, but we wouldn’t be wasting the Earth’s resources as we have been. The same goes for
pollution, too. If we had less population, we could afford to be the greedy pigs we are, and not have to pay the consequences by having tens of
thousands of people die a day from lack of resources.
Why are Unindustrialized Nations so Overpopulated and Continuing to Overpopulate, while Industrialized Nations are Showing Signs of Slowing in Population Growth?
The answer to this question is quite simple: education. Industrialized tend to be pretty educated because they can afford
education. It makes them aware of the world’s problem and because of this they often decide to have less kids. Currently in
Denmark, the average couple has 1.3 children, enough to make the population decrease significantly each year. In unindustrialized nations, it is generally very poor, and people are un-educated. It is most often agriculture-based. The more children you have, the more extra hands you can have to work on your farm to feed you. What these people don’t understand is that they simply can’t feed all of those mouths. The majority of these children end up dying before the reach the age of five. Another reason is that contraceptives aren’t readily available, and people aren’t willing to walk 30 miles down the road for a
condom. In many cases, contraceptives are against that particular person’s religion. However, when you’re that poor, you really don’t look at the big picture because you don’t know there is one. All you care about is earning the money to buy that potato your entire family of 12 has to split for dinner. Kids often equal money in third and fourth world countries. A sad, but true fact. The
current number of children per couple in
Pakistan and Kenya is 6.8.