Today, the world population is over 7 billion and growing, while only two hundred years ago it was less than one billion. According to UNICEF, 4.3 babies are estimated to be born in the world per second. At the same time, the global population is forecast to attain between 8 to 10 billion by 2050. (“How Many Babies Are Born Each Day?”) As the number rises, it has also raised people’s concern about the limit of our planet Earth’s capacity. Because overpopulation increases the humans’ vulnerability to natural disasters, threatens our food and water supply and causes more animals to go extinct, governments should step in and regulate the human population.
First, overpopulation would increase the population’s vulnerability to natural disasters. Massive cities are no longer rare cases. According to census historian Tertius Chandler, even the most culturally-rich cities population from ancient history, including Athens, Rome, Alexandria, or the Chinese capitals such as Chang’An (modern Xi’an) — reached a million. From the article “The World’s Ten Largest Megacities” by Wendell Cox, there is not a place on the Earth besides Baghdad has reached a million people before the Industrial Revolution because of famine, wars, and disease. Today, 500 cities have grown beyond a million people in the world. (Cox) Massive cities are becoming a worldwide phenomenon.
However, a lot of the cities locate at the coastal areas in tradition, they are more likely to encounter natural disasters, including earthquakes, Hurricanes, and Tsunamis. Those types of natural disasters should not be new to the public, but studies show that there are more and more natural disasters recently. Records of major floods have increased from less than fifty to almost two hundred each year; tropical storms, on the other hand, has increased to fifteen, while crucial leaps on the occurrence of U.S. tornadoes and global tsunamis have taken place. Not only the population are at risk of their safety, reconstruction, and disaster relief also increase dramatically from the past (Patrick). The past experience all made a very clear point on why having more populated cities could cause more deaths in the future.
Second, overpopulation could cause food crisis. In 2008, an increasing 20 million people suffered from malnutrition compared to the number in 2000 (Montpellier). Just of this March, The United Nations has declared that over four countries are at the borders of famine, addressing it “the worst humanitarian crisis” after World War II (Chou). As the population bombards, more and more people will be in the danger of food crisis. In the report of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, estimate of 50 percent more food will be needed than today. The main drive behind the high demand for food is because many developing countries like India, China, and South Korea are now acquiring higher calories as they are influenced by the Western style of diets and are economically able. While countries with strong economies acquire more food, it will also draw up the food prices while people in poor areas could not afford food already. At the same time, the effects of the agricultural “green revolution” also seemed to lose its momentum recently. Furthermore, from the article written by Rolly Montpellier, three-quarter of people are estimated to reside in urban areas globally by 2050. This means that fewer and fewer people would be involved in harvesting food for themselves every year (Montpellier).
Third, overpopulation threatens our limited water supply. Water is essential in our daily life; we need water for maintaining body conditions to flushing the toilet for sanitization. At the first glance, 70 percent of the Earth is covered in water, yet only 3 percent is fresh water, including ⅔ of them covered in glaciers or any other forms that are not accessible for humans. From the WWF website, “As a result, some 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year” (“Water Scarcity”). Lack of water supply also causes 2.4 billion of people more unveiled to diseases like Cholera and typhoid fever, with bad sanitation condition. A report produced by some of the UN members suggests that nearly 50 percent of people will face water shortage by 2030 (Effects of Human Over Population). At the same time, we also induce more and more water pollution as population rises. Pesticides and fertilizers, as well as water waste coming from daily life and industry, gets poured into our water resources. Even the underground water could be contaminated because pollutants could reach into the Earth. When the population grows bigger and bigger, pollution could only get worse.
Third, overpopulation cause animals to go extinct. It’s becoming a phenomenon to consume more meat in our modern diet, including developing countries. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation, the food consumption has been increased dramatically at the global level, and more and more people have switched their plant-based diet to meat-based diet. This means that more land is going to be used to grow crops in order to feed the livestock. According to the article “Meat-eaters may speed worldwide species extinction, study warns” written by Virginia Morell, more and more land has been used for our human consumption need:
“more than three-quarters of the land previously cleared in the Amazon region is now used either as pasture for livestock or to raise feed crops for domestic and international markets. And the rapid deforestation there continues: Another 1898 square kilometers of forest were removed over the last year. Further, more than half of the Amazon’s Cerrado, a woodland savanna ecosystem known for its rare species, has also been cleared for raising cattle and soy. Habitats have also been—and continue to be—lost throughout Central and Latin America for the same reasons, the scientists say, who see a similar future for Africa” (Morell).
As the population grows more and more rapidly, we would only “sacrifice” more and more of our finite land on food production and destroy more and more homes for our species in the wild.
Despite all the negative effects that overpopulation is leading to, a decent amount of people holds skeptical opinions towards governments taking steps in population control, thinking that it’s inhumane and undemocratic. The very famous example might be the One Child Policy from China. The notorious policy was first introduced in 1979 by the Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, in order to secure “the fruits of economic growth are not devoured by population growth” (Buckley). The goal of the policy is as simple as its name: to prohibit any family to have more than one child, with some exceptions in rural regions and people who have very dangerous careers. According to the New York Times, the policy has affected people’s lives with brutal infringement, including forced abortion and unaffordable fines (Buckley). Mei Fong, a journalist who has researched extensively on the One Child policy and written the book One Child, revealed the process of how the policy is being imposed properly under the massive population. Every region has an organization composed of a group of households to ensure the words are delivered.
Once rumor has spread, the next step might be a warning threatens to take away things that are available from the families. In the country, it could be a television or a pig; in the city, it might mean that you could lose your job (Fong). Not until two years ago, the Chinese government has officially announced that all married partners could have two children. While the effect of One Child Policy has brought to a dramatic decline in the population over the last four decades, it has taken away people’s reproductive rights, mental impairments. Moreover, the One Child Policy has also led to the imbalance ratio between boys and girls because the traditional Chinese culture favors boys over girls. In other words, people might choose to abandon their daughters when the quota is. Yes, imposing such a policy to control the population is inhumane, but this is not the only way to defend our mother Earth. The assumption that population control means killing and death is wrong at the beginning.
Population control does not intend to take away women’s reproductive rights, instead, governments could stabilize population by benefiting half of the population in the world—empowering women. There are many unplanned children bearings globally that people could avoid, and in a lot of countries, many women do not have a choice in their reproductive life. “The poorest, least-developed countries tend to combine rapid population growth, low status for women and rich biodiversity” (MacDonald, Nierenberg). The least developed countries are often paired with express population growth and a large portion of uneducated women in the bottom of the society. The more freedom the women have on reproductive decisions, fertility rates drop. Furthermore, many research has reiterated the importance of giving high education to women: “the more education a woman receives, the fewer children she has and the healthier and better educated those children are” (MacDonald, Nierenberg). All these facts and research could persuade us enough that governments could control populations by giving more education to women, teach them to embrace their rights and give them the equal opportunity to enjoy their lives like other people.
Controlling population is a very crucial for our planet. The problem is we put too much hope on a future that does not promote the sustainability of both humans and environment. Because the harm that overpopulation brings to humans as well as the environment, there should be no more waiting and governments could simply start on delivering education to women globally, having more programs set up for women and promotes the idea of having one child family to the world.
