Overpopulation

Since the mid 1900’s the fear of overpopulating our planet has been on the minds of many and seen as a real and possible end of the human race. Just within the last year there have been over 11 thousand births, with only fewer than 5 thousand deaths ¹. Not only are more people being born every year but due to advancements in medicine and health care more and more people are living longer and surviving one-time deadly diseases.

Examples

In the “not so distant future” of Saudi-Arabia, the already dwindled fresh water source reaches an absolute minimum and cannot accommodate the enormous, and dehydrated, populous.

Rising population and demand increase the price of all dairy products in the United States making it harder for families to afford groceries and lead to more “animal farming” which produces more green house gases, further damaging the planet.

With more capable college graduates looking for jobs every year many find themselves unable to find jobs to support themselves and end up living on the streets.

 Scale

1/3 of the population growth in the world is the result of incidental or unwanted pregnancies ²

This year there will be 125 million births in the world. By the time this group is old enough to enter school, there will have been another 625 million births ³

It’s estimated that in 2050 world population will rise from today’s 7 billion to 10 billion, with 1.4 billion each in just India and China ⁴

Drivers

Sex Education

Unwanted babies account for 37% of all births since 1982 in the United States and 60% of women who experienced an unplanned pregnancy in 1998-2002 were not using protection of any sort ⁵. If the women chooses to keep the baby, due to either opposition or no access to abortion, then the child will be brought into the world, and often times in areas without quality resources. Without proper sex education people will continue to give birth unnecessarily and further increase the population.

Medical Advancements

With newly discovered and invented medical treatments people are able to live much longer than they ever have before. Most people in developed nations live well into their 70’s, 80’s or even 90’s.  But in just the 1900’s the average life expectancy in America was just 45. Diseases that once wiped out thousands, like polio and TB, are now curable and preventable with modern medicine. Also couples that had once found themselves unable to have children can now reproduce through various medical procedures.

Industrial Advancements

Tool production, agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution have all helped humans live easier and more fulfilling lives. With the manufacturing of guns, bows and other weaponry hunting became easier and more effective. Food processing and farming advancements made food more plentiful and accessible to more people. The more resources made available and the easier life becomes the more likely people are to breed and repopulate.

Approaches

Overpopulation in China lead to their controversial “one child” law, which criminalizes a mother from having a second child, in an effort to reduce the population surge in 1979. This law is still, albeit loosely, enforced to this day.

Eugenics popularized due to fear of overpopulation and lead to awful things like selective sterilization, lobotomies, forced abortions and genocide most notably the Holocaust.

Sex Education can help reduce the birth rates of unwanted children. If sex education can be brought to places of overpopulation it can decrease the rate of unwanted pregnancies thus lowering the population.

References & Resources