Report: overpopulation one of ten greatest threats to humanity - Population Matters (2024)
A new reportby a group of Australian researchers identifies the ten most catastrophic threats to human survival, including overpopulation, climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemics, and calls for urgent global action.
No government is currently prepared to tackle any of the major crises, according to the authors. They point out that decisions taken in the next few years “will determine whether present and future generations face a safe, sustainable and prosperous future or the prospect of collapse and even extinction”.
The Commission for the Human Future (CHF) is a body of scientists and concerned citizens who came together to share insights into planetary risks and how to build a safer, better future. The report, Surviving and Thriving in the 21st Century, is a result of their first roundtable discussion.
The ten listed catastrophic risks are natural resource depletion, mass extinction and ecosystem collapse, unchecked human population growth, global heating, pollution, increasing food insecurity, nuclear weapons, pandemics, dangerous new technologies, and denial and misinformation.
The group highlightsthe interconnectedness of all ten risks and how they must therefore be solved together in a systematic way.
“There are now too many people on the planet using too many resources and producing too many risky wastes.
Human population growth at current levels exacerbates all other threats. Its seriousness, and preventability, are not being addressed in any country or internationally.”
The authors note that the expectedfourfold increase in the human populationfrom 1950to 2050“is the underlying driver of all the catastrophic risks we now face, combined with our overconsumption of scarce resources”.
CHF is planning to come up with detailed solutions at future roundtable discussions, but the report does mention that lower birth rates can be achieved by providing access to education and reproductive healthcare, advancing women’s rights and alleviating poverty – key measures that also immediately benefit human welfare and that we have long promoted at Population Matters.
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forcing humanity to reassess its relationship with the natural world, the report urges usingthis opportunity to embark on a less anthropocentric, more sustainable path forward.
The ten listed catastrophic risks are natural resource depletion, mass extinction and ecosystem collapse, unchecked human population growth, global heating, pollution, increasing food insecurity, nuclear weapons, pandemics, dangerous new technologies, and denial and misinformation.
Answer and Explanation: Overpopulation is a serious problem that has many negative impacts, but in general, the most important total impact is the reduction in the standard of living.
With more people comes more waste and pollution, which can lead to water contamination, air pollution, and other environmental issues. This has a detrimental effect on the planet's ecosystems as well as human health. WHO estimates that pollution can be associated with 7 million premature deaths each year.
More people means an increased demand for food, water, housing, energy, healthcare, transportation, and more. And all that consumption contributes to ecological degradation, increased conflicts, and a higher risk of large-scale disasters like pandemics.
Larger populations require more food, water, and energy, and consequently tax the earth's ability to replace used resources. Overpopulation depletes wildlife to dangerously low levels. Overfishing has ruined many formerly fertile fishing grounds.
In response, population activists argue that overpopulation is a problem in both rich and poor countries, and arguably a worse problem in rich countries, where residents' higher per capita consumption ratchets up the impacts of their excessive numbers.
Global warming, which leads to droughts and crop failures, and flooding, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, vulnerability to epidemics, and exhaustion of soils and groundwater are all related to population growth.
Even though it often engenders opposition, family planning is more crucial then ever, as the rapid population growth continues to create an explosive situation. Rapid growth has led to uncontrolled urbanization, which has produced overcrowding, destitution, crime, pollution, and political turmoil.
Results and discussion. The latest empirical research reveals the potential negative consequences of population growth for economic development into seven categories. Its impacts on economic growth, poverty and inequality, education, heath, food, the environment, and international migration.
Overpopulation adversely impacts the economy. Rising prices cause less savings and make the working and middle classes more vulnerable to economic distress. In developing countries, people are forced to go without clean water or adequate food and live in squalid conditions.
Overpopulation continues to exert tremendous pressure on the environment, exacerbating the depletion of natural resources, and contributing to ecological degradation. The expanding human footprint directly leads to deforestation, habitat destruction, and the loss of biodiversity.
Family planning and gender equality helps to achive that, through allowing women to start having children when they are older and increase spacing between children. As family size goes down, that also allows greater investment in health services, especially in low income countries.
The effects of overpopulation include pressure on resources like food and water, crowded cities with traffic and housing problems, tough competition for jobs, difficulties in providing healthcare, harm to the environment, conflicts between countries over resources, harm to ecosystems, and not having enough food to feed ...
A further statistic: over half of the increase in Earth's inhabitants will be concentrated in eight countries by 2050: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
Rapid growth has led to uncontrolled urbanization, which has produced overcrowding, destitution, crime, pollution, and political turmoil. Rapid growth has outstripped increases in food production, and population pressure has led to the overuse of arable land and its destruction.
In an overpopulated environment, the numbers of people might be more than the available essential materials for survival such as transport, water, shelter, food or social amenities. This regularly contributes to environmental deterioration, worsening in the quality of life, or even the disintegration of the population.
Introduction: My name is Barbera Armstrong, I am a lovely, delightful, cooperative, funny, enchanting, vivacious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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