OVERPOPULATION

This week the world population will hit 7 BILLION people. Over the weekend, CNN had their Quick Vote poll as the question "Are you concerned about overpopulation?" I voted YES. The results had a larger majority of people voting yes, but not by much. It looked about 51% yes to 49% no. In an article by Fred Pearce entitled "How women defused population bomb," he states that women are having less kids and "The global average is now down to 2.5 children per woman, and it continues to fall." Overpop. is a serious problem because the resources the earth provides cannot support this many people. It is interesting that this one huge problem relates and correlates to so many other problems. Having more people means a need for more consumption. More people need more places to live, which cuts down more of the environment. More cars and other types of transportation are on the road. Due to more people, more tractor trailers to support the need for food and larger demand for products. The increase of vehicles adds to the increase of CO2 within the environment. Then, because we have cut down trees and the environment is becoming scarce, the oxygen production will be at a lower level, while the carbon dioxide is increasingly increasing.  At the end of the article he places his own views that consumption is a larger problem than population. "It is the world's consumption patterns we need to fix, not its reproductive habits. Every time we talk about too many babies in Africa or India, we are denying this fact." – Pearce. All of these issues spring up as even more intense problems because the population is growing. Like with everything, one action causes many different effects to take place. A blog on the Huffington Post had two real catchy phrases about safe sex, “"Hump smarter, save the snail darter." "Cover your tweedle, save the American burying beetle." Suckling also wrote, “The connection between population growth and species extinction is unavoidable.” This is another problem that overpopulation will directly cause. The cutting down the environment to make room for more humans means less room for the animals within the world. This is a serious problem, like most other serious problems it is being ignored because people think it doesn’t directly affect their lives. We need to take drastic steps now in order to decrease such devastating effects.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/28/opinion/pearce-population-fertility/index.html?iref=allsearch
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kieran-suckling/7-billion-population_b_1068567.html