The Cause Of Overpopulation

In the past few years, scientist have put the numbers of our ever-growing human population under a magnifying glass. There has been a substantial amount of growth and It 's leading to overpopulation. “Overpopulation is an undesirable condition where the number of existing human population exceeds the carrying capacity of Earth.” (Overpopulation) There are many causes for concern when viewing the numbers and effects because the overall population will suffer shortages of basic needs such as food, energy, and most importantly water. It took thousands of years for the American population to reach a billion in 1804. It took only one hundred and twenty-three years to reach two billion in 1927, and forty-seven years to reach four billion in 1974.

In the Babylonian era, an epic was written explaining that the gods were sending floods and plagues to “reduce the teeming human population. (History of Overpopulation) In 600 B.C, a Greek epic explained that Zeus was causing wars because of overpopulation. The most notable remarks came from englishman Thomas Malthus around the 18th century. He published an essay explaining connection between poverty and population. In the essay he reasoned that “population tends to grow exponentially (doubles every generation) while the supply of food, at best, only increases linearly (increases in the same amount every generation)”(History of Overpopulation) He assumed the reason that in that time period there was not a substantial amount of overcrowding is that poverty, war, and famine existed. The basis for why he was against giving support to England 's poor. It would work against overcrowding. These are the main “checks”. A more cutthroat solution for the excess amount of human beings that followed in 1968 was written by a biologist Paul Ehrlich. His solution was the government would have to put into place strict measures, such as forced sterilization and abortions. He also proposed filtering food aid, only giving it to countries that would most likely survive in the event of a worldwide shortage.

If Earth ever reached the complete point of overpopulation the effects would be devastating. There would be depletion of natural resources, degradation of environment, Conflicts and wars, rise in unemployment, higher cost of living, loss of freshwater, species extinction, lower life expectancy, increased pandemics, less freedoms and more restrictions, more intensive farming farming practices, elevated crime rate and