Overpopulation occurs when the human population increases and there are not sufficient resources and technology to maintain a suitable standard of living. It is influenced by the number of people, and the capability for the environment to sustain them. There are two departures of overpopulation. One is optimum population, a condition where the number of people in a region and its resource base and technology level are in balance, that is, the carrying capacity has not been reached. The other is underpopulation, which occurs when a region has inadequate population numbers to fully utilize the resources available before its disposal. Underpopulation was an issue some time ago but with all these changes in the world, the population is increasing exponentially. Overpopulation is the issue economists, environmentalists and researchers now argue about, and they discuss the problems that it will bring in the future. In 1991, there were approximately 5.4 billon people in the world, according to the Population Reference Bureau, if our growth rate is not reduced soon, it is estimated that by the year 2050, the world’s population …show more content…
In the world now, man is accumulating resources in excess of their needs and beyond their own boundaries, competing with other organisms for resources. They are also converting these resources to form wastes. This leads to damaging the environment, where the carrying capacity of the environment is exceeding. According to World Wide Life Foundation, the planet’s total biocapacity is the earth’s ability to produce natural resources, provide land for humans to build on, and absorb waste such as carbon emissions. They argue that the human population uses resources in a year which normally takes a year and a half to generate. If this continues, by 2050 the carrying capacity of the environment will raise significantly, more than it already