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The Negative Consequences Of Overpopulation

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Written in 1968, Garrett Hardin presented a compelling formulation of the population problem. In his classic piece, “The Tragedy of the Commons”, a commons is a natural resource shared by many individuals. Shared means that each individual does not have a claim to any part of the resources but rather to the use of a portion of it for his/her own benefits (Hardin, G., 2009).

In society today, there are several tragedies of the commons as described by Hardin and one of the focused attention was the ever increasing population.

Human Overpopulation

Overpopulation is likely the world’s chief concern. Hardin stated that the human population problem was a member of the class of no technical solutions. The population problem cannot be solved in …show more content…

With our population increasing rapidly, pollution is a problem of increasing proportions (Spellman, F., 1999). The huge increase in size of the human population have resulted in a substantial degradation of environmental conditions (Birdsall, N., 2003).

Water Pollution. According to the Population Institute, one of the consequences of overpopulation is the pressure that is put on available water resources in order to serve a growing population. Approximately 50% of the worlds’ population will be living in regions around the globe that are considered “water stressed”, either due to lack of it, or poor quality, by the year 2030 (compared to 15% currently).

Water is a fundamental and integral part of human survival. We imbibe it, cook with it, bathe in it, and use it to filter and dispose of sewage. As the global population is expected to keep growing in the coming decades, the negative impact that humans will have on earths finite resources, especially water, will become increasingly apparent as areas of the world will start to experience drastic shortages of water, leading to instability in food production, industry, social order, and political and military …show more content…

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, "The largest single threat to the ecology and biodiversity of the planet in the decades to come will be global climate disruption due to the build-up of human-generated greenhouse gases in the

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In 1960, a man named Paul Ehrlich shared his fears of overpopulation in the world through his book called, “The Population Bomb”. He made many predictions about what kind of disasters we would face if drastic measures were not taken. Zero Population Growth became a political movement that wanted to limit births and give rewards to couples without children. However, humanity has managed to survive even with the current population growth. Paul Ehrlich believes that even though his predictions didn’t happen, it doesn’t mean he was wrong.

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When he is discussing that overpopulating a rich country would just bring ruin to their environment he includes an observation of what occurred in India after having a population of “600 million” (par.33) and says, “The country’s forests are now only a small fraction of what they were three centuries ago and floods and erosion continually destroy the farmland that remains” (par. 33). This is convincing to the audience because it shows something that is truly happening and shows that people are just caring for the food and place to live, but when it comes to thinking how nature will get affected by overpopulation they don’t consider it. It makes the reader, like me think if it happened in India, who says it can’t happen in the United States. It proves that the more rich countries help the poor, the more they will depend on it, instead of taking care of their own land and using the resources it provides. Hardin throughout his article just uses facts and this is seen when he writes, “Though all taxpayers were forced to the cost of P.L.480

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In his book, Population Bomb, he argued “through his life that there is an impending doom containing overpopulation and starvation”(Ehrlich 18). Let the facts show that the world has taken the right path toward sustaining life and sending us towards prosperity. In R. Engelman article “Population and Sustainability: Can We Avoid Limiting the Number of People” Engelman’s key argument was that “slowing the rise in human numbers is essential for the planet--but it doesn't require population control”(Engelman 49). Placing a cap on the population will force consequences as

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In August of 1969 a chaotic time with new fears of overpopulation had begun. A Stanford University biologist by the name of Paul Ehrlich had predicted doom for the world because of overpopulation. He believed that because we had a finite planet with finite resources, that we could not continue to procreate without suffering dire consequences. Later he wrote a book called “The Population Bomb” which put all of his theories together. Stewart Brand and Adrienne Germaine looked up to Paul thinking that what he was predicting would happen in the future.

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Commons can be either depleted as a source, as in deforestation, or polluted as a sink, as in pollution of the atmosphere (1968, 1245). A “rational” person will always follow their individual interests unless their portion of the cost of collective interests is more than the cost of their individual interests. Issues that bring about this conflict such as population growth and pollution, cannot be solved through technical solutions alone (Hardin, 1968, pp. pp. 1245).

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