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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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