I. Introduction
The human population is at a record high today, with the sixth billion person expected to be born this October (Fornos, 1998). The growing human population concerns many scientists who believe that if too many people are born, it will hurt the global environment. In response to the drastic increase in child birth, Ferguson (2001) refers to population growth as the "population bomb". The population bomb was considered to go off when Smil (cited in Ferguson, 2001) says "changing composition of the atmosphere". Many people believe there is no room for the population to keep at the rate it is because it grows faster than the species can reproduce.
While underdeveloped countries and regions are making an unhealthy environment, there are more children dying from hunger and malnutrition than anything else like war. If the population growth were to decline, there would be many environmental benefits waiting (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 1997).
World population curve. A log scale is used for th...
Population growth
Photograph from Prof. Ehrlich's Photography Studio...Scientists believe overpopulation will cause the environment to lose its resources and threaten life support systems (Cunningham, Cunningham & Saigo, 2005, p.125). Other scientists believe that population growth will help contribute to the scale of human enterprise. Researchers speculate that the human population has no effect on the environment (Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 1997). Therefore the growth of the population has a lot of evidence showing that it does and does effect the global environment.
II. Description
If the human population grows faster than the growth of the animal species in the food chain, animals will become extinct more quickly than usual (Fornos, 1998). If the human population grows too fast and consumes too many animals, the animals will not be able to reproduce. Eventually, species will become extinct if the human population continues to grow as fast as it is today with the sixth billion person expected...