Overpopulation & Its Affects on the Environment

The world is becoming an overly crowded place. The population of the world has doubled in the last 40 years; in 1999, we welcomed the 6 billionth resident of Earth. In 1960, there were only 3 billion living human beings and prior to that the first time the human population eclipsed 1 billion people was in 1804! Even still, the largest youth population the world has ever seen is just entering its reproductive years. One billion teenagers will begin reproducing and it is estimated within 50 years Earth's population will reach 10 billion. Overpopulation is an issue that affects us all and the population surge on our planet is tremendous. It poses danger to not only we as humans, but to the world around us.

Fragile ecosystems are being destroyed everyday to accommodate for the new life. We need to take better care of the environment around us if we hope to sustain life.

The Population Growth Cycle

Family Portrait

A family planning facility in Kuala Terengganu, Ma...

It's estimated that 1 or more species of plant or animal life goes extinct every 20 minutes because 3,500 new babies are born. These ecosystems are vital to human existence and if we do not do something, we may face an even greater problem, which we cannot cure...

The growth in population has put even greater stress on the already strained earthly resources needed to sustain life. As it is now, nearly 1/3 of the population does not have fresh water at all. If the population continues to grow as it has, conservation of the most precious resource we have will not be enough. Another resource imperative to our survival is soil, which is being eroded from farms at nearly 7 ½ tons per second. Currently there is "only 11% of the world's soil that can be farmed without being irrigated, drained, or otherwise improved." Without...