Peter Soares
Title: “Africa to Record Largest Population Growth Over Next 40 Years”
By: Jennifer Lazuta
It is predicted that sub-Saharan Africa will have the largest population growth by 2050. The Population Reference Bureau, has said that the poorest region in the world will double in population by 2050 from 1.1 billion to 2.4 billion. They based this off the high fertility rates where women in Africa average 5.2 children in their lifespan. Some countries like Niger have birth rates as high as, 7.6 children per women. Previously, the large fertility rate was balanced with HIV/AIDS but, due to access to medical technology their lifespan has increased exponentially elevating the population.
So the next question is how do they balance their population before it grows out of control. Ideas that came up were, starting family planning services which counsels couples on how to reduce birth rates and the population and maternal health benefits of spacing births out. If the growth rate is not reduced it could have a plethora of negative effects including: higher rates of poverty, unemployment,and environmental degradation. This can have an impact on foreign aid help from other countries due to the amount of money being needed to be spread among a larger population.
Amber Morgan
link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-steven-friedman/population-growth-worldwide_b_1245202.html
By: Howard Steven Friedman
Title: "10 Countries With the Largest Projected Population Growth: American Exceptionalism”
Despite it often being over-looked The United States is one of the most over populated countries in the world. A nations population can grow one of two ways, either internal growth( birth/death rates) or external growth( immigration/emigration). Based off of these two factors estimations the U.S. are aimed to grow by ninety-three million between 2010 and 2050. This ranks us fifth in huffington posts top ten estimated countries for population growth. The U.S. is so highly estimated for many different reasons different from many other countries experiencing over population. The U.S.’s wealth, immigration rates, and fertility rates are a major influence on the growth of its population. The U.S. is the only wealthy country in the top 25 for overpopulation. However the immigration rates are more so the problem, almost forty million Americans were born in a foreign country and moved to the U.S. thats thirteen percent of the country. The current United States population of 310 million is the third largest country in the world with a continuation in growth this high the U.S. will most definitely be over populated. If rates do not reduce the United States over population will begin to have a large negative effect on the country including higher unemployment rates, higher poverty rates, and even a large effect on the countries environment due to growth in the usage of land by citizens.
Emily Jonczyk
By: Fred
De Sam Lazaro 
link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/globalhealth-july-dec11-population_10-19/
Title: India’s Growth Held Back by Overpopulation
India’s population is at roughly 1.2 billion inhabitants and is projected to grow to nearly 1.8 billion before stabilizing around the middle of the century. In comparison to other countries, the United States population is around 317 million and China has a population around 1.4 billion. With the vast population, there is a significant lack of resources like water. Stories show that some people wait four to six hours for a municipal tank truck to arrive with clean water. The basic public safeties are also inadequate such as public toilets that often malfunction. All of the disorder among basic needs and safety causes the overpopulation issue to become more significant. When a large population begins to have difficulty supporting themselves, the economy and nation can breakdown. Some environmental issues that are associated with overpopulation in India is the pollution, lack of natural resources, and deforestation. Pollution is caused by the malfunctioning public toilets leading people to do so freely in public places. Lack of natural resources is due to the amount of resources needed to support the huge population. Deforestation is an issue as well because people are clearing the forests in order to build more homes and shacks for the population to live in. All of these effects cause India’s overpopulation to be a common headline as well as talk of how to fix the problem.
Stephen Howard
Think about five of your friends. One of them is in China. Well, I mean, not actually, that’s confusing population data with empirical data relevant to a sample, but the statistic is sound. At this point in time, China represents 20% of the world’s population. With a population of 6.7 billion citizens, China’s population is continuing to grow despite its policies. What policies? Well let me tell you!
In the year 1950 (not that long ago from a population standpoint), only 563 million people lived in China. Of course, this was and is still considered a large population, but it was nothing compared to what it is today. The decades following this year were comprised of rapid population growth; the nation boasted more than 1,000,000,000 inhabitants by the end of the 1980’s.
By the end of this period of excessive growth, China decided that action needed to be taken. China then implemented its infamous “One Child Policy,” inhibiting the vast majority of the population from being allowed to have more than one child (to anyone who watched The Prince of Egypt, sound at all like Pharaoh cracking down on the Jews?). This statute has been seen as strict and somewhat overbearing, but it has helped slow down their population to some extent.
Currently, the average woman gives birth to 1.7 children. As we learned from Ms. Collins, most populations require a fertility rate of 2 or higher (because men don’t produce children), but China’s population is still projected to grow. Beyond the fertility rate, this is due to immigration, decreased infant mortality, and longer life span (yay technology).
Overpopulation is a global crisis and Pakistan is among the most overpopulated country in the world.
By: Kabeer Shabeer Baloch 
However, Pakistani politicians and policymakers tend to ignore this issue and focus instead on terrorism, militancy, corruption, inflation, poverty, and illiteracy. Population concerns deserve greater attention, as this is a major social problem for Pakistan, and is consequently creating new social evils. When the population exceeds the limit of available resources it can become a burden on the state and economy.
Pakistan is the 6th most populous country in the world. The rate of population increase is 1.2 percent a year, which means the population will double in 58 years. Pakistan has one of the highest birth rates which presents many challenges for the country. The country faces many crises, but the policies to solve them are not sufficient, as things in Pakistan are very unbalanced in every sector.
In addition, some Pakistanis marry very early and are polygamous, a practice claimed to poorly affect the standard of living. The Pakistani education system is very poor and the government seems unwilling or unable to make effective changes. Moreover, poverty, inflation, illiteracy, social unrest and criminality are the cases in point that are created by overpopulation. Therefore, the government of Pakistan needs to devote not only adequate time and attention to these issues, but to implement real change and reform to solve the overpopulation crisis.
Overpopulation in Pakistan is a major problem that is tossed aside. People overlook the problem of overpopulation in Pakistan and tend to focus more on terrorism and corruption. The author of this article wants there to be more attention on the overpopulation problems in Pakistan. This article points at some specific facts about the atmosphere of Pakistan and why the population is big and growing. I believe there needs to be more of a focus on education so Pakistanians realize what they need to do in order to keep a balanced country and prevent overpopulation. After reading this article I am most interested in how the world and the country of Pakistan overlook the problem of overpopulation and focus on issues concerning terrorism and corruption. In my opinion Pakistan needs to take steps in controlling their population by creating a better education system as well as decreasing poverty.
Kyra Schemmel
Discussion Questions:
How do you believe overpopulation effects the environment?
What strategies can be used to fix the problem of overpopulation? Explain.
What do you think the effects of overpopulation will be once we reach the year of 2075? Why?
One method to fix overpopulation is by improving opportunities for women in the workplace. When women have a career or a job, they are less likely to have many children. This allows women to be a contributing member of society rather than maintaining the household. As more women enter the workforce, the childbearing age increases so they will be less overall children in society.
ReplyDeleteOverpopulation will affect the environment by using up all of the resources. Overpopulation is literally defined as when the population reaches or exceeds the carrying capacity. Immediate affects of overpopulation will be the lack of space, but if prolonged there will be a lack of food as well. Since land is required for people to live in, a lot of agricultural land will be forfeit due to many living there. The environment will be degraded by overpopulation. Ways to fix can be by family planning, where people are educated about the future. Also,overpopulated countries can issue incentives where people who who have less children will get some sorts of benefits.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it, there are around four major ways that a country could decrease its population growth rates: the Chinese 1 child program, the Family Planning program, restricting immigration, and the slaughter of large quantities of people (mass genocide). The Chinese one child program worked pretty well for China, as the total fertility rate went from around 6 children to less than 2 within fifty years. The Family Planning program has not worked so well in India due to lack of funding, high poverty, and bad planning, but it did work quite well in Thailand due to the government support, religious support, and education of women on the subject. Restricting immigration will not really help out most countries with high fertility rates as not many people are really immigrating to those countries. Countries like the U.S. though, would benefit substantially population wise from restricting immigration. Genocide is really only implemented by devious dictators and is most likely not used for the sole purpose of keeping a country's population in check. Also, murder is probably not the most ethical solution to overpopulation ever and should probably not be used as a main mode of population control.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the best way to take care of the overpopulation crisis is to turn R-strategist like humans in third world countries into K-strategist oriented families in terms of producing less offspring and focusing more on the fewer offspring they have. This would mean issuing more government provided educational standards which would also cater to the student's food, water, and living needs if necessary. Such educational standards can lead to a better job market and in turn allow for better living conditions for future generations as the cycle continues. As educational standards are increased and catered to, economical standards will also be benefited. Concluding this possibility of solving overpopulation, we can also look at overpopulation by 2075. Although it may be likely that the situation will become worse, supporting urban sprawl efforts and building upon resource extraction and recycling efforts could result in an increase if overall supported population for the earth. Over all, I am suggesting a technological method to approaching the overpopulation problem - Rather than thinking of methods to reduce and control population, we should be building upon efforts to support it.
DeleteLike the articles mentioned, overpopulation can cause a depletion of natural resources. The number of people begins to outweigh the amount of available food, water, and land. In the United States, especially around Cary, we are constantly building new shopping centers and neighborhoods. If we don't learn how to slow down the growth of our population, then we will soon run out of room to build any more new homes. This will cause more people to be forced to live on the streets, leading to an increase in poverty. A growing population used to be a good thing for countries, but not anymore; if we want to continue to prosper, we need to control our population.
ReplyDeleteSome strategies that could be implemented to combat overpopulation could be family planning and incentives. With family planning, education and contraceptives could be provided for people. Education helps teach families the benefits of rearing less children, while contraceptives can help prevent pregnancies. However, the downside to family planning is culture. Even with education and contraceptives, some families still choose to have more kids because of the want for a boy or more hands. Then when incentives are provided for families that have fewer children, like tax breaks or better access to medicine and education, more families may decide to not have as many kids.
ReplyDeleteI think overpopulation is not something that can be directly controlled. Although there are restrictions in countries like China, I don't believe you can tell a family how many children they can have. However, these issues can be reduced by providing resources for people in need such as food, shelter, education, and employment. When needs like this are met, families are less likely to struggle and can have a stable environment which I think can reduce overpopulation.
ReplyDeleteOverpopulation is going to have a huge effect on the world by 2075. Many basic resources are already scarce today such as food, water and oil. Imagine how much worse it would be if the population continues to grow. Even though overpopulation if definitely a problem, i don't think there is a way to fix it. We could encourage people to only have one child and make contraceptives easy to obtain but in the end I don't think there is a way to stop overpopulation all together.
ReplyDeleteOverpopulation is affecting the environment enormously and is going to continue to have an affect in 2075. Overpopulation is causing a the extensive use of our resources. The faster the population is growing, the faster the resources are running out. Not only does overpopulation, degrade our resources, but it also causes a lot of pollution. Air pollution, water pollution, land pollution, noise pollution are all increased as our population increases and it gets harder and harder to implement laws to prevent pollution. The increase in population will also affect the climate and cause it to change in most likely harmful ways with ozone depletion and global warming. To limit the population we could try to do something like China and implement the "one child' policy, but I don't think there's any true solution to limiting population growth without changing everyone's moral, ethical, and economical views and going through drastic changes with government control. But this could infringe upon everyone's rights. I think in 2075, either we will have one of two options: a run down earth, with very limited resource, unemployment rates at their highest, climate changes due to pollution by people, or a cleaner and more efficient earth, with more renewable resources, less pollution due to new technology, and a lower unemployment rate.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to determine which course of action is the best to take concerning population growth in LDCs (or less developed countries). Some possible solutions that have been proposed are education for women, family planning services, dispersing birth control methods, sterilization, and restrictive government policies. Because most of the growth is occurring in developing countries, we should focus on these areas. The primary reasons for high fertility rates in these countries are not a lack of birth control or family planning, but ingrained cultural traditions that require having multiple children. In areas such as sub-saharan Africa, families have children so that they have more help in carrying water and performing other chores that help them survive day to day. These family's ancestors had many children, and their communities have many children. Breaking these norms will take a lot more than dispersing birth control to these communities.
ReplyDeleteThere is a theory of population which was developed by Thomas Robert Malthus, it suggests that the human population is maintained by 'positive checks' such as war, famine and disease. It seems like a heartless principle but it does seem effective. The concept reintroduced mother nature and survival of the fittest into our lives. Perhaps we must sustain some necessary casualties to keep the masses feed and in homes. This could be the answer to overpopulation. We live in a finite world and by 2075 if we don't find a way of maintaining it we will not have enough for everyone and end up like our brethren in Easter Island. We must adapt our population to a finite amount, exponential growth will only lead to more overpopulation and more trouble.
ReplyDeleteDeveloping countries have high birth rates because they need the extra hands to help, like Anna mentioned with the African families. In developed countries like the U.S., women have the opportunity to educate themselves, pursue a career, and push back family life into later years. We see that people in developed countries are struggling to put food on the table, when we take things like that for granted. Hunger relief plans are great, but maybe instead of just sending food to third world countries, it would be better to also push for education for women. Not saying that it would be easy, but it would be a crucial step to getting those developing countries out of the pre-industrial stage and into the transitional stage. This change would decrease the birth rates in those countries and lessen the overpopulation problem
ReplyDeleteI think that overpopulation definitely harms the environment because it causes more people to use a large amount of resources, especially ones that have limited amounts, and cause more waster to accumulate thus polluting the environment. A way to fix overpopulation is to educate women on birth control and to also industrialize these areas so parents won't have to use their child to work for them. China's "one child policy" worked very well for them so maybe as some of these more developing countries are becoming more industrialized than we can use something similar to that.
ReplyDeleteOverpopulation is becoming a major concern as many countries are not able to provide for its citizens as the resources needed are not there. Many countries are expected to double in population in the next 30 years which will only increase the problem of lack of resources. With these kind of issues becoming more apparent in more countries every year we need to start finding ways to limit and reduce the birth rate in countries or find another source of energy/ food globally.
ReplyDeleteIn response the first question, there is a definite relationship between overpopulation and the environment. China would be a good example of this. China is the top ranking country based on population and is still growing. The environment is completely destroyed in China, and their resources are becoming increasingly depleted. This is obviously due to the large amount of people inhabiting the region, but I think several other factors contribute to the destruction of the environment. China's government most likely did not look long-term in terms of the environment a few decades ago. This has caused them to completely eliminate most of their resources, or put them on the road to do so in the near future. But the United States, for example, has been trying to conserve and preserve the natural resources in America beginning with Roosevelt's presidency over a century ago. Both governments have high populations and high birth rates, but the US has been taking preventative measures for a century, whereas China only recently recognized their overpopulation problem and began imposing policies that have, for the most part, been effective (one child policy). So in answer to the question, yes overpopulation affects the environment, but other factors such as policies imposed and their effectiveness should also be taken into account.
ReplyDelete