Overpopulation of the Earth Essay - 1698 Words

Overpopulation of the Earth The little animatronic children at Disney World were right, it is â€Å"a small world after all†; maybe even too small. At the beginning of the present century there were approximately 1.7 billion people in the world(Southwick pg.159). Today, there are nearly 6 billion people in the world. The world’s population has more than tripled in the span of a hundred years. Given that the earth’s population is constantly on the rise and seeing as how our natural resources are gradually being depleted, we must ask ourselves: what is to become of us and what is to become of our environment? In order to understand this question we must first have a thorough understanding of whether or not there is a population crisis.†¦show more content†¦Author Edwin G. Dolan describes this period of time as a, â€Å"picture of a society in which affluence can exist only against the backdrop of miserable masses,† (59). At the opposite end of the spectrum, some scientists have argued that overpopulation and the depletion of our natural resources are not genuine problems and therefore, will not pose a serious threat to our existence. In particular, economist Julian Simon, has argued that the earth’s rich natural resources coupled with our massive economic growth and technological advances will ensure that a greater amount of people will live in better conditions than ever before (Southwick pg. 160). This optimistic perspective along with the Malthusian point of view both present convincing data and arguments. Yet, because of the extremity of each position, the two theories are flawed in several respects. The Malthusian perspective and the extreme optimistic perspective are both flawed in some respect. The Malthusian assumes that the population will continue to grow at the rate that it is currently growing. It fails to consider the fact that some generations, for instance the baby boomers generation, had a great deal more births than other generations. In turn, when a large generation reaches the ends of their lives, many more people will die than are being born (Dolan pg. 63). Furthermore, the Malthusian perspective is also very deterministic. Doom seems almost inevitable. The overly optimisticShow MoreRelatedOverpopulation and the Carrying Capacity of the Earth Essay examples983 Words   |  4 PagesOverpopulation and the Carrying Capacity of the Earth As humans start a new millennium, we have close to 4 billion more than we had at the beginning of the last millennium. In the next 50 years we are looking at adding another 3 billion people. Such a rapid increase has placed great strains on the Earth and leads us to ask – how many people can the earth support? The answer is rather obscure, however it seems like we are approaching our limit rather soon. 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Robert Kolb suggested in the Encyclopedia of Business EthicsRead MoreOverpopulation1587 Words   |  7 Pages The population of Earth is estimated to be seven and a half billion, and the current growth rate per year is around eighty million. Since the world’s population is constantly growing at such a high rate, some people believe that it will lead to the downfall of the human race, while others think it is beneficial to continue on this path. The ongoing debate on world overpopulation allows many different people to offer their unique opinions, such as Erle C. Ellis, Joel Kotkin, Robert Walker, and Alon