Milda Statkute 10b

Is overpopulation something we need to be worried about?

In my opinion, overpopulation is a serious issue we are currently facing, but it will

resolve itself soon. As healthcare and education(especially women’s) are more and
more accessible the birth rates are estimated to be declining after reaching a certain
number of people.

Some say that the question isn't so much whether it's a problem for the earth as it is
if it's a problem for the people who live on it. The Earth cannot support an unlimited
number of people, and if we ever reach that limit, it would be a tough time to be alive.
However, the rate of population growth looks to be slowing as a result of the
demographic change. Population decreases are happening in many advanced
economies, as well as the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Between 2005
and 2010, Europe's "fertility rate" was only 1,5 live births per woman, while the
standard rate to maintain a stable population is 2,1. Europe's population would
already be declining if not for immigration.

The concept of overpopulation as a future apocalypse started in England in 1798,

when Thomas Malthus, a vicar and mathematician, discovered that although food
production increased gradually, human reproduction increased exponentially. He
then predicted that the world would run out of food by 1890, blaming lower mortality
rates and urging the killing of society's poor to prevent starvation. Malthus was
basically wrong on two counts: population growth and technical development.
Malthus severely underestimated the potential for growing productivity, especially in
food production, and in terms of technical progress. As the population will rise, our
technology will also improve with it, making it in a way impossible for people to go
hungry now or in the future because of overpopulation.

Even though a lot of people are blaming climate change on overpopulation, our
current climate situation would not be impacted by any population declines.
According to the UN, we will have 9.7 billion people in 2050 and 11 billion by the end
of the century. Logically, more humans mean more demand for the Earth's natural
resources. The basic claim that fewer people will result in fewer greenhouse
emissions, pollution, and habitat destruction makes logical sense. However, this
seems to be right merely on the surface. The more money people have to spend, the
more fossil fuels they consume. Just North America and China alone were
responsible for about half of the world's CO2 emissions in recent years. These are
also the countries having the greatest concentrations of the world's richest people.
And because their populations are living longer lives and having fewer children, their
population growth is slowing. In comparison, the poorest half of the world, which
currently makes up the majority of global population growth, produces only 10% of
global CO2 emissions. These people frequently lack the technology and resources
that lead to increased energy use, industrialization, and pollution. It is not the size of
the people that makes a difference, but rather the amount of resources used. And this
massive resource consumption is coming from a tiny number of individuals in
industrialized and developed countries, rather than a large group of people. So,
rather than a reduction in population, a radical shift in how we as a species consume
and distribute resources would make a significant difference. And, to make the
change, we need to switch the resources we're consuming, going from fossil fuels and
other types of non-renewable energy, to sustainable and renewable energy.

The concept of fewer people being equal to less climate change works in theory, but
calculations and statistics reveal that this is not the case. Even in scenarios where
population decrease actually lowers emissions, the difference is insufficient to change
the projected temperature rise. There is no way that population decline will result in
the emissions reductions needed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius in
the near future.

To conclude, I think that overpopulation, though being a problem right now, will not
impact our lives as much as we, or Thomas Malthus, thought it would. Estimates
show that currently rising numbers of population will eventually decrease and our
constantly advancing technology will be able to feed everyone. Furthermore, it is also
easy to prove the false claim of overpopulation being the main factor of climate
change wrong.