The Problems of Overpopulation
Over the last half-century, the population of the world has exploded. At present, the population of the earth stands at over seven-point eight thousand million and increasing every day. Of all of the environmental challenges facing the planet, today overpopulation is one that sometimes slips under the radar. Just about every country in the world today faces huge problems caused by overpopulation. Issues like pollution, climate change, and water shortages all seem to take precedence, but overpopulation is one of the main contributors to many other environmental issues.
Human beings need houses to stay in. So as the population increases, more houses need to be built. Thus, and forests are cleared for building houses. Vegetation and animals are deprived of their natural homes. Their very survival is threatened. The eco-system and thus the environment is changed, often for the worse. The issue is compounded by the difficulty in providing solutions for this problem and misunderstanding of the causes and effects of overpopulation.
Overpopulation will place great demands on resources and land, leading to widespread environmental issues in addition to impacting global economies and standards of living. Towns and cities become larger and larger as people converge into them. The roads are jammed with cars and other vehicles. Road accidents occur more frequently. It is difficult even to find a place to park one’s car, or it cost a tidy sum to park in a car park.
Increased population means increased demand for goods. Consequently, everything costs more. The price for things has multiplied over the years. My father laments the fact that his $485 per month salary is hardly enough to cater to the needs of our family which consists of only four persons — my parents. my sister and me. He said that twenty-five years ago, his father worked for only $485 per month and still managed to bring up his family of five children. It just shows how overpopulation has contributed to the increased cost of living. It is possible for a sparsely populated area to become densely populated if it is not able to sustain life.
The house we live in now has low water pressure. It was not like this just five years ago. The pressure is low because the old water pipes that supplied water to us has to supply water to all the new houses built near us: With so many people drawing water from the same source, no wonder the water pressure is so low. We actually have to store water in tanks and buckets during the night when the pressure is slightly higher so that we have enough water to use during the day when the water literally drips from the taps. This is another problem resulting from overpopulation.
Overpopulation is caused by a number of factors. Reduced mortality rate, better medical facilities, depletion of precious resources are few of the causes which result in overpopulation. It can be seen then that an increasing population requires more and more things to meet their needs. More people means more food, fuel, and other necessities are required. This in turn puts more strain on the earth to produce the things needed. Again more land needs to be converted for agriculture and factories to produce these things. There is no escape from this if the population keeps increasing. More and more problems will be created.
Overpopulation is an undesirable condition where the number of the existing human population exceeds the actual carrying capacity of Earth. The is only one way out of this predicament. and that is not to allow the population of the world to increase anymore. In that way, we can avoid more problems being added to the already existing ones.
