Human Population

Human Overpopulation Paper

Jacqueline Parnell

University of Phoenix

SCI/256 PEOPLE, SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

W. Prexel; Instructor

March 16, 2010

Human Overpopulation

The human population has increased tremendously in the 20th century. This rapid growth has been a cause for concern regarding the ability of earth sustaining this huge number. The condition where a specific species number exceed its carrying capability of its habitat is referred to as overpopulation. This term overpopulation usually refers to the human population and its relationship with earth.

James Hopkins states, “Overpopulation is when the number of people cannot be permanently maintained without depleting resources and without degrading the environment and the people’s standard of living” (Hopkins, n.d.). When the resources and capacity in a particular area is exceeded by the habitats and there is not enough to sustain the activities then overpopulation has occurred. The growth of the population is affected by exponential growth. One of the most preeminent problems facing civilization is human population.

Because of overpopulation the human populations undergo a large amount of suffering because of a lack of resources. In over populated areas there is an increase for food, energy and water to satisfy the needs of the inhabitants’. As the population grows the demand for land, and food production triples and as a result land availability grows scarce.

Energy that is used to maintain the human population is derived from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are formed from plants and animals, it is considered to be non-renewable energy. Fossil fuels are burned to release chemical energy. The burning of fossil fuel has proven to be harmful to the environment. The increase demand for fuel, because of overpopulation, has impacted the environment immensely. Fossil fuel is burned to obtain energy, during this process many particulates are released in the atmosphere and we breathe them. From the...