Manika Riley-James
BIO-220
June 29, 2014
Leroy Demarest Overpopulation Human overpopulations is a huge environmental issue all over the world. It is a problem for many countries because the significant increase in the number of individuals being born compared to those who die far exceeds the amount of resources available and the carrying capacity of the country’s environment to sustain ongoing human activities. Overpopulation has a tremendous effect on our quality of life by ways of pollution and global warming, poverty, and the destruction of habitants.
Significant population growth in many countries globally take a negative effect on the environment and society due to depletion of resources causing poverty and starvation, major pollution and increases global warming, and displacement of species due to their homes being taken away from them forcefully. Human overpopulation increases pollution by littering, soil contamination and toxins released in the environment as well as carbon monoxide by ways of vehicular mechanisms being used on a daily basis that eventually causes global warming. For example, water pollution caused nearly 20,000 beach closings in 2004 and fine particle air pollution resulted in the premature deaths of over 45,000 people in the U.S each year (retrieved from www.npg.org/effects of overpopulation).
Poverty and starvation increases as the population grows because there is not enough food, shelter, and employment to accommodate the number of individuals and their families living in areas that are both less-developed and overpopulated. Currently, more than 66% of the world population is malnourished according to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2000) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. Since there is a shortage on food productivity due to an increase in populations all over the world, malnourishment is diminishing the