Population overload

Posted on March 12, 2010
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By the time you’ve finished reading this sentence, the human population of Earth will have increased by approximately 12 people. As you continue reading, the average number of births will, every second, eclipse the average number of deaths. If we assume a typical reading speed of 250 words per minute, in the time it takes you to reach the end of this article, there will be around 1800 more people living on the planet than when you started. But is that something to worry about?

Human numbers have been rising ever since the end of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. We currently pack in an extra 78 million people every year. The current population is 6.8 billion, and we’re expected to stampede through the 7 billion mark in 2012. According to the UN, the world population in 2050 will be 9.1 billion – a rise of over 6.6 billion in the 100 years since 1950.

The question is, can the Earth cope with that many people? Warnings that humans are overcrowding the planet have been sounding for centuries. Up until now, human progress and scientific ingenuity have staved off global catastrophe. Despite famines, most people have been fed and, taken as a whole, health and living standards have improved. And if the climate really is doomed, the consequences haven’t derailed us. At least not yet.

But now, a decade into what most scientists believe is a crunch century for the environment, some campaigners are desperately trying to put population growth back on the global agenda. Their argument is simple: there are too many of us. Continued growth, they say, is at the root of every environmental challenge we face, from cutting CO2 emissions to sharing the world’s limited fresh water. If we don’t do something soon, the natural resources we all depend on will vanish.

More: http://www.bbcfocusmagazine.com/feature/environment/population-overload#comment-875