The global population has nearly tripled since the middle of the nineteenth century. In the year 1950, the Earth’s population was estimated at around 2.6 billion people. Since then, the population has only continued to grow. There is little to no evidence indicating this trend will experience any stagnation. By the year 2050, the Earth’s population is expected to reach 9.7 billion. A contributing factor to the Earth’s population continued growth is the average age expectancy. Life expectancy is expected to grow from 72.6 in the year 2019 to 77.1 in the year 2050. To what degree does the increasing global population impact the world’s already limited resources?
Many of the Earth’s primary sources of energy are non-renewable. In other words, there is only a limited supply of many primary sources of energy. The most important of these primary energy sources is fossil fuel energy. With the current level of oil production, the world’s oil supply is only projected to last another 50 years. With the continued growth of the global population, the Earths supply of oil will be depleted at a much quicker pace with each year that passes as production will only increase to meet the growing demand. With the growing demand for primary sources of energy correlated with the global population increase there will become an inability to meet this demand due to the lack of output. This will have a direct effect of agricultural systems and production.
The reason agricultural shortages exist is because the Earth’s population is growing quicker than the food production capability of the agricultural system. The Earth’s growing population creates great responsibility and need for resources used for food production. Food production will continue to increase at much a less dramatic pace than the human population. It becomes increasingly difficult to parallel the level of production with the level of needed consumption. Currently, some countries are left with a surplus of food which can be exported to other countries with deficits. However, when the population increases in the countries with surpluses, there will no longer be a surplus.
Another valuable resource that will be affected by the world’s population growth is land. Obviously, all these resources have an interdependent relationship. Lack of fossil fuels means lack of food production. Moreover, lack of fertile cropland means lack of food production. The increasing need for fertile cropland can be contributed to over 60% of the world’s deforestation.So, to meet the need of food production we are forced to repurpose already essential segments of land
The increase of global population plays a large role in depletion of limited resources. Population increasing obviously means an increase in demand, production, and distribution of resources. Resources like fossil fuels, food supply, production systems, and land are all impacted greatly by the growing global population. The populations exponential growth has proved extremely demanding on our world’s resources. The consumption of the world’s resources will soon require serious considerations for solutions.
Bibliography
Pimentel, David, and Marcia Pimentel. “Population Growth, Environmental Resources, and the Global Availability of Food.” Social Research 66, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 417–28. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=18187964&site=eds-live.
“Population.” United Nations. Accessed November 8, 2021. https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population.
To whom it may concern,
Reading this article was quite enjoyable. So much so, that I have become fascinated by the topic and have since decided to do more research on it. While doing that research I kept stumbling on estimates and studies saying that the Earths population would begin to stagnate, or even potentially decline at some point. Do you think that would help avoid some of these problems? How might that affect the rest of what you said? I would be curious to hear your thoughts.
Thank you.