The Population Problem...

What, to your mind, is the most pressing challenge facing the global environment today? Why?

It is nearly impossible for me to select just one challenge facing the global environment that I find to be the most pressing. In reality, I feel that it is a combination of many problems that is thr truly pressing matter. If an indifferent populace, global warming, shrinking Rainforests, unsustainability, or decreasing clean water and air were all individual problems, with no relation to one another, the overall global environmental problem would be much less daunting. The terrifying truth is that all of these problems are very interconnected and therefore, they continue to perpetuate each other. For instance, the shrinking Rainforests decrease the planet's ability to absorb carbon dioxide which then leads to an excess of greenhouse gases leaking into the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect caused by these gases increases global warming which, in turn, leads to rising sea levels, resulting in less clean water. A population of indifferent people certainly does not help the situation and leads to further unsustainability as people use more resources than the planet can support.

However, there is one problem that I feel is a cause of many other issues facing the Earth today. That problem is the exponentially growing population of humans. Before human population reached 3 billion people, the Earth still had more than enough resources to sustain humans of the present and future generations of similar size. As technology advanced and population began to rise, the stress put on the environment from double the number of humans began to show. The population continues to grow today and it is reaching nearly 7 billion people. I believe that each aforementioned issue will only become more severe as the human population grows until the planet can no longer sustain life. Despite the fact that more humans means more brains to create technology, it also means more mouths to feed, more homes to heat and cool, more buildings to build, and in general, more natural resources to use. Additionally, more people, who continue to have children at a fertility rate of over 2.1 children per woman will only further the population problem which will then continue the cycle of resource over use. Thus, I feel that population is the most pressing matter facing the global environment today. A population of 8 billion environmentalists could still be much worse for the planet than a population of 5 billion indifferent people.

As it stands now, the population is growing but at a slower rate than it was 30 years ago. Modern predictions suggest that the population will "peak" within the next 50 years and then begin to decrease as the planet succumbs to environmental stress and resource depletion. With the advancement of birth-control technology and family planning advocacy throughout the African continent, the population may begin to level off sooner rather than later. Ideally, family sizes will begin to shrink until the population is sustainable at a constant level without increasing past the point of resource exhaustion. Only time will tell if and how the population problem is resolved. What is clear to the environmental science community today is that if the population were to continue growing at its present rate, the Earth would not be able to support human life for many more generations. While this is a sobering thought, it is necessary to make it a well known fact and so raise awareness about the issue.

Overall, I feel that the population problem is the most pressing challenge facing the global environment today. While each environmental problem has its specific effects on other issues, the problem of population increase will only continue to further each of these individual challenges until life is totally unsustainable. Therefore, although the planet faces many daunting prospects of further resource depletion, the increasing population is the true root of the environmental degradation. Without solving this problem, the Earth has little hope of recovery.