Can the World Sustain an Increasing Population?

Can the world sustain an increasing population? Refer to one or more countries as examples.

Overpopulation in the 21st century has become a major problem. According to Tal from The Huffington post, overpopulation remains the leading driver of hunger, desertification, species depletion and a range of social maladies across the planet (The Huffington post, 2013, internet). In addition, overpopulation can relate to an issue such as poverty. The correlation between overpopulation and poverty can be caused by an unequal distribution of sources. This evidence suggests that overpopulation has connection with the social and economical issues, because the existences of more inhabitants causing a higher level of consumption in numerous aspects. However, the basic economic problem is that inhabitants have unlimited necessities but there are limited resources to satisfy these necessities. Nevertheless, It is interesting to note that the number of world population has increased progressively since the late of 19th century, consequently it can be said that there might be further population growth in the future and the world have an obligation to overcome this overpopulation problem. Population reference bureau (PRB) defines increasing population as the total inhabitants enlarge resulting from the interaction of births, deaths, and migration in a population in a given period of time (Population reference bureau, 2013, internet). Peggy Lobb from Inter disciplinary describes sustain as a way to support life; to provide for the life or bodily needs of; to provide the necessities of life (Lobb, 2010, internet). Furthermore, this essay will argue whether the world can accommodate the rising of inhabitants of the world by mainly focusing on three arguments namely, population life cycle, sufficiency of resources, and government regulations.

Firstly, 6.5 percent of the 108 billion populations who were ever born since 50,000 B.C are living today (Daily sundial, 2011, internet). This clearly shows that the cycle of population constantly proceeds since the beginning of time. If the population of India for example, a country with almost 1.3 billion population does not experiencing life cycle, probably there are no extra spaces for the populations in present day. Thousands of populations were ingenerate and deceased at the same time in all over the world, this means that there is regeneration within population, otherwise there will be a population booming if regeneration does not ensue. Furthermore, research has shown that the number of deceased inhabitants in the earlier period outnumber the existing inhabitants (The Huffington post, 2012, internet).

Secondly, the Netherlands government and the members of European union has attempt to ensure  an amount of sufficient water, food, energy, and other natural resources for a world population of nine billion in 2050 (Government of the Netherlands, 2013, internet). This means that there has to be an effort from several techniques to ensure that the world can sustain a rising number of populations in the future. Resources that require to be fulfilled by countries can be various, from daily needs such as foods, shelters, and clothing to a more complicated resources for example mining material and natural sources. Based on inflated industry and company estimates, the remaining proven reserves worldwide amount to 1.255 barrels of oil (Baer, 2009, 140). As a result, it can be said that world population and resources are inversely related; the further amount of population may lead to a scarcity in resources because more populations are using the resources in order to accomplish population necessities. Otherwise there has been a substantial development of alternative resources in order to sustain the world population needs without consuming the natural resources which some of it are non-renewable. It can be inferred that the world may able to sustain the growing of inhabitants by trying to generate a more efficient resources with a sizeable quantity and a superior quality. Besides, the creation of alternative energy can help the world to support the world population needs in the future, it is important to note that resource efficiency is the key to maintain the sufficiency of the resources. Thus, it strongly suggests that an outsized usage of resources in the recent period can lead to a scarcity in the upcoming era and how resource efficiency is one of the most vital techniques to evade insufficient of resources in the future.

Thirdly, at present various ways have been attempted to control overpopulation. For example, China a country with the most inhabitants in the world has implemented ‘one child policy’ or officially called the family planning policy which was first announced in 1979 (Harvard university, 2001, internet). Population policy itself is a deliberately constructed arrangements or program ‘through which governments influence, directly or indirectly, demographic change’ (Poston & Bouvier, 2010, 338). Since world population reaches 6.8 billion in 2009 (Scientific American, 2009, internet) this can be compared to the middle of the nineteenth century when a world population is about 1.2 billion (Wild, 2003, 51). From this it can be seen that the main purpose of china one child policy was to make sure that China may support its large population with facilities such as healthcare, education, housing, decent employment and most importantly, food. The aim was to reduce poverty and to improve overall standard of living for the citizens. Thus, government regulation have an immense impact to control population in order to formulate citizens life improved because when the quantity of population can be organized precisely, the standard of living of the citizens will improved from various aspects. The reason for this may be because when there are plenty of population, the possibility of problems occurs possibly will be greater. Issues such as war, famine, disease, and poverty are unable to solve easily with a large amount of population all over the world. On the other hand, a diminutive amount of population can be controlled in a more uncomplicated method. As a result, this small amount of population may be well-ordered and the likelihood of issues occurs are smaller. However, one possible objection to this view is the idea of this policy will result in an older population in the future are unable to sustain economic growth or fostering the elderly inhabitants because the population number is restricted by the government. Therefore, government should consider amending the recent law. The United Nations further suggests that it is necessary to have long range population projections to attempt the project population growth over the coming three centuries to 2300. (United Nations, 2004, internet)