The Earth; the world in which ourselves and millions of other species depend on in order to live, but only one species that dominates the Earth; the Human Race. The question on most people’s minds nowadays; Should we be worried about population growth? It’s a common fact that the Earth’s human population is increasing, however, are people’s expectations of man kind’s natural growth right or wrong? The world is changing; we all have to learn to accept it but how will this affect our species now and our species in the future? 

World population is growing at an incredible rate. On average, 2 babies are born per second and, if the human race continues to escalate, then by 2100, it is expected that around 11 billion people will be populating the world. Over the past 50 years, world population has more than doubled to give us the near 7 billion people we have today. However, world population isn’t growing at the same rate around the world. According to the United Nations List, the country with the highest population growth rate is Liberia, which is increasing at 4.5%, places like Finland and Uruguay are increasing at a much slower rate of 0.29% and many countries like Japan are on a very slow population decrease of 0.02% or very fast population decrease, like the Cook Islands with a decrease of 2.23%. Either way, population is increasing and this is simply because more countries are on the increase than decrease so there are more babies being born than there are deaths over the world. 

Population growth causes many problems. It means needing more resources to feed, clothe, shelter etc the people of the world. If we have more people to look after, we will constantly use more land but only 1% of it is available for human use. We need it for arable farming; to feed the human race, housing, work places, shops, roads and all these different things which are essential to the way we live. Eventually, if we continue the way we are, the world will run out of room and what happens after that is simply left unknown.

Nevertheless, population growth may not be a bad thing. With so many babies being born, it is extremely likely that at least one out of the billions to come will discover a way to solve world problems or a child will be born that finds a new form of oil or fuel to power our planet. It needs more human minds. It needs continuous new generations to keep inventing new technology to save and improve the world we know.

The root cause of population growth begins in mainly LEDCs (Less Economic Developed Countries) and it is because of the lifestyle of these countries that the world population is on the increase it is. Lack of contraception- either because it they cannot afford it or because it simply doesn’t exist in these places, trust in the Government that their children will survive and safety of living and of resources are all reasons for population growth. LEDCs tend to become more overpopulated than MEDCs due to lack of awareness from little education, desire for sons, early marriages, their different cultures and infant mortality rates. They do not have the money to educate the people within them about the dangers of increasing population. For example, India, the second largest populated country on the planet, it has this title because it is an LEDC, it has all these factors and the more and more it increases in population, the harder it will be to educate these people and resolve their problems.

Difference in population doesn’t just exist between countries, but also within. For example, the USA has an extremely diverse population. Some parts are extremely overcrowded. There is an average of roughly 650 squared ft per person over the world. In the US, there is often 10 and more people living in this much space, but there are people with 10 and more times that amount of land. The USA isn’t generally a struggling country with population when compared to other places but it is extremely diverse which shows just how much population can differ within a small area of the earth.

How do we solve world population? At first, it might seem like an easy question to answer but think about it. Let’s take China for instance, its population is through the roof, holding up first place for most populated country, however, its position is being acted on. They have a one child policy. This may seem like a bright idea but really, is it right to deprive people of children? Is not unfair to tell your child, they cannot have a little brother or sister to play with as they grow up? People in China often end up killing their child, just so they can have another one that’s the gender they wanted. It is most common that little girls are killed as they are less valued and want sons to continue the family name or look after them when they grow old. So although it may seem simple, can we deprive people of the life and family they really want? 

Growth in one place can have consequences for another. If we invest money into a poor country in order to teach them how to steady the population growth, it means we are taking money from another country, most likely one that is even poorer which will just result in even more children being born. What can we really do to control population? If we could share the money of the world equally per country, we would have no reason to complain as everyone would be given the same share, it would be how they use it that mattered. This could work but it will undoubtedly not happen. The world’s money will not be shared. There are too many people to agree with each other. Some would lose their comforts, others would gain from it and this would result in anger and conflict. One thing is for sure, we need to steer clear of this as it would only make world problems worsen. 

So really, we must let the world continue in its own ways and be taken under life’s wing. Population is too big for one man to control, it is even too big for a country to handle, so we must do our best to help others worse off and do our bit for the environment. We are our own biggest threat. We control the world. But we control it, as a population.

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               As human population is expanding and our way of life becomes scarce and constricted, rules are being implemented to maintain order in our midst. Imagine a door which could accommodate only one person at a time and there’s no other way except through it. If a thousand travelers will not be controlled to pass through this door on a first come first serve basis, there will be a stampede that could lead to injuries and loss of lives. Hence by all cost rules must be obeyed to maintain order and by all means violators must be punished.

              Centuries ago, our civilization was just beginning to flourish and our technology was just shaping up in a slower pace. But despite of it, even the invention of the airplane didn’t owe its fruition to the efforts of the Wright Brothers alone, the fact that there were written accounts that Felix du Temple, a French naval officer actually achieved flying a heavier-than-air man carrying aircraft in 1857 five decades before the Wright Brothers was worth noting. When the helicopter was invented, Igor Sikorsky was credited with the basic design concept but a lot of other inventors established their own designs which equally earned them their name and share of the market. Frank Piasecki, Larry Bell and Franklin Robinson were big names in helicopter manufacturing but each had their own approach to helicopter designs.

             The issue of copyright becomes more complicated nowadays considering our present technology and loads of information available on the internet. Technology indeed made our world smaller and a lot crowded. It’s more like being in a small town where every guy had fallen in love with the same one and only hot chick. I suppose each of us were well aware that when a movie about natural disasters becomes a top grosser, no doubt another similar movie plot will be shown months after. If a song about New York makes a hit, a half dozen of songs dedicated to New York will follow. If another song says “cry me a river” another will sing the familiar line on a different tune. In recent news, Nokia sued Apple for certain mobile phone design features which the former allegedly pioneered but the latter integrated in their models first on the market before the former could use it. I suppose as our civilization and technology speeds up, copyright laws were not modified to keep up with the changes so these issues could be specified and addressed, hence the conflict.

             It was widely acknowledged that we owe our science from nature as nature didn’t complain then the next thing copying happened before our doorstep and we were enraged. Plagiarism in its entirety is a by-product of the big boom in the writing industry. We had been writing so much unlike before where we’re only used to write love letters, fill-up forms like resumes, vote in elections, immigration cards upon arrival at airports, and the like. We’re writing our thoughts and aspirations on a blog that gets published and read by many in the next few hours and that is something . Oftentimes we may be inspired by other’s works and sometimes we just find it hard to accept when we have copied them to remind ourselves and in the end take it as our own (not that I’m aware I did this but sometimes we mean no harm doing it unless it gets published with our names on it). As I could get back to that metaphorical one man door, it would be funny to assume the possibility that each of us that get through it tends to follow the same line of thinking hence the same idea for writing. But think again as we sniff the same air, nibble the same food and watch the same program on TV. Sometimes it’s closer than we think. Unless our writing platform (Triond) gives a serious thought about plagiarism, we could only be open minded about the repercussions of our written words that if indeed they come back to us like a boomerang, we may just have relocated our stand and someone else took our position to be hit in our place. What do you think?   

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In 2000 Germany had a sort of distorted, bulging human population graph which is due to the massive reproduction after World War II. That new large population produced another which is the there are those two bulges. Another reason why it is distorted like that is because of the new modern medicine which stops people from dying at these ages, as well as better hospitals for giving birth.

The first German graph does not differ much from the second one, except there is only one lump instead of two. This is because the massive reproduction era after the was so long ago that most of those people died and now only the second wave remains. There are less young people, probably because people are educated about STDs’ and make more thoughtful decisions.