OVERPOPULATION

Human overpopulation is among the most pressing environmental issues, silently

aggravating the forces behind global warming, environmental pollution, habitat loss,
the sixth mass extinction, intensive farming practices and the consumption of finite
natural resources, such as fresh water, arable land and fossil fuels, at speeds faster
than their rate of regeneration. However, ecological issues are just the beginning for
this matter.
One of the issues is depletion of water. According to UN-Water, 75% of planet Earth
is covered in water. 97.5% of that is ocean and 2.5% is freshwater. 70% of
freshwater is divided into glaciers and ice caps and the remaining 30% into land
surface water, such as rivers, lakes, ponds and groundwater. Most of the freshwater
resources are either unreachable or too polluted, leaving less than 1% of the world's
freshwater, or about 0.003% of all water on Earth, readily accessible for direct
human use. According to the Global Outlook for Water Resources to the Year 2025, it
is estimated that by 2025, more than half of the world population will be facing
water-based vulnerability and human demand for water will account for 70% of all
available freshwater. Furthermore, a report in November 2009 by the 2030 Water
Resources Group suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions in the world,
water demand will exceed supply by 50% and a report jointly produced by more
than two dozen U.N. bodies states that, "By 2030, nearly half of the world's people
will be living in areas of acute water shortage,
Other issue is Depletion of Natural Resources. As the human population continues to
explode, finite natural resources, such as fossil fuels, fresh water, arable land, coral
reefs and frontier forests, continue to plummet, which is placing competitive stress
on the basic life sustaining resources and leading to a diminished quality of life. (see
also) A study by the UNEP Global Environment Outlook, which involves 1,400
scientists and five years worth of work to prepare, found that "Human consumption
had far outstripped available resources. Each person on Earth now requires a third
more land to supply his or her needs than the planet can supply." Furthermore, the
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which is a four-year research effort by 1,360 of
the world's leading scientists commissioned to measure the actual value of natural
resources to humans and the world, concluded that, "The structure of the world's
ecosystems changed more rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century than
at any time in recorded human history, and virtually all of Earth's ecosystems have
now been significantly
Furthermore people tend to have less freedom, more restrictions. As population
densities increase, laws, which serve as a primary social mediator of relations
between people, will more frequently regulate interactions between humans and
develop a need for more rules and restrictions to regulate these interactions. Aldous
Huxley predicted in 1958 that democracy is threatened due to overpopulation and
could give rise to totalitarian style governments and it turns out he was right. Rules

and restrictions can be good ideas, but only because they are necessary in order to
accommodate the growing populations that are encouraging such policies. Without
these policies, the global ecological crisis, and the societal and economic issues that
ensue, would be worse than they are today. Examples of such restrictions would be
putting limits on water consumption, on driving and on what people can do on their
land. Some are good ideas while others may be too invasive,

Besides, animals tend to lost their habitats for housing plans. Human
overpopulation is a major driving force behind the loss of ecosystems, such as
rainforests, coral reefs, wetlands and Arctic ice. Rainforests once covered 14% of
the Earth's land surface, now they cover a bare 6% and experts estimate that the
last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years and certainly by
the end of the century at the current rate of deforestation. Due mainly to warming
temperatures, acidifying oceans and pollution, close to 30% of the oceans reefs
have already vanished since 1980, including half of the reefs in the Caribbean and
90% of the Philippines coral reefs, and scientists forecast that Australias Great
Barrier Reef may be dead by the year 2050 and all coral reefs could be gone by the
end of the century. Furthermore, the area of permanent ice cover is now declining at
a rate of 11.5% per decade, relative to the 1979 to 2000 average. If this trend
continues, summers in the Arctic could become ice-free in as few as 4 years or in
the next 30 years.
On the other hand, we as humans tend to feels the climate due to eco system
change. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, "The largest single threat to
the ecology and biodiversity of the planet in the decades to come will be global
climate disruption due to the buildup of human-generated greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. People around the world are beginning to address the problem by
reducing their carbon footprint through less consumption and better technology. But
unsustainable human population growth can overwhelm those efforts, leading us to
conclude that we not only need smaller footprints, but fewer feet." Every national
academy of science of every major country in the world agrees. Every professional
scientific society in every field related to the field of climate endorses it. 97-98
percent of all scientists that are most active in publishing in the field of climate
science agree with it. The consensus is unequivocal: human activities are causing
climate change. The effects of climate change are profound and far-reaching.
Finally elevated crime rate also increase as overpopulation. As human
overpopulation drives resources and basic necessities, such as food and water, to
become scarcer, there will be increased competitiveness for these resources which
leads to elevated crime rates due to drug cartels and theft by people in order to
survive. As Aisha Tariq of the Pakistan Times states, "It has been observed that the
countries which have balanced population, crime rate is very low in such regions.
When people are not provided with the basic necessities, it elevates crime rate."