Overpopulation: A Big Menace

Discussions regarding overpopulation may rapidly devolve into a squabble because they raise the question of who is to blame for the situation and what, if anything, should be done about it.

Indeed, overpopulation is an undesirable situation in which the current population exceeds the Earth’s real carrying capacity. With the world’s population growing at an extraordinary pace, the resources available to deal with this increase are diminishing. It’s become the source of several other societal problems, including unemployment, starvation, and homelessness.

According to a study, the present population of 7.9 billion people would rise to 8.5 billion by the year 2030. Nations in the world’s fastest-growing regions, such as Africa and America, are still facing a scarcity of food and water supplies.

Overpopulation has many causes, all of which are influenced by a number of factors including financial, social, religious, and personal concerns. An imbalance between births and deaths is the fundamental (and arguably most visible) driver of population increase. As per the World Health Organization, the worldwide infant mortality rate has dropped, with 4.1 million newborn deaths in 2017 relative to 8.8 million in 1990. (WHO). Of course, this is good news for public health. Simultaneously, lifespans are growing all across the world. Those of us alive now will most certainly live considerably longer than our forefathers and mothers. Thanks to improvements in medicine, technologies, as well as basic hygiene, global average life expectancy has more than quadrupled since 1900.

The absence of family planning is the second most major cause of overpopulation. Most developing countries have a huge number of illiterate individuals who live in poverty and have little awareness of family planning. Having their children marry at an early age raises the likelihood of their having more children. Such people are unaware of the negative effects of overpopulation, and their lack of value education drives them to shun family planning.

Nowadays, there are various cutting-edge treatments available for fertility. It has come out to be practical for couples who can’t contemplate experiencing richness treatment procedures and having their own children, thanks to current mechanical advancements as well as additional disclosures in therapeutic sciences. Currently, there are effective medications available that can raise the chances of conception and increase the birth rate. Furthermore, thanks to technological technology, today’s pregnancies are unquestionably safer.

“To Overcome Poverty, We Need More Hands”, this is a kind of belief that has led people to give birth to more and more children, eventually giving rise to overpopulation. When considering overpopulation, however, we must remember that there is also a mental component. For many years, only a small percentage of the population had sufficient financial resources to live comfortably. To compensate for the high infant mortality rate, the others faced impoverishment and sought to have big families. Families who have been in need, have been through horrific events, or just require more hands to work are a big contributor to overpopulation. In comparison to prior generations, the majority of these additional offspring now live and absorb natural resources that are scarce.

Furthermore, it is only natural that as the world’s population expands, so will supply needs. The need for shelter, food, water, healthcare, energy, transportation, and other needs increase as the population goes up. All of this consumption adds on to ecological deterioration, increased conflict, and a threat of large-scale calamities like pandemics.

Ecological degradation is a major consequence of overpopulation, as mentioned earlier. Growing population will certainly result in far more deforestation, less biodiversity, as well as increased pollution and emission, all of which will lead to global warming. Many experts suggest that unless we start taking steps to help limit upcoming population increase in the second half of this century, the added stress on earth could lead to catastrophic ecological upheaval and breakdown, perhaps jeopardizing the survival of civilization on Earth, as we know it.

Each and every increase in the world’s population has an influence on the earth’s wellbeing. As per Wynes and Nicholas (2017), in industrialized nations, a family with one less kid may cut emissions by 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent annually.

Scarcity as a result of environmental degradation and overcrowding has the potential to fuel violence and political unrest. Water, housing, and energy supply battles are already happening in the Middle East and other regions of the world, and the turmoil will only worsen as the world’s population grows. To put it another way, overcrowding leads to an increase in conflicts.

Moreover, a chance of catastrophic events as well as epidemics is greatly increased. Many of the recent new diseases that have wreaked havoc on people throughout the world, such as COVID-19, Zika virus or Ebola, began their lives in animals or insects before being transmitted to human beings.

One of the reasons the world is nearing “a moment of heightened epidemic activity” is because humans are losing natural environments and coming into more frequent contact with wildlife. Now that we’re in the midst of a pandemic, it’s clear that maintaining social isolation in a world of over 8 billion people is untenable.

Now the question arises; what can be done? When it comes to managing overpopulation, it’s critical to use an empowering strategy while uniting against anyone promoting the use of compulsion or aggression to solve our issues. The combined efforts of expanding reproductive health information, enhancing women’s autonomy, and refuting commonly held contraceptive misconceptions will have a significant impact on the global population trend.

In addition, China took a major step towards the control of population growth, i.e. ‘the one child policy’. The one-child policy was a Chinese government initiative that was adopted countrywide in 1980 to restrict most Chinese families to having just one baby. The program was implemented to tackle the nation’s rate of population growth, which is something the government deemed to be excessively fast.

Therefore, it can be successfully concluded that changes in reproductive behavior can be influenced by raising awareness regarding family planning options as well as the environmental and economic advantages of having smaller households.

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