A: List the major ideas, concepts or key points- point by point
This article talks about the demographics and population peaks throughout the 1960's to present, and the predictions until 2050. Changes in population escape the notice of the public, but catches the attention of the politics. Populations in poorer countries are estimated to have a higher population growth rate than in rich countries like the United States. The reasoning behind this is because the birth rates are high. Population is also estimated to rapidly increase by 74 to 76 million per year. With this rapid increase spurs questions about carrying capacity. The worries of carrying capacity dates back to the Babylonians.Prelim assessment concluded that humanity used 70 percent of global bioshpere's capacity in 1961 and 120 percent in 1999.By 1999, people were exploiting the environment faster than it could regenerate itself. No one knows the exact number this earth can hold, but with this knowledge we could make tomorrow a better day.
C: Write a reaction paragraph to the article stating your own thoughts on the topic, using specific citations from the article to support your views
This article was very interesting from the start. I like that the article starts off talking about the human population, rapid growth and then eventually tying it in with the environment. I think it is true that the Earth has a carrying capacity. I think it could be really low if we are overusing the biosphere's resources. I think that the carrying capacity can be real high if we know how to sustain our resources and know how to use them wisely. I think it is true that with this knowledge, we can improve our lifestyles and the way we use our resources to increase carrying capacity.So what?
Rapid population growth spurs the question of how much population the Earth can holdSays who?
Joel E. CohenWhat if...?
The carrying capacity of the earth was found? Birth rates could decrease but also increaseWhat does this remind me of?
A cup while pouring water in it. Too much water will overflow the cup.
- Before 2000, young people outnumbered old people. From 2000 onward, old people will outnumber young people.
- Until 2007 rural people outnumbered urban people. After 207, urban people will outnumber rural people.
- From 2003 on, the median woman worldwide will have too few or just enough children during her lifetime to replace herself and the father the following generation.
- No person who died before 1930 lived through a doubling of human population, nor is any person born in 2050 or later likely to live through a doubling.
- Everyone 45 or older has seen more than a doubling of human numbers from 3 billion to 6.5 billion from 1960 to 2005.
- Peak population growth rate reached 2.1% a year, occurred between 1965 and 1970.
- Population never grew with such speed before 20th century and is never again likely to grow with such speed.
- Descendants will look back on to late 1960s as most significant demographic event in history.
- Dramatic fall since 1970 of global population growth rate to 1.1 or 1.2% a year today resulted primarily from choices by billions of couples around the world.
- Growth rates have risen and fallen numerous times.
- The next half a century will see an enormous shift in the demographic balance between more developed and less developed regions. By 2050 the ration between less developed populations vs. more is 6 to 1.
- Changes in composition and dynamics escape public notice.
- Shifts attract political attention.
- Social Security reforms in the U.S fail to recognize the fundamental population aging.
- The article will focus on four major trends expected to dominate changes in human population.
- Current levels of growth are still greater than any experienced prior to WWII
- First absolute increase in population by one billion took from beginning of time until 19th century.
- By 2050, the world's population is projected to reach 9.1 billion plus or minus 2 billion people, depending on birth and death rates.
- Anticipated increase (2.6 billion) exceeds total population of world in 1950 which was 2.5 billion.
- Rapid population growth hasn't ended. Human numbers increase by 74 million to 76 million annually= adding another U.S every 4 years.
- Most increases aren't occurring in countries with the wealth of the U.S.
- Between 2005 and 2050, population will triple in the poorest countries on Earth.
- All population growth in the next 45 years is expected to happen in today's economically less developed regions.
- Poor countries population grows faster because of the higher birth rate.
- Poor-2.9 children, rich-1.6 children
- Half the global increase is from nine nations, U.S and China being 2 of them.
- In contrast, 51 countries will lose population between now and 2050.
- Slowing population growth means that the 20th century was probably the last in human history which young people outnumbered older ones.
- Children aged 4 years and younger peaked in 1955 at 14.5% and declined to 9.5% in 2005. Older increased from 8.1 percent to 10.4 percent from 1960 to 2005.
- Crossover in proportions of young and old reflects both improved survival and reduced fertility. Average life span grew from 30 years at beginning of 20th century to more than 65 years at beginning of 21st century.
- If trends continue as projected in 2050, all of the world's population growth will be in urban areas. Poor countries will have to build equivalent of a city of more than one million people each week for next 45 years.
- Demographic projections to 2050 are vulnerable to unpredictable changes in institutions and technology and to shifts in the dominance of regions and economic sectors.
- The planet can provide room and food at least at a subsistence level for 50% more people than are alive now.
- Question is whether 2050's billions of people can live with freedom of choice and material prosperity, however freedom and prosperity may be defined by those alive in 2050.
- Whether their children and their children's offspring will be able to continue to live with freedom and prosperity.
- Worry is as old as recorded history, Babylonians, Thomas Malthus in 1798, Donella Meadows in 1972.
- Early efforts to calculate Earth's human carrying capacity assumed that a necessary condition for a sustainable human society could be measured in units of land. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek estimated in 1679 that the inhabited area of Earth was 13,385 times larger than Holland.
- He wrote "the inhabited earth...yields...13,385,000,000 human beings on earth."
- In 2002, Mathis Wackernagel and his colleagues sought to quantify amount of land humans used to supply resources and to absorb wastes.
- Prelim assessment concluded that humanity used 70 percent of global bioshpere's capacity in 1961 and 120 percent in 1999.
- By 1999, people were exploiting the environment faster than it could regenerate itself.
- Approach has many problems. Wackernagel and colleagues calculated the area of forests that would be needed to absorb CO2 produced in generating the energy. Approach fails because energy generation technologies that do not emit CO2.
- Quantities that have been proposed as ceilings on human carry capacity include water, energy, food and various chemical elements required for food production.
- Attempts to quantify Earth's human carrying capacity or a sustainable human population size face the challenge of understanding the constraints imposed by nature,Choices faced by people and the interactions between them.
- Constraints imposed by nature are dealt with elsewhere.
- Most published estimates of Earth's human carrying capacity uncritically assumed answers to one or more of the questions like What level of risk are people willing to live with?
- Estimates ranged from less than one billion to more than 1,000 billion.
- Estimates are political numbers, used to persuade people that too many people are on Earth or there is no problem with continuing rapid population growth.
- Scientific numbers intended to describe reality. No estimates of carrying capacity have explicitly addressed the questions raised above, taking into account the diversity of views about their answers.
- Major cities were est. in regions of exceptional agricultural productivity. If the urban population doubles in the next half a century from 3 billion to 6 billion, while the world's rural population remains roughly constant at three billion, and if many cities expand in area rather than in density, agricultural lands could be removed.
- Most densely settled half of the planet's population lives on 2 to 3 percent of all ice-free land. If cities double in area as well as population by 2050, urban areas could grow to occupy 6 percent of land.
- Each rural person on average will have to shift from feeding him or herself and one city dweller today to feeding herself and two urbanites in less than half a century
- If intensity of rural agricultural production increases, demand for food, along with tech supplied by growing cities to the rural regions may lift the agrarian population from poverty.No one knows the path to sustainability because no one knows the destination, if there is one. But we do know much that we could do today to make tomorrow better than it would be if we do not put our knowledge to work.
This article talks about the demographics and population peaks throughout the 1960's to present, and the predictions until 2050. Changes in population escape the notice of the public, but catches the attention of the politics. Populations in poorer countries are estimated to have a higher population growth rate than in rich countries like the United States. The reasoning behind this is because the birth rates are high. Population is also estimated to rapidly increase by 74 to 76 million per year. With this rapid increase spurs questions about carrying capacity. The worries of carrying capacity dates back to the Babylonians.Prelim assessment concluded that humanity used 70 percent of global bioshpere's capacity in 1961 and 120 percent in 1999.By 1999, people were exploiting the environment faster than it could regenerate itself. No one knows the exact number this earth can hold, but with this knowledge we could make tomorrow a better day.
C: Write a reaction paragraph to the article stating your own thoughts on the topic, using specific citations from the article to support your views
This article was very interesting from the start. I like that the article starts off talking about the human population, rapid growth and then eventually tying it in with the environment. I think it is true that the Earth has a carrying capacity. I think it could be really low if we are overusing the biosphere's resources. I think that the carrying capacity can be real high if we know how to sustain our resources and know how to use them wisely. I think it is true that with this knowledge, we can improve our lifestyles and the way we use our resources to increase carrying capacity.So what?
Rapid population growth spurs the question of how much population the Earth can holdSays who?
Joel E. CohenWhat if...?
The carrying capacity of the earth was found? Birth rates could decrease but also increaseWhat does this remind me of?
A cup while pouring water in it. Too much water will overflow the cup.