Human Population Growth

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Human Population Growth.
Table of contents
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Abstract  PAGEREF _Toc347693752 \h
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Human Population Growth  PAGEREF _Toc347693753 \h
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Causes of the Human Population Growth.  PAGEREF _Toc347693754 \h
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Negative Consequences Resulting from Increase in Human Population  PAGEREF _Toc347693755 \h
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Human population growth rate in developing world.  PAGEREF _Toc347693756 \h
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Stabilizing human population in the developing countries  PAGEREF _Toc347693757 \h
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Determinants of high fertility rates in the developing world  PAGEREF _Toc347693758 \h
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Works cited  PAGEREF _Toc347693764 \h
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Abstract
The world is experiencing an unprecedented rapid change in its demographic. The most obvious and most consequential is the mammoth expansion of population with an addition of more than four billion people since 1950 (United Nations.). These different changing dynamics are affecting our source of sustenance, which is mainly the environment in ways such as depletion or eradication (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). Scientists project the rise of an exceedingly divergent world in the coming years with potential decline or stagnation in some of the developed nations while they also project a continued and rapid growth in the less developed nations. The paper addresses in detail some of the factors that are leading to an unprecedented increase in population growth and their causes in relation to the environment. Some extraordinary trends are clear for all such as women’s fertility rapidly dropping and the life expectancy across all ranks is continuously rising to new highs.This increase in population is exerting a lot of pressure on the environment (Birdsall, Kelley and Sinding). The world is facing many global environmental challenges and the rapid rise in population growth is one of the vital components that can assist in understanding this detrimental phenomenon (Chi). This piece examines various population dynamics and their linkage with different environmental representatives including freshwater resources, forests and climate change. It also seeks out to address explorations of how different scientists and researchers are seeking to comprehend the relationship between different population dynamics (population size, density, migration, growth, age sex) and environmental changes (Walker, et al). A crucial emphasis is on how people can wisely manage the different and changing dynamics in a bid to concentrate and reinforce their efforts in addressing the arising environmental challenges
Human Population Growth
Population refers to a group of individuals that are of the same type in a meticulous geographic zone. Therefore, human population is the entire number of people inhabiting an area such as the world. On the other hand, Human population growth refers to as the continual change in the human species. Human population has two major components namely; natural population change and the net migration. A positive change in population would mean that after the deduction of the deaths from the sum of the live births and net migration is positive. This is what refers to as the population growth. On the other hand, when we have a negative outcome, the deaths exceed the live births and net migration; it refers to as the population decrease. Factors such as limited food supply, diseases, and other environmental factors keep limiting the size of human population. Furthermore, human populations round the world are under influence of social customs that govern the reproduction and the developments technologically in medicine. These technological changes contribute into reducing the mortality rate and promoting the human life span. Globally, there has is an evidence of a general increase in human population. These changes over the years have indicated an increase in the human race. Over the past two thousand years, human population has continuously been increasing (Keyfitz, 10). For example, two thousand years ago the inhabitants of the earth were approximately three hundred million. However, today the human population is over eight billion.
It is important to study the human population in order to manage the human population and the resources well. The management of the human population and the resources would ensure that there is enough for everyone living in the current generation and in the future. This is because the increase in human population would mean exploitation of the resources. Later in life, the resources will not be available for human race. This will lead to loss of lives and decrease in population. If the resources become scarce, the lives of the human race will deteriorate leading to people to live in poverty (Keyfitz, Nathan & Flieger). Therefore, to avoid this, it is critical to study the human population and the changes that have occurred since the early years of the past millennium. There have been various changes in the human population leading to increase and over population of the human population.
The global change in human population growth rate takes different shapes in various regions. However, at the end of the day, they contribute to the net human population in the planet. For example, people living in China have different social, cultural and economic activities. These different activities and backgrounds are vital in human population. People of a given culture may involve in activities that promote the increase in human population. For instance, in china the population is high. On the other hand, some other countries have low populations.
The world has been experiencing continuous growth from the time of the great famine in the year 1350 as well as the Black Death. At this time, human population was approximately three hundred and seventy million. Statistics indicate that for a long period the highest rate was 1.8 percent in the nineteen fifties and seventies. However, in the year 1963 the rate peaked up to 2.2%. This rate however declined by the year 2011. The late part of the 1980s experienced highest rates in the total annual births (Keyfitz, Nathan & Flieger 26). They were approximately one hundred and thirty eight million. This rate might remain constant at the rate registered in the year 2011 of about one hundred and thirty four million. On the other hand, the death rate remains at fifty six million although they may rise up to eighty million per year by the year 2040.
From about eleventh millennium BC, the world population stabilized with around one million people. Their subsistence involved foraging and hunting. However, prior this era the human population experienced a drop as a result of the volcano eruption at Toba. This happened at around seventy thousand BC. At around eleventh millennium, human population probably never exceeded fifteen million people. This was before human introduced the agriculture. This was also a major reason for the low human population. However, in contrary to this, in the Roman Empire including both western and eastern parts, there were approximately sixty million people by the fourth century AD. After the Black Death pandemic that took –place in the 14th century, human population raised again to about four hundred and fifty million (Keyfitz, Nathan, & Flieger).
Other countries such as China experienced major declines in the 1368 after the Mongols invaded her and the following of the plague (Lutz, 78). However, by the year sixteen forty four, the Chinese population increased from sixty million to around one hundred and fifty thousand million. Elsewhere, England increased from 2.5 million to about 5.6 million by 1650 (Oksanen, 60). Moreover, Spanish colonizers brought with them crops from the American land to Europe and Asia. This greatly influenced the population growth rate in these regions. Similarly, the Portuguese traders introduced foods such as the cassava and maize among other American food crops to most of the African regions hence leading to increased population growth rates.
The American population has been rapidly increasing ever since the 1500. During this period, the American population was approximately one hundred million people. There have been various epidemics that have affected human race and population negatively. However, this has not hindered the rapid growth in human population. With the modern technologies and developments such as industrial revolutions, human population has experienced tremendous increase. The population reached the approximate of one billion in early 1800s. After another period of one hundred and twenty three years, the global human population reached two billion people, and thirty-three years later, it increased to three billion people. This increase in human population has been gradual until it came to approximation that the total global population is seven billion people. This was according to the census done around the world by various bodies recently and the report released by the year 2012.
With the new inventions in various fields such as medicine, agriculture and industrial sector, the human population in various regions of the world increased rapidly. For example, in the United Kingdom, the human population increased at a rate of doubling the growth rate in every fifty years. The other incidence in the human population is in England where in the year 1801, the population was approximately eight million and by the year 1901, the population was about thirty million people (Stanton).
Causes of the Human Population Growth.
There is sufficient evidence that the human population have been continually increasing over the years. In about two thousand years ago, the world population was approximately three hundred million people; this is the approximate of the American population today. In the past two hundred years, the human population living on earth was approximately one billion humans and today the human population is approximately over seven billion people in the world. Moreover, there are speculations that the population is likely to increase with about one billion people in every fourteen years. This increase is because of some contributing factors.
Since the population changes in the human population is positive, it indicates that most of the factors have played a major role on promotion of human population. There have been negative factors such as diseases, civil wars, catastrophes, and plagues among others, that contributed to decline in the human population for the past two thousand years. However, other factors such as invention of agriculture, industrial revolutions, and improvement in the medicine field, have played a major role in promoting the growth of the human population over the years. The speculations indicate that the human population is going to continue growing in the years to come (Stanton). For example, the united nations speculate that in the year 2050 the human population will have reached over ten billion people around the world. This is despite the fact that some countries have come up with policies to control human population in order to avoid exploitation of resources. For example, in China there is the one child policy.
In order for the human population to remain constant, the world would need a Total Fertility Rate of about 2.1 percent. This would mean the number of children a woman should bear in her lifetime. However, this rate is likely to increase may be up to 2.9 percent in the next a couple of years. This is because, the newly born children upon attaining maturity they will start reproducing. This will eventually lead to increase in the human population in the world. This is to continue in the life of humans in the face of the earth. Various factors affect the human population. Some of these factors lead to decline in the population such as disease outbreak, natural catastrophes, civil wars and population control policies among others. However, there are others factors that promote the increase of the human population such as food supply, improved medical care, improved lifestyle, and innovations in various sectors. Therefore, in this part we examine the factors that contributed to the increase in the human population for the past two thousand years.
The human population at the early years of the millennium was very low. However, over the time, this population has increased rapidly and this change is because of such factors as the agricultural revolution. In the early years, the human population was small and they depended on hunting and gathering as their economic activities. Over millions of evolution, the human mental and physical abilities developed as hunters and gatherers. People lived in ecosystems containing various kinds of animals and plants (flora and fauna). Only some of the plants and animals were fit for the consumption of humans as food. Humans were able to seize just a small fraction of the total ecosystem’s biological production for their food using their hunting and gathering technology (Uhl, 163). In those early stages of human developments, the human population was no larger than other animal populations in the ecosystem and their carrying capacity was no different. Approximately, humans consumed the ecosystems’ biological production of around 0.1 percent. However, after the agricultural revolution, things changed.
The revolution enabled humans to make their own ecosystems to generate their food. In its simplest form, agriculture took place in Middle East about twelve thousand years ago. In order to make gathering easier and faster, humans encouraged the wild plants to grow around their homes. With time, they domesticated some wild plants with the characters they would desire such as larger edible parts and easier to process among others. In addition, they domesticated some wild animals that provided them with meat or other products such as skin and milk. This led to increased percentage of the ecosystems’ production used by humans. It further increased the human carrying capacity.
The agricultural revolution originated from the Middle East. This is because the region is rich in plants and animal species that are suitable for human consumption. In all the plant and animal species, only a few hundreds of these are suitable for consumption by human. About five thousand years ago, almost all of these species were under domestication (OECD, 54). People took domesticated animals and plants to other parts of the world from the Middle East. In a period of several thousand years, the art of agriculture spread to other parts of the world such as Europe, Asia, America, china and Africa. The development in agriculture led to increase in human population in the areas where agriculture was in practice. There were different improvements in food production in various parts of the world in different times. Therefore, the human carrying capacity continued to increase in various places gradually. Therefore, significant changes in the food production in one particular region increased human carrying capacity rapidly thus increasing the human carrying capacity over few centuries. When there was no growth in human population, people felt that there was stress in food supply. The population pressure pushed people into working extra hard to improve on the agricultural technology that in turn would boost the population. Therefore, there was increased carrying capacity of humans that promoted the human population.
After the agricultural revolution, the human population increased gradually for the past ten thousand years. India and china experienced the greatest population growths because of their agricultural rich valleys. In the 14th century, Europe and Asia experienced a natural plague, the Black Death, which resulted into population decline. However, in the following century the population picked rapidly. Because there was enough food, people were healthy. This is to say that they overcame the minor deficiencies. Further, they were able to live for longer increasing their productivity span. The fertility rate went up. This therefore contributed to increase in the human population in the past two thousand years. The population further increased with the introduction of the industrial revolution.
The other major contributor to the human population growth is the industrial revolution. The impact of the industrial revolution was great in the agriculture. Most of the highly productive crops such as maize beans, and potatoes among others, quickly spread into other parts of the world. The world colonial masters carried these crops into regions they colonized. Prior to this most of these crops were restricted into the regions of their origin. Therefore, farmers had a wide menu of productive crops from which to choose. Industrial revolution introduced the use of machines in the farming. This made it possible for farmers to cultivate large tracts of land compared to the pre industrial revolution. The mechanization enabled farmers to structure their ecosystems in a better way than they had done using the human and animal power. Further, this era was in the accompaniment of the scientific revolution and the new technologies in the agricultural sector. The introductions of new technologies made the agricultural production process faster. The carrying capacity increased, as people were able to seize more of the ecosystems for their food productions. The industrial revolution has led to increase in the carrying capacity continuously. This has resulted into the exponential growth in their human population for the past two hundred and fifty years.
Before the industrial revolution, the birth rates used to be high. The large families participated in reducing the labor demands in the farms. Therefore, most people would not control the population. It was to their advantage. Children’s survival was important in that they would support their parents in their old age. Improvement in the public health brought about by the scientific developments reduced the human death rates among the industrializing regions. The population growth continued to increase because the birth rates were still high as the death rates were under control (Stanton, 62). As time went by the importance of the large families diminished. This was because of the urbanization and the better children survival. The development of the industrial age meant increase in population. This is because less people lost their lives in the farming activities. Furthermore, the scientific revolution improved the way of life for the humans in the early years. As the industrialized nations today may experience constant population growth, there tends to be increase in immigrants from other countries especially the developing world where population growth is quite high. However, the developing countries started experiencing rapid growth in population in the early twentieth century. This was because of the modern public health that reduced the death rates as the birth rates continued increasing. It is evidence that even if the birth rates in the developing countries remained constant, there would be continued increase in human population for the next couple of years. In the developing countries, there are large percentages of the young people despite the fact that there are small families. This would mean that birth rates from the reproductive age exceed the death rates of the elderly people in the human population.
The green revolution is the other contributor to the increase in the human population. In the past forty years, the human carrying capacity has been increasing. This technology used the plant breeding in order to come up with high yielding crop varieties. The cross breeding was common in crops such as wheat, rice and corn among others. This was in efforts to increase the food production to sustain the increasing human population. This was achievable if there were ideal conditions for the crops and the new varieties. The ideal conditions for the growing of the new high breeds are such as fertilizers, abundance of water, and use of pesticides in order to minimize the attack of the plants by pesticides. Irrigation schemes expanded in large scales especially in the arid and semi arid areas. Some of the new breeds could yield in a short time. This is in order to help the farmers fix more crops within a year. The more food produced the more work force demanded. In the modern developed countries, farmers use the new technology machines to do their farming activities. On the other hand, the developing countries depend on human and animal power in order to produce enough food from the small tracts of land.
Most of the increase in the food production is because of the expansion of the agricultural use of land inappropriate for long-term usage or the use of the underground irrigation water that disappear soon. Other factors such as the high cost of the production in the green revolution are limiting the new technology that is capable of feeding large numbers of people. However, the green inventions played a major role in the growth of the human population. The green revolution helped in capturing a large portion of the biological production. Human cannot control the biological production of an ecosystem because it depends on the climate of the region and the sun intensity of the area. There is no one who can precisely say how many humans the earth can freely support sustainably. However, there must be a limit to that and of late, the human population seems to approach the limit.
The other important aspect that played role in the increase of the human population is the improvement in the health or the medicine sector. Over the ages, human race has suffered many diseases that limited the human population growth. These diseases kept the birth rates low and promoted the death rates (McKinney, 26). However, with the rise of the industrial revolution that came hand in hand with scientific revolution. The latter revolution brought about inevitable changes in the medicine industry. There were introduction of new vaccines and medicines to fight against the common human diseases. This was in pursuit of reducing death rates. In return, it promoted the birth rates since mothers would deliver safely and give birth to healthy children. This boosted the human population in the past two thousand years.
This worked in order to improve on the mortality. Mortality would also refer to as the death rates. This would determine the trend of the human population growth. Over the years, the death rate has been declining. This would go as far as the industrial revolution age. This era brought with it a number of advantages that played a significant role in the growth and development of human population. The scientific era of development introduced a new way of living standards. This led to improved lifestyles (Starr, 465). People understood the importance of hygiene. These improvements reduced the chances of people contracting diseases from their environments during their daily activities. Personal hygiene and ways of sanitation preceded the impact of modern medicine and particularly the antibiotics development. These antibiotics prevented and reduced the infection and death. Because of such factors in the medicine field, the death rate has a declining trend in most of the countries. However, there are some countries where the death rate is still high an example of such a country is Russia. The demographic transition would refer to the combination of the decreased death rates, progressive sanitation and the development of medicine. More so, it goes hand in hand with the decreased birthrates in the developed countries.
Total fertility rate is another contributor to the increased human population. This would refer to as the total number of children that a woman should bear in her lifetime. From the UN’s statistics, it is evident that the more developed countries have a stable population while on the other hand; the developing regions have increasing populations. For example, in most of the developing countries, the total fertility rate is above 2 percent such as Kenya with a rate of 4.4 percent and in the most of the developed countries have a TFR of below one percent. This is indication that there is a high link between the level of development and the human population growth. Human aspirations and the economics largely control the fertility rate. The high fertility rate in the developing regions is because of the high demand for human labor in the farms. This is to play the role of the modern technological tools used by the developing nations. In such countries, the families with many children achieve enhanced economic status. However, as the region experiences technological changes people realize that large numbers of children reduces their living standards rather than improving them (Rastogi, 79). For example, in Thailand the total fertility rate was six, however, on realizing that the large number goes hand in hand with the expensive high school education in Thailand, the rate dropped to two within a decade. Fertility rate is important to long-term population growth. A total fertility rate of about two is necessary in order to have a stable population in the world. However, even with such a low TFR, there is the tendency of population increasing. This is because as the newly born children attain maturity they will start reproducing. This is to say that as long as the birth rate is high the population will keep on increasing year after year. Most of today’s innovations are in efforts to reduce the death rates meaning that the number of people dying is low when compared to the number of people being born.
Therefore, human population is the total number of individuals living in a particular region and will continue to increase year after year. No matter the catastrophes striking the human race such as drought, floods, disease outbreaks and wars among others, the population growth will remain to unsolved mystery of all times (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 29). Over the past two thousand years, the human population has been experiencing changes. Some of these changes are negative while others are positive to the human population growth. The human population grew from mere millions in the early years of the past millennium to billions in the last few years. Several factors have led to these changes in the human population. Industrial revolution greatly influenced the human population growth over the years. Changes took place in the agricultural sector increasing the farm outputs. These increased food production boosted the human health in that it reduced the death rates as it prolonged the life span of people. The scientific revolution accompanied the industrial revolution. There was the invention of vaccine and medicines that improved the health and the lives of people. Therefore, the people would survive most of the traditional diseases. Prior the industrial and the scientific revolutions of the early life of humans, was the agricultural revolution. It started in Middle East and spread through out the world. The revolution led to increased food production. To cope with the labor demand in the farms, people ended up having large families. Other factors were such as the total fertility rates, improvements in the medicine field and the personal hygiene and sanitation. Though it is hard to have the world human population remain at a stagnant rate, there has been various policies in different regions regulating the human population for example, in china, there is the one child policy. These measures are important in that they protect the resources necessary for human survival.
The figure below indicates the world population over the years in billions.


Negative Consequences Resulting from Increase in Human Population
There are various negative consequences that have resulted from the increase in human population. These consequences vary from one demographic area to another. There are many influencing factors that contribute to the rapid growth of human population. Populations change as a result of three determining factors that include birth rate, death rate and growth rate. Birth rate refers to the rate at which children are born into the world. High birth rates in any given area is determined by the geographical region`s economic and social factors (Ahlburg). On the other hand, death rate is the speed at which people die and thus reduce the population. This may be infant mortality or death of adults that is caused by factors like diseases and epidemics, war, or famine. Health conditions may also influence the death rate in a given population where people may lose their lives from a certain health condition or poor health standards of living. Growth rate is the increase of a country`s po...