According to Wikipedia “Overpopulation occurs when a species’ population exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche. It can result from an increase in births (fertility rate), a decline in the mortality rate, an increase in immigration, or an unsustainable biome and depletion of resources.”
Overpopulation is a situation which occurs when the number of occupants of an area exceeds the ability of that area to provide for those occupants.
With respect to this definition, an overpopulated country will have a higher figure of occupants and less resources to take care of the high population.
The current world population is around 7.98 billion people.
Currently, the world population is increasing by more than 90 million percent annually.
The Global sex ratio is 18:10. Which means that we have more men than women.
More than seventy percent of the world population live in twenty most populous countries of the world. There are just 2 countries in the world with a population more than 1 billion people: China and India. About thirty six percent of the World population live just in these two countries. Despite the fact that China is currently the most populous country in the world, India's population grows much faster than other countries. And in 2023 India is expected to become the most populous country in the world.
With the aforementioned points it is obvious that the world is overpopulated.
It can be categorically said that an increase in population will surely reduce the available resources. More population will require more food supply, housing, health care, energy, water, transportation, security and many more. And all this will surely yield degradation of the ecological system, increased conflict, and higher risk of large scale disaster like the pandemic.
The continuous increase in number will cause deforestation, pollution and emissions which will exacerbate climate change. Many scientists also believe that further stress on the Earth will lead to ecological disruption.
Scarcity of food and water which is caused by population growth can cause conflicts between nations. Overpopulation has the capacity to trigger war, political unrest and conflicts.
The population of the world has made it easy for humans to have contact with wide life (where major diseases are traced to). With the current pandemic period that we are in, we have seen how difficult it is to observe social distancing between people of approximately 8 billion.
Other effects are, depletion of natural resources, rise in unemployment, high cost of living, Malnutrition and famine, extinction.
Causes of overpopulation include decline in mortality, lack of family planning, immigration, increase in birth rate.
For every problem there is always one or more solutions to tackle it.
People need to be addressed so that they will be equipped with the knowledge of population effect and probably advice to reduce birth rate.
Unlike the male counterpart, girls are denied quality education and this force them to get marry at early age or engage in premarital sex. This will surely increase the number and affect supply of our basic needs.
To help reduce the population growth, people should be educated on the benefits of family planning and the necessary applications.
I have once heard this from my Biology teacher when I was in secondary School (high school). He said another way of reducing population is by giving room for war or a competitive conflict. It is obvious that there is always a drastic decrease in population in war zones.
Thanks for reading through 😘
The pen keeps dazzling 🖌️
