The question of over population was one of the topics that was discussed this week during lecture. Overpopulation of the Earth is something that actually shocks me. Who can really fathom what the world would be like when it becomes too far overpopulated to live on? Not me, when I think of overpopulation I think of places like Japan with populations of 127 million people. Canada’s population as of 2010 was somewhere around 34 million people, which is about a quarter of what Japan’s is. Now imagine how many times Japan could fit into Canada...about 26 times (based on Canada’s and Japan’s square kilometres)
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| Image Source: Chris Ling |
I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be with the entire population of Canada in a country as small as Japan, now that I think of it I hate being anywhere that I cannot get away from human contact if I want to. I guess if you want to know what this feels like you could go to West Edmonton Mall on Boxing Day...yikes! Anyways if we continue growing at the rate we are today, such things as overpopulation may begin to occur. We are about to hit the 7 billion people mark this year, and this is crazy considering that 50 years ago we only had a population of 3-4 billion on Earth (Chris Ling, Lecture Notes, 2011). Obviously this trend cannot continue otherwise we are going to end up with major social and economic issues.
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| Image source: http://projectsaviorreborn.blogspot.com/2010/12/not- so-distant-and-not-so-fantastic.html |
The other topic that was discussed was the issue of over consumption. This is another major problem that we are going to face unless something is done soon. The most common example of over consumption I can think of is with oil. We use so much oil to run this planet that I don’t think we are even aware of the amount we use. We may never run out of oil, but eventually it is going to be harder to get our hands on it, such as when they start drilling in the middle of the ocean floor. Even though oil will still be available to us it is going to be much more expensive than it is today, and this is really going to have an impact on the world’s economy. There are numerous other examples of over consumption, just think of all the people who buy things that they don’t really need. Like the people who have iphones and ipods, is it really necessary to have both things when they are pretty much the same. I guess that is something we all need to think about.
The real question is whether we should reduce consumption or population? I personally think that it would be much easier to reduce the population of the world. I have no idea how we could reduce over consumption, because there will always be those individuals that don’t think it applies to them. But in order to decrease population we can do things such as increasing the education of women. This is not going to be an easy task, but if all parts of the world team up and work together this dream could become a reality. Once more women are educated they will begin to consider their futures more and this will over time decrease the birth rates. Also I think that more women should be educated in general, not just for the sake of decreasing population. Oprah Winfrey had the right idea with working to educate girls who have grown up in poverty by funding the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy. These girls will gain an education they would never have normally recieved and this is going to change their lives, and the lives of their future generations. There are also some ways in which over consumption can be decreased and the most well known way would be through the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” plan. If we only buy what we need and we minimize our waste, this will make the world a better place to live on for our future generations.
One of the examples of the relationship between over population and over consumption would be the town of Okotoks, AB. This town only holds a water supply for a capacity of 30000, so this limits the amount that the town can grow. It is hard to imagine what it would be like if the world were like this, where every time a baby was born the water supply for the world decreased and we would get less and less. I guess it is something we all need to consider. I know that I am going to make more of an effort to buy less than I normally do, because in the long run this will save me money as well as make the world a better place.
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| Image Source: http://questgarden.com/46/88/7/070221103118/ |
References:
Ling, C. (2011). Population and Consumption. Lecture proceedings from Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC.
Ling, C. (2011). Scale, Limits, Place, Diversity, Vitality. Lecture proceedings from Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC.
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