OVERPOPULATION

OVERPOPULATION

Overpopulation is a generally undesirable condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth,  or smaller geographical areas such as countries. Overpopulation can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates, an increase in immigration, or an unsustainable ecosystem and depletion of resources. It is possible for very sparsely populated areas to be overpopulated if the area has a meager or non-existent capability to sustain life. The population has been growing continuously since the end of the Black Death, around the year 1400,  although the most significant increase has been in the last 50 years, mainly due to medical advancements and increases in agricultural productivity. Although the rate of population growth has been declining since the 1980s, the United Nations has expressed concern on continued excessive population growth in sub-Saharan Africa . As of January 28, 2012 the world human population is estimated to be 6.991 billion by the United States Census Bureau,  and over 7 billion by the United Nations. Most estimates for the carrying capacity of the Earth are between 4 billion and 16 billion. Depending on which estimate is used, human overpopulation may or may not have already occurred. Nevertheless, the rapid recent increase in human population is causing some concern. The population is expected to reach between 8 and 10.5 billion between the year 2040 and 2050 .

In other parts of the globe, China's population at the founding of the Ming dynasty in 1368 stood close to 60 million, approaching 150 million by the end of the dynasty in 1644.  The population of the Americas in 1500 may have been between 50 and 100 million. Some people are concerned that the recent sharp population rises in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia is creating problems such as increased demand for resources, especially for the less fortunate countries. The population of Chad has, for example, ultimately grown from 6,279,921 in 1993 to 10,329,208 in 2009 .Vietnam, Mexico, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia and the DRC are witnessing a similar growth in population. The situation is most acute in northern, western and central Africa. Refugees from places like Sudan have further strained the resources of neighbouring states like Chad and Egypt. Actually, there are some factors affecting the population. Those factors is most detected in causing the over population. First and foremost is the natality  defined as the rate at which new individuals are formed. This may occur due to reproduction, hatching or germination. The biotic potential is defined as the ability to achieve the maximum birth rate at ideal conditions. It is also known as potential natality. The realized natality means the actual number of births which take place under the existing conditions. Their numbers are less than the number which exists in ideal conditions. However, each of the children is the most great thing be given by Allah, so we should take care of them and do not kill them in order control overpopulation.

Second is mortality  defined as a rate at which the individuals in the population die. It mostly occurs in egg, larval and seed stages. The division of natality by mortality leads to the vital index. It is in the percentage and denotes the normal growth rate of population. Third is the emigration  defined as the movement of individuals out of population. It is permanent. They settle somewhere else. It decreases the size of population but it leads to the diversity of population.Next is the immigration  is defined as the movement of individuals in the population. It is permanent and increase the size of population and it does not lead to the diversity of population. In addition to the fertility rate, the immigration rate is the other major contributing factor to population size. If enough people immigrate to other countries, even a country with a high fertility rate can still maintain a relatively constant population. On the other hand, a country with a very low fertility rate can still have a growing population by allowing a lot of immigration from other countries.  Even at the top of the food chain, we generally only eat from a limited variety of the world’s plants and animals. Therefore, in order to maximize our food supply, we have taken over large amounts of land so that we could dedicate that land to producing just our food. We have also made great strides in maximizing the yields for our food and in keeping most other plants and animals off this land and away from our food. Although our actions have allowed our population to increase dramatically, they have severely restricted the populations of most other plants and animals. In addition, our actions have caused and are continuing to cause the extinction of many plant and animal species. 

Today, we may have reached the limits of what we can do to support a larger population. Earlier gains against disease are being erased by heartier bugs whose spread is being aided by our overcrowding and global travel. Pollution, poor diets, lack of exercise, and our own technology are killing more and more people. Overcrowding and the shifting of our populations into fringe areas are making more people vulnerable to natural disasters. We are also stretching our supply of renewable resources and depleting our non-renewable mineral deposits and energy reserves . We are also depleting and losing some of the sources of food that we still get from nature as opposed to what we grown or raised ourselves. This is especially true for seafood. As we have depleted the supply of one food, we have often simply turned to another food supply. If we had competition for our new food supply, we reduced or eliminate it. Then, as we depleted each new food supply, we turned to yet another food supply. Of course, each new food supply was less desirable than the last. Eventually, if things continue as they have, we will have eliminated all other competition and become more dependent on less desirable foods. Then, our only competition may be from other humans. But the modern world now has been introduced genetically modified food, which can assist overpopulation problems associated with lack of food.Modification on crops have been commercialized and most provide protection from insects and resistance to herbicides and increase the nutritional value of the crops. This is beneficial as it can greatly increase the production of food sources with the usage of fewer resources that would be required to host the world's growing populations. These modified crops would also reduce the usage of chemicals decrease the severity and frequency of the damages produced by these chemical pollution. Ethical and safety concerns have been raised around the use of genetically modified food.  A major safety concern relates to the human health implications of eating genetically modified food, in particular whether toxic or allergic reactions could occur. 

The World Resources Institute  states that agricultural conversion to croplands and managed pastures has affected some 3.3 billion hectares of the land area. All totaled, agriculture has displaced one-third of temperate and tropical forests and one-quarter of natural grasslands. Forty percent of the land area is under conversion and fragmented; less than one quarter, primarily in the Arctic and the deserts, remains intact. Usable land may become less useful through salinization, deforestation, desertification, erosion, and urban sprawl. Global warming may cause flooding of many of the most productive agricultural areas. The development of energy sources may also require large areas, for example, the building of hydroelectric dams. Thus, available useful land may become a limiting factor. By most estimates, at least half of cultivable land is already being farmed, and there are concerns that the remaining reserves are greatly overestimated. High crop yield vegetables like potatoes and lettuce useless space on inedible plant parts, like stalks, husks, vines, and inedible leaves. New varieties of selectively bred and hybrid plants have larger edible parts (fruit, vegetable, grain) and smaller inedible parts, however, many of these gain of agricultural technology are now historic, and new advances are more difficult to achieve. With new technologies, it is possible to grow crops on some marginal land under certain conditions. Aquaculture could theoretically increase available area. Hydroponics and food from bacteria and fungi, like quorn, may allow the growing of food without having to consider land quality, climate, or even available sunlight, although such a process may be very energy-intensive. Some argue that not all arable land will remain productive if used for agriculture because some marginal land can only be made to produce food by unsustainable practices like slash-and-burn agriculture. Even with the modern techniques of agriculture, the sustainability of production is in question.

Some countries, such as the United Arab Emirates and particularly the Emirate of Dubai have constructed large artificial islands, or have created large dam and dike systems, like the Netherlands, which reclaim land from the sea to increase their total land area. Some scientists have said that in the future, densely populated cities will use vertical farming to grow food inside skyscrapers. The notion that space is limited has been decried by skeptics, who point out that the Earth's population of roughly 6.8 billion people could comfortably inhabit an area comparable in size to the state of Texas, in the United States (about 269,000 square miles or 696,707 square kilometres).  However, the impact of humanity extends over a far greater area than that required simply for habitation. Population optimists have been criticized for failing to take into account the depletion of the petroleum required for the production of fertilizers and fuel for transportation, as well as other fossil fuels. In his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, Al Gore wrote, ". it ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five-year period..." . Approximately half of the oil produced in the United States is refined into gasoline for use in internal combustion engines. Optimists counter that fossil fuels will be sufficient until the development and implementation of suitable replacement technologies such as hydrogen or other sources of renewable energy occurs.  Methods of manufacturing fertilizers from garbage, sewage, and agricultural waste by using thermal depolymerization have been discovered.

The bottom line is that the actions we have taken that allowed our population to increase have greatly reduced the diversity and amount of biomass in the world, of which we already consume more than 40%. If our population continues increasing, the day may come when we have destroyed almost every living thing except for those we need for our use and those that can live off our waste. Pollution is an environmental problem whose magnitude is increased by overpopulation. As more people drive more cars, use more electricity, throw away more trash, and cut down more trees, the environmental problems we experience are greatly increased. The earth could easily sustain a small population of highly polluting people. But as more people such as ourselves pollute, massive problems occur. Pollution is magnified in developing nations. As those nations with larger growing populations become richer, their pollution increases with their wealth. Developing nations often promote industries that pollute to compete economically. These industries are less tightly regulated in order to stimulate growth. Besides causing the environmental strains on the earth, overpopulation causes a large number of the social problems in today's society. One example of this is described in the recent study by Ohio State University showing that children whose family sizes were larger did worse in school. The research to be published in October's American Sociological Review , found that as family size increases, parents talk less to each child about school, have lower education expectations, save less for college and have fewer educational materials available" (CAPS).

Overpopulation is related to the issue of birth control of some nations, like the People's Republic of China use strict measures to reduce birth rates. Religious and ideological opposition to birth control has been cited as a factor contributing to overpopulation and poverty. Some leaders and environmentalists (such as Ted Turner) have suggested that there is an urgent need to strictly implement a China-like one-child policy globally by the United Nations  because this would help control and reduce population gradually . Indira Gandhi, late Prime Minister of India, implemented a forced sterilization programme in the 1970s. Officially, men with two children or more had to submit to sterilization, but many unmarried young men, political opponents and ignorant men were also believed to have been sterilized. This program is still remembered and criticized in India, and is blamed for creating a public aversion to family planning, which hampered Government programmes for decades . In islamic view, birth control is forbidden or undesirable when it is resorted to as a permanent measure to prevent conception altogether likewise, it is forbidden if resorted to for fear of poverty. “Don’t kill your children for fear of poverty, it is We who provide sustenance for them and you, verily killing them is a most heinous crime!”  . After reflecting on this verse, scholars have concluded that practicing birth control for fear of poverty is unlawful since it implies weakness of faith and trust in Allah as the Provider and Sustainer of all beings of The Universe. Allah already knows what will happen in the future and past events. Everything happens with the requirements of Allah. The Almighty is not going to destroy a race unless their destroying themselves. Based on a verse in Holy-Quran meaning that “His command is only when He intends a thing that He says to it, "Be," and it is. So exalted is He in whose hand is the realm of all things, and to Him you will be returned.”  Regarding on the verse, it clearly seen that, Allah will do anything as He want and it is will be happen on that time he wish. So, we have to strong believe that Allah know what we do not know. 

In the 1970s, Gerard O'Neill suggested building space habitats that could support 30,000 times the carrying capacity of Earth using just the asteroid belt and that the Solar System as a whole could sustain current population growth rates for a thousand years . Marshall Savage   has projected a human population of five quintillion throughout the Solar System by 3000 with the majority in the asteroid belt. K. Eric Drexler, famous inventor of the futuristic concept of molecular nanotechnology  has suggested in Engines of Creation that colonizing space will mean breaking the Malthusian limits to growth for the human species. It may be possible for other parts of the Solar System to be inhabited by humanity at some point in the future. Geoffrey Landis of NASA's Glenn Research Center in particular has pointed out that cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet,  as one could construct aerostat habitats and floating cities there easily, based on the concept that breathable air is a lifting gas in the dense Venusian atmosphere. Venus would like also Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, in the upper layers of their atmospheres even afford a gravitation almost exactly as strong as that on Earth.  Many authors, including Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov, have argued that shipping the excess population into space is not a viable solution to human overpopulation. According to Clarke, "the population battle must be fought or won here on Earth". The problem for these authors is not the lack of resources in space but the physical impracticality of shipping vast numbers of people into space to "solve" overpopulation on Earth. However, Gerard O'Neill's  calculations show that Earth could offload all new population growth with a launch services industry about the same size as the current airline industry. A hypothetical extraterrestrial colony could potentially grow organically with most of the inhabitants being the direct descendants of the original colonists.

One option is to focus on education about overpopulation, family planning, and birth control methods, and to make birth-control devices like male and female condoms, pills and intrauterine devices easily available. Worldwide, nearly 40% of pregnancies are unintended (some 80 million unintended pregnancies each year).  An estimated 350 million women in the poorest countries of the world either did not want their last child, do not want another child or want to space their pregnancies, but they lack access to information, affordable means and services to determine the size and spacing of their families. In the developing world, some 514,000 women die annually of complications from pregnancy and abortion with 86% of these deaths occurring in the sub-Saharan Africa region and South Asia.  Additionally, 8 million infants die, many because of malnutrition or preventable diseases, especially from lack of access to clean drinking water. In the United States, in 2001, almost half of pregnancies were unintended. Egypt announced a program to reduce its overpopulation by family planning education and putting women in the workforce. It was announced in June 2008 by the Minister of Health and Population Hatem el-Gabali. The government has set aside 480 million Egyptian pounds (about 90 million U.S. dollars) for the program. The most commonly agreed causes of overpopulation that a lot of the uneducated people have more penurious children and the whole lack of family planning is due to the stark absence of basic education. If they had been educated, they would be forewarned against the effects of overpopulation and their own inability to nurture their children well enough. Education will also help people understand the problems of overpopulation and those associated with bringing up children as well. Hence, good basic education have to be provide to all the people in the country, so that they may learn the ills of overpopulation and exercise restraint.