How many people can live on planet Earth?

How many people can live on planet Earth?

By Christina Diamantopoulou (B Class)

 

   Earth, our planet is home to million different species but only one of them dominates everything: human beings .There are nearly 7 billion of us living on Earth and the human population is increasing by nearly 2 people every second, that means 200.000 every day. Each of us needs food, water, energy, shelter and hopefully a whole lot more.

  It is expected that by the middle of the century we will reach the number of 9 billion people and our planet will need to accommodate almost 3 billion more of us. This number is larger than the current population of Europe or Africa. Scientists believe that the least developed countries will experience the most rapid growth and this will not only affect their natives, it will affect all of us. Until now, the population was kept under control by nature. Just like the other animals we would thrive when there was enough food and water but when diseases or droughts stroked, life would be cut short. But those environmental limits are being reduced, since we fought many infectious diseases. Living healthily and long has consequences; the productive capacity of the Earth has limits that will finally determine how many human beings it can support.

  We call Earth “blue planet” because about 70% of its surface is covered in water. But most of that is sea and only 2, 5% of it is available for human use. Additionally, there is no more water on the planet than what there was when life first appeared. However, distribution has changed and more than a billion people lack access to clean drinking water. At some point, wars are going to happen for water instead of oil and we are wasting it when we should be conserving it. As the impact of human demand begins to be seen from space we are taking advantage of half the available water to serve our needs. Desalination might be a solution but with the current economy, it is a very expensive procedure. As you can see for yourselves, the prospect of providing water to 3 billion more of us does not look good, but in many ways this is the least of our worries…

  When it comes to the world’s food supply we are using almost all that’s available to us to get great agriculture potentials and there is hardly any extra land. If the population grows as much as it is expected we will need to double the amount of food that we have at the moment. Food production cannot increase as rapidly as human reproduction does and demand will eventually outstrip supply. Doubling productivity sounds ambitious but we have done even better in the past. In the 20th century industrialization managed to triple farming goods my using new machines, the least developed parts of the world kept on using traditional methods until the 60’s. Then, Norman Borlaug decided to do something about it. 

   He is credited with saving million lives in what’s became known as the “green revolution”. Borlaug developed disease-resistant crops and taught Indian and Mexican farmers how to get the most out of them with modern farming methods. This allowed many countries to become self-sufficient in food. In 1970 he received the Nobel Peace prize for his work. Thanks to him much of the world is now fed.
Today, international corporations and governments of the most powerful countries on the world seek to take advantage of some of the last remaining areas of undeveloped farmland. Urban land suitable for cultivation is becoming a scarce commodity and countries find it more and more difficult to produce enough food to feed their populations so they are now trying to achieve it by buying land abroad. Their aim is to introduce intensive farming methods and export the food back to their home countries. These deals are often shrouded in secrecy and we’re not always certain that local communities will benefit from them…
Today’s population requires the equivalent of one and a half Earths to support our current way of life. We are simply living beyond the means of our environment to sustain us. In order to remain within the productive capacity of the planet, people in industrialized countries will have to give up consumption of a great deal to create the needed ecological space. If we do not make these compromises we are going to reach a point we will really suffer. As I see it, there are only three ways to avoid that. We can stop consuming so many resources, we can change our technology and we can reduce the growth of our population. We will probably need to do all three.

  The understanding of the natural world is crucial for all of us. After all, we depend on it for our food, the air we breathe, and some would say for our own very sanity. It is a relationship that we are stretching to a breaking point as we continue to grow in numbers. I am fully aware that this article can be seen as depressing. But human beings have capabilities that animals do not. We think rationally, study and plan ahead. We are at crossroads where we can choose to cooperate or carry on regardless what … and I hope our intelligence saves us!

 

Source:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN06tLRE4WE

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