...Human Population and the Environment SCI/275 12/22/2013 Urbanization is the movement of people from rural areas, such as country sides, to urban areas, such as cities. Cities like Los Angeles did not come to be the way it is simply overnight of course, urbanization is also the transformation of rural areas into urban ones. According to the text book, “When Europeans first settled in North America, the majority of the population consisted of farmers in rural areas. Today, approximately 79 percent of the U.S. population lives in cities” (Berg, Ch. 7.5). One more important distinction between rural and urban areas isn't how many people live there but how people make a living. Most people residing in rural areas have jobs involving harvesting natural resources—such as fishing, logging, and farming. In urban areas, most people have jobs that are sites of industry, economic development, and educational and cultural opportunities. There are factors that produce urbanization. The four major factors that affect population are the death rate of the people versus the birth rate of the people in that urban population and the immigration rate (people coming in), versus the emigration rate (people going out). These factors determine the rate of the population decline or growth. If the birth rate and immigration rate is larger than the death and emigration rate the population will grow exponentially. If the death rate and the emigration rate is larger than the birth and immigration rate...
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...History The human population was estimated to 7 billion in 2013. All these humans did not just appear overnight. The population has increased over the past tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Within recent years the growth rate of the human population has accelerated, causing explosions in population size and density all over the world. This has been due to many different factors. Advances in many different areas of science and technology have helped to increase the lifespan and survivability of humans. The area of social science that focuses on population is called demography. Demography is defined as “the study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics” (demography, n.d.). Demographers divide the growth of the human population into 3 eras. There is the pre-agricultural era, the agricultural era and the industrial era. The pre-agricultural period involves anything before about 10,000 years ago, when humans were still in hunter-gatherer societies. The agricultural period which is from 10,000 to approximately 1000 years ago is characterized by humans settling down because of the creation of tools that could help them produce food. The Industrial period is the explosive period of conquest, travel, and technological advancement that started 1000 year ago through current times. Various factors in each period affected how and where the human population grew. During the pre-agricultural period, the human population...
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...Name Professor Course Number Date How Do You Think Humans Interact With the Environment? Introduction The term environment has different definitions depending on the context and the people involved. Culture and technological advancements of a people are some of the criteria used to define the term environment. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the environment as the “complex physical, chemical, and biotic factors that act upon and organism and ultimately determine its survival.” An important point to note from this definition is that, in this particular case, the human being is the organism whose survival is dependent on the environment. Among all living organisms on earth, none has influenced the environment as humans. In their daily activities, people build houses, roads, cities, dams, and carry out various other activities in order to make life more comfortable. Consequently, human beings adapt, depend on, and modify the environment in order to make life more comfortable. This has resulted in consequences such as climate change that have only recently been appreciated by the global community. It is an irrefutable fact that human beings cannot survive without the environment. Therefore, the topic of how humans are interacting with the environment is becoming an increasingly debated topic. This paper seeks to discuss how humans interact with the environment and the impacts that have resulted from these interactions. Finally, a solution to the challenge brought about...
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...Abstract Fast population growth and global environmental transformation is two subjects that have received considerable public thought over the past several decades. Population boost became a global public policy issue during the med twentieth century as mortality declines in many developing nations were not matched with reductions in fertility resulting in unprecedented growth rates. Since Population size is naturally linked to the environment as a result of individual resource needs as well as individual contributions to pollution, population increase yields heightened demands on air, water, and land environments, because they offer essential assets and act as sinks for environmental pollutants. Incidentally, concern with environmental change has come to forefront primarily since 1970, with discernible levels of environmental degradation fuelling public concern with the scope of contemporary environmental transformations and the advent of satellite imagery aiding environmental research (Colombo B. et all 1996). At the present date are estimated roughly 6.5 billion people in the world and the figure continues to multiply. In contrast there are a restricted number of natural resources. On the worldwide root the human population has revealed a J shaped pattern of escalation over the past years, while the availability of natural funds are mandatory for human survival is in slow decline (Cohen J.E.1995). Population policies which gears to reduce future growth represent logical...
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...Overconsumption and Overpopulation and their effect on the Environment The effect of overpopulation and over consumption on the environment has had a massive negative effect. Overpopulation is an undesirable condition where the number of existing human population exceeds the carrying capacity of Earth. We are now adding one billion people to the planet every 12 years. That's about 220,000 per day. (Howmany?.org) This makes overpopulation a big threat to our environment but the bigger issue is that we are not using our resources efficiently to solve the problem. The problem includes shortages of all our resources, war and social conflict, limits on personal freedom, overcrowding in large cities and the health and survival of other species. In the last fifty years, there have been a vast number of people and organizations rising up and speaking against this problem, searching for a solution to this detrimental issue. Howmany?.org is just one of many organizations that are empowering people to find the best population size for Earth. They do this through outreach and advocacy programs that are created to add population into conversations and get people thinking. While overpopulation is not the only cause of environmental problems, it is a root cause that people should be aware of. Growth in population, affluence, and technology are jointly responsible for environmental problems concerning overconsumption. We use technology to produce and gather most of our resources. ...
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...Energy and Human Population Mitigation Strategies and Solutions: Conserving Energy and Human Population Developing countries with rapid population growth face the urgent need to improve their living standards without destroying the environment. Natural resources are facing a coupling of increased pressure, threatening the health of the public and our development. The global challenge begins with the water shortages, loss of forests, and air and water pollution. Are we blindly destroying our natural resources needed for our future, as we humans exploit nature to meet our present needs? The world’s current supply of energy is provided by natural resources. Natural resources are defined as various nonrenewable and renewable energy sources. A renewable resource consists of naturally occurring resources in nature, like wind (windpower), water (hydropower), or sun (solar). Renewable energy is safer for the environment when compared to nonrenewable resources. Only about 9 percent of electricity in the U.S. is generated from these renewable sources (EPA, 1997). Renewable resources are replaced in nature as they are used, which makes this type of energy highly desirable. Nonrenewable resources are found in fixed amounts, these are natural resources that cannot be replaced. Although nonrenewable resources are also found in nature, they are more harmful to the environment than...
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...declined, while demand has grown, and the population of the world has been increasing by more than 70 million each year. The emerging energy crisis is producing an economic crisis, as the prices of everything produced from oil (fertilizer, food, and fuel) rise beyond what some people can afford to pay. Energy and economic problems come at a time of unprecedented environmental concerns, from the local to global level. At the beginning of the modern era—in A.D. 1—the number of people in the world was probably about 100 million, one-third of the present population of the United States. In 1960 the world contained 3 billion people. Our population has more than doubled in the last 40 years, to 6.8 billion people today. In the United States, population increase is often apparent when we travel. Urban traffic snarls, long lines to enter national parks, and difficulty getting tickets to popular attractions are all symptoms of a growing population. If recent human population growth rates continue, our numbers could reach 9.4 billion by 2050. The problem is that the Earth has not grown any larger, and the abundance of its resources has not increased—in many cases, quite the opposite. How, then, can Earth sustain all these people? And what is the maximum number of people that could live on Earth, not just for a short time but sustained over a long period? Estimates of how many people the planet can support range from 2.5 billion to 40 billion (a population not possible with today's technology)...
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...AUSTRALIAN ENDANGERED ANIMALS – CAUSED BY HUMAN IMPACT The Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (2009) asserts that Australia has 143 endangered animals, several of them are rare and only found in this part of the world. There is a serious concern about this endangerment because a number of these animals could be at a high risk to become extinct. It could cause loss of biodiversity, misbalance in food chains, and irreversible changes to environment. As long as some suggest that this issue could be a natural process, there are many who maintain that human impact is more responsible for increasing the number of endangered animals. There are many convincing arguments that the human impact has intensified the endangerment of animals. First of all, the introduction of invasive and feral animals produces harmful consequences in native species due to predation, rivalry for food and shelter, and transmission of diseases (The Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities 2011). The endemic Numbat have been hunted and killed by red foxes brought from Europe, as a result Numbat population is reduced significantly. Nowadays, they are found only in South Western Australia. Furthermore, the habitat destruction has increased the rate of endangerment. It can occur because of reduction in the space availability for native species. Changes in the original habitat especially by agricultural practices and logging are held...
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...little bit every year and soon, if the population trend continues at the current rate the sustaining capacity will have reached its peak. The ignorance of humanity has lead all to believe that the planets resources are infinite well, I'm here to tell you that research, study, and observation has proven that it is in fact very finite. The population explosion has its roots in developing countries such as China and India, the two most populous countries in the world. The basic fact is people are having more children than their surrounding environment can support. Overpopulation is creating severe problems to the air quality, water supplies, and cropland sustainability; cultural views pose as road blocks to taking steps toward destroying this epidemic. Should the population continue at its current rate of expansion there will be an estimated 50 billion people on the planet by the dawn of the next century according to Arthur McCormack in his 1970 book The Population Problem (9). The question now is are we as a species destined to die from resource depletion or are there ways to stop this growth before it becomes a global catastrophe? Walter K. Dodds, author of Humanities Footprint, mentions the case of Easter Island as "One of the most dramatic cases of humans harming the ecosystems that support them"(35). The Polynesians arrived on an island paradise, but that paradise quickly turned into what could be termed a nightmare. The population quickly expanded and the Islanders...
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...Human Population Growth Exponential Growth of a population has a continuous birth rate through a period of time and there is not any affect due to their needs getting met as far as food. There is not any disease affecting their bodies. Logistic Growth can cause a population to be restricted by a lack of food and predators and disease. Overcrowding cause unbalance in the environment to support every needs it cannot supply everyone needs. In logistic growth when the environment reaches its carrying capacity. (Britannica 2012) There are numerous factors that hinder a logistic environment such as disease, birth rate, economic conditions. Human population has been increasing at a very rapid rate for centuries nothing can really slow down or population other death it helps to keep a balance among our human population or any population. As humans we have a negative effect on our environment due to our daily activities we as human’s par-take in and the way we choose to live. We continue to tear down to build up to support our life style of today. Convinces of indoor plumbing, and electricity and the new life styles we now live. I have to take in consideration the affect it have on our wildlife our forests and just the breakdown of how nature replenish the earth on its own. I feel we took nature for granted but fact still stand that nature will continue to evolve. Due to our life style as humans or population will continue to have damaging effects on our environment by depleting...
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...------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Environmental Science is the study how humans interact with their environment. Environmental Science is interdisciplinary - brings together information from several physical, biological and social sciences. The main goal of environmental science is to solve environmental problems using science. What is “Natural Environment”? –Environment is our natural surroundings consisting of living and nonliving things. The Earth is part of our environment, comprising 4 “Spheres” Biosphere (living things), Hydrosphere (water), Atmosphere (Air) and Lithosphere (land). Human Impacts: Humans are altering the environment and creating environmental problems. Our main problem involves human population growth and the use of earth’s resources and environmental pollution. Environmental Problems – Examples (a) Depletion of Natural Resources (b) Deforestation (c) Global climate changes (d) Loss of biodiversity (e) Pollution of Air, Water, Land Ecological Footprint is a measure of humanity’s demand on nature. A carbon footprint is "the total set of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by a person Impacts of Rapid Population Growth: Rapid population growth depletes the Earth’s resources diminishes, quality of life, and damages the environment. Impacts on the environment include, (a) land degradation, (b) air and water pollution (c) climate change. (d) Deforestation (e) loss of biodiversity Sustainability...
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...The definition of environmental science is the study of the environment and the quest for the solution to environmental problems such as pollution, global warming, and disappearing resources. The subfield of environmental science that is interesting is ecology. Ecology is the study of the interactions of organisms and some physical aspect of their environment. An example is the study of how two individual populations of two different organisms impact their environment through a symbiotic or competitive relationship. The relationship between science and technology affect global problems in today’s society. As the development of technology increases, the impact on the environment also increases. The advancement of science and technology help increase the material lives of humans. Medical technology progression has extended the length of the human life and lower infant and child mortality rates that have dramatically increased the world population. This increase in the population leads to a decrease in natural resources that were also depleted. To compensate for the increase population rates, more land has to be cleared to make room for the population and thus destroying the environment and depleting its available resources beyond repair. The movement of people, goods, money, and information has drastically increased since the late 1980s due to technological advancements. This globalization has changed the nature of our society. This globalization has also led to...
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...Josh Evans Ecology and Population Growth SCI/230 Karen Anderko There are approximately 6,947,513,231 billion people now in the world, according to the US Census Bureau. The human population changes depending on vital statistics of birth and deaths and also mechanical social factors such as immigrants and emigrants. This information can change by the year, the day, or second. As of this moment there have been 295,320 births and 135,740 deaths with a net population growth of 159, 840 as of this moment today and that number is steady rising by the second. There are several different estimates of the world’s current population that varies depending on the assumptions of estimates in other countries. It is said that world’s current growth rate is about 1.3% and that number has doubled in the last 5 years. It is also said that the population will double again by the year 2054 to about 12 billion people. If this continues than we are going to exceed our growth capacity on earth and the ability to provide for all our basic needs for survival. With the corruption of our environment the capacity that the earth holds actually decreases over time leaving the environment with the inability to be able to support the people living. The survival of the population correlates with the survival of the environment. There are many things that can impact the ecosystem that carries and provide life for so many people. In order for humans and other organisms to survive we have to consume large...
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...Population refers to all living organisms that belong to the same species and live in the same geographic area. This area is used to define the population is that inter breeding is possible between the existing pairs and crossbreeding with individuals from other areas. Sociologists use population to refer to a number of human beings. Demography refers to the study of human population. The world’s population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be around 6.9 billion as of June 11, 2011.The world population hit the 6.5 million mark on 24 February 2006. Population growth significantly grew after the Industrial Revolution. Medical advances and increased agricultural productivity in the last 50 years or so has led to a rapid increase in the rate at which the world population is growing. In future, world population is expected to reach a growth peak and there will be a drop due to different factors such as environmental hazards, economic reasons, land exhaustion and health concerns (Neal, 2004). The number of births and deaths usually determines population change. If the number of births exceeds the number of deaths then population growth is said to have occurred. The factors that are known to affect population growth include fertility rates, family size (small families are more common in developed countries, larger in developing countries), and mortality rates determined by access to medical facilities, accidents, natural disasters. The world population...
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...Arguable the most controversial subject in human history is what truly defines the human species. Through the growth and evolution of the species, humans have displayed destructive behaviours within society that differentiates this genus from all others. Practiced by the unique act of genocide, humans have embraced a love for brutality against opposing social groups and the annihilation of fellow man. The institutions within the species’ society encompass unsurpassable expectations that have resulted in the self-destruction of millions. Humans have collectively destroyed the Earth’s natural resources through over use and depletion, making it impossible for the environment to remain sustainable; therefore, characterizing humans as the uniquely destructive species that they have come to exist as today. Genocide is a form of destruction unique to the human species that has been repeated throughout history as the yearning for power and the love of cruelty surpasses human controversies. “Genocide is often waged by one group against another and not the other way around. It is this unprovoked brutality that stems from human nature that is truly frightening” (Dimijan, 2010). This brutality was noticeably witnessed in World War II Germany during the Holocaust when Nazi leader Adolf Hitler exterminated more than 6 million Jewish men, women and children. The Nazis, who came to power in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior,"...
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