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HUMAN POPULATION and the ENVIRONMENT

HUMAN POPULATION and the ENVIRONMENT. In 1600 – world population was ½ billion In 1800 – world population was 1 billion In 2000 – world population was 6 billion Human population reached 7 billion sometime in 2011 . Why?

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HUMAN POPULATION and the ENVIRONMENT

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  1. HUMAN POPULATION and the ENVIRONMENT

  2. In 1600 – world population was ½ billion In 1800 – world population was 1 billion In 2000 – world population was 6 billion Human population reached 7 billion sometime in 2011. Why? Industrial Revolution and medical advances have been major contributors to rapid growth – decreased death rates (infant and adult), continued high birth rates C. HUMAN POPULATION GROWTH

  3. Decrease in birth rates is occurring but is expected to remain above the replacement rate (2 children per woman) until about 2050 Still growing but growth is slowing

  4. One projection is that global population will peak in 2050 at about 9 – 10 billion Will it peak? WHEN?

  5. is not one of physical space (all 7 billion of us could fit in Ontario in an average sized house!) It is one of resource use and how much land is needed to support a way of life http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc4HxPxNrZ0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2xOvKFFz4 The environmental issue

  6. Countries with higher growth rates can potentially mean increased resource depletion (overcrowding and agricultural land scarcity) Growth rate varies globally

  7. In this map the sizes of countries are proportional not to their actual landmass but instead to the number of people living there; a country with 20 million people, for instance, appears twice as large as a country with 10 million

  8. Some European countries that have been in population decline are pro-natalist; governments are using incentives for people to have more children (e.g. France) Future laboursupply is a big issue. Implications of aging populations (need younger people to look after/pay for/be taxed for the care of older people) Different policies

  9. 1950 – 1970: population grew rapidly to about 800 million people. Industrial/agricultural development had eroded soils, depleted water supplies, polluted the air and cut down many forests One-child policy was instituted in order to maintain economic progress In 1970 the average Chinese woman had 5.8 children in her lifetime. Today the average is 0.6 in her lifetime! china

  10. Problems with this policy? Government intrusion Shrinking workforce in the future Unbalanced sex ratio due to cultural gender preference (abortion of female fetuses) Environmental benefit vs. social/economic impact. china

  11. Malthus (early 1800s) predicted that the human population was growing more quickly than its ability to produce food (BTW....he also predicted the endof civilization by the year 2000) Some ecologists continue to hold this view – and point to current conflicts over resources, starvation and environmental degradation Was thomasmalthus right?

  12. “The idea of carrying capacity doesn’t apply to the human world because humans aren’t passive with respect to their environment. Human beings create resources. We find potential stuff and human intelligence turns it into resources. The computer revolution is based on sand; human intelligence turned that common stuff into the main component (silcon) of an amazing technology” (Sheldon Richman) However others argue that….

  13. Crop yields (more food produced on the same area) are increasing through the use of technology (genetic engineering, irrigation, synthetic fertilizers, innovative farming methods) The green revolution

  14. Do humans really “create” resources? Aren’t someresources non-renewable? Extinct species cannot be “brought back”! Land surface area cannot be expanded! On the other hand……

  15. “It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.”Stephen Hawking (famous astrophysicist) 2010

  16. Idea first developed in 1992 at the University of British Columbia (William Rees) It represents the amount of land and sea area that is necessary to provide the resources a human population consumes, and to absorb its waste (garbage). Usually measured in hectares per capita (per person) in a specific country.(1 hectare = 100 m x 100 m) Ecological footprint

  17. More developed countries have a higher footprint.

  18. It is currently estimated that on a global scale we are consuming 20% more of Earth’s resources than the Earth can indefinitely supply! Our consumption is UNSUSTAINABLE! We would need 1.2 Earthsto keep doing what we’redoing now! We are in global ecological overshoot. How many earths?

  19. It is estimated that if everyone on the planet lived a typical Canadian’s or American’s lifestyle, we would need 5 Earths to supply the necessary resources! How many earths?

  20. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/personal_footprint/http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/personal_footprint/ What is your footprint?

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