The highest-grossing film of all times, Avengers Endgame, tells the story of a man who seeks to save the world by killing half of the population. The fact that the self-proclaimed savior in the film is the villain cements the argument for the correlation between population size and environmental degradation (Chamary, 2019). Whenever the world faces a choice between the wellbeing of people and environmental protection, the obvious choice has always been the environment. Therefore, the only way to save the environment sustainably is by ensuring a lower population. Available research shows that population growth within the last two centuries is almost four times the population growth in 200 millennia before that. Today, the population of the Indian subcontinent is greater than the population of the entire world at the start of the 20 th century. The rapid growth in population in the last two centuries corresponds with advancements in technology, healthcare and food security. However, the exponential increase in population is unsustainable due to the pressure it visits upon the environment (Riffat, Powell & Aydin, 2016). The direct consequence of the said pressure is environmental degradation, through the extraction of natural resources and the dumping of waste products. As the global population keeps growing, its increasing pressure on the environment makes it difficult to undertake effective environmental restoration to the detriment of all living things on earth, including humans.
The history of population growth intertwines with the history of technological advancements. Traditionally, nature controlled population growth for all animals through concepts such as food web interdependence. The advent of mundane technology enabled humans to protect themselves from dangerous animals and hunt stronger animals than themselves. Technology also enabled humans to domesticate plants and animals on such a large scale that one person’s effort could feed a large number of people (Desjardins, 2018). As technology advanced, it solved problems such as food insecurity, lack of shelter and vagaries of weather, leading to a gradual increase in the human population. However, technology-driven population growth would regularly face setbacks from epidemics.
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The second major driver of population growth was advancements in medical health. As indicated above, the rapid expansion of the global population dates back about 200 years ago (Desjardins, 2018). Coincidentally, the advent of vaccination against communicable diseases such as smallpox also dates back slightly 200 years ago. Advancements in healthcare also increase life expectancy, reduced rates of death during childbirth and resulted in infant mortality. Advancements in technology in the Industrial revolution caused increases in population. Contemporaneously, advancements in the capacity to treat and prevent diseases capable of causing epidemics reduced the impact of the disease on population growth. The two factors supplemented each other to accelerate the rate of population growth in the modern world.
Cultural changes are also an important bearing factor in population growth. The history of the human population shows that when communities unite to form larger factions such as kingdoms, empires or nations, such eras coincide with rapid population growth. For example, there was rapid population growth in Europe during the Roman Empire, in China during the rule of powerful dynasties and in India during the Golden Age (Desjardins, 2018). Similarly, in the last 200 years, cultures evolved around the globe as communities joined to form large nations, empires and kingdoms. When people unite, they share resources and protect one another, a fact that enables populations to grow.
Finally, food has always been an important component of population growth, making nutrition and important bearing factor to populations in history. The kind of food that people eat affects life expectancy, child mortality, and the ability to reproduce. As people learned to focus on healthier foods and avoid dangerous ones, the global population continued to grow. Similarly, food security minimized the reversal of gains made in population growth due to famines (Desjardins, 2018). In the last 200 years, the combination of technological, medical, cultural and nutritional factors has worked positively to augment global population growth.
Among the important metrics for the relationship between population growth and its sustainability is the concept of caring capacity. Traditionally, experts applied carrying capacity in livestock farming to determine the number of animals that can grave in a given acreage sustainably. Its generalized definition refers to the number of organisms that an area can sustain perpetuity without degradation. For most animals, carrying capacity refers to the availability of food but for humans, there are secondary bearing factors such as sanitation, energy and pollution (Crist, Mora & Engelman, 2017). Similarly, the carrying capacity of most animals involves a specific region but due to modern technological advancements, human carrying capacity is a global phenomenon. For example, an important factor for human carrying capacity is energy consumption in general and more specifically the use of mineral fuels. Mineral fuels are non-renewable sources of energy; hence, their use may have a regional impact. However, the main impact of mineral fuel in the production of greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change. The impact of climate change is global and it will even affect areas that do not play a role in environmental degradation (Crist, Mora & Engelman, 2017). Another important bearing factor for human carrying capacity is technology. For example, technological advancements such as hybrid engines for cars and jet engines for plans contribute per capita contribution to carrying capacity differently. In spite of the factors above, increase the human population has a direct impact on carrying capacity regarding environmental degradation. However, there is no simple rule for assessing human carrying capacity due to the multiple mitigating and exacerbating factors respectively.
In spite of all efforts to ensure environmental protection and restoration, the unbridled continued growth of the global population will eventually bridge the carrying capacity. Indeed, environmental experts have undertaken research on population growth and the world’s carrying capacity. Some have argued that a population as low as five billion is enough to eventually overcome the world’s carrying capacity while others place the number at over sixteen billion (Desjardins, 2018). The average number based on available research is ten billion people. Considering the current rate of population growth, the world may attain its carrying capacity within the 21 st century. As the population continues to grow, the rate of consumption would continue to rise alongside a concurrent rate of production of waste and by-products. Both factors would eventually be unsuitable. For example, demand for energy would lead to the increasing mining and consumption of mineral fuels until the earth’s reserves run out. Contemporaneously, the combustion of these mineral fuels would cause air pollution to reach a level that is unsustainable for flora and fauna including humans. Within this example, renewable energy may be a mitigating factor. However, for unbridled population growth, every mitigating factor would eventually fail (Riffat, Powell & Aydin, 2016). For example, the gradually increasing population would require solar and wind energy-harvesting systems than is sustainable. By-products of such systems such as obsolete batteries would pile up causing environmental damage. Such excesses would apply to other human needs such as food, medication and living space. The eventual failure of systems would be inevitable. However, some researchers believe unbridled population growth is itself unsustainable, as the global population will control itself. Even without a population-decimating event such as a global conflict or a monumental epidemic, global reproduction rates are on a decline. It is possible that but at the end of the 21 st century, reproduction rates will have gone down to one child for every two women. Such statistics would result in a negative population growth rate. However, every effort to protect the environment would face in the face of brindled population growth.
Based on the factors outlined in the sections above, the human population is a direct bearing factor in environmental degradation and should be a factor in any environmental restoration process. An increase in population size results in a corresponding increase in environmental degradation irrespective of mitigating measures (Riffat, Powell & Aydin, 2016). However, whereas conservationists can seek to mitigate on population increase, current population levels are not mitigatable. The only option is to seek to understand population size and its impact on the environment. Such an understanding will enable the development of projects that protect the environment without inordinately interfering with the population. Many environmental protection efforts fail because they will have too much negative effect on the population living in an area (Chamary, 2019). However, the failure to mitigate environmental degradation only postpones an inevitable problem, as the attainment of carrying capacity will eventually affect the population. Sustainable environmental protection and restoration should involve the local population (Riffat, Powell & Aydin, 2016). It begins with enlightening the community about the respective impacts of environmental degradation and restoration respectively. When the local community is invested in the restoration process, it has a higher propensity for success.
As reflected in the research and analysis above, the global population keeps on growing and may soon reach a tipping point where the world’s resources can no longer sustain it. It took almost 200 millennia to attain a population of one billion, yet less than two centuries after that milestone, the population has increased over seven times. The reasons for population growth in modern history are positive and include technological advancements, better healthcare and food security. Unfortunately, the explosive rates of population growth seen in recent times are unsustainable, as it will deplete available resources. Further, the byproducts of an ever-expanding population lead to increased environmental degradation. Without mitigating population growth, the world will eventually reach its carrying capacity with ramifications to humans and other living things on earth. Any efforts to save the world from this negative eventuality should begin with efforts to limit population growth. Some researchers have argued that the population will control its growth before attaining carrying capacity. However, it would be unwise to live something as important as the very survival of human existence to chance.
References
Chamary, J. V. (2019, May 7). The Science Of 'Avengers: Endgame' Proves Thanos Did Nothing Wrong. Forbes Magazine . Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2019/05/07/avengers-endgame-biodiversity/#e1a085a775b4
Crist, E., Mora, C., & Engelman, R. (2017). The interaction of human population, food production, and biodiversity protection. Science , 356 (6335), 260-264.
Desjardins, J. (2018, January 31). Animation: Human Population Growth Over All of History. Visual Capitalist . Retrieved from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/animation-population-growth-history/
Riffat, S., Powell, R., & Aydin, D. (2016). Future cities and environmental sustainability. Future cities and Environment , 2 (1), 1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40984-016-0014-2
