current and future population Env3.2 Carrying Capacity Delaney Atkinson

Today’s Population Today’s current world population is roughly 7,478,262,180 people. There has been around 144,900 births and 59,934 deaths already on the morning of January 18, 2017. The overall population growth of today so far is an average of 85,275 people. In the year of 2017 there has been roughly 6,700,970 births and 2,701,045 deaths making a population growth of 3,931,060 individuals.

Projected Population Growth According to United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the world population is projected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 million by 2050, and 11.2 billion by 2100. Most of the projected increase in the world’s population can be attributed to a short list of high-fertility countries, mainly in Africa, or countries with large populations such as China and India. However, the slowdown in population growth, due to the overall reduction in fertility in other countries, causes the proportion of older people to increase over time. The number of people who are 60 or above are expected to more than double by 2050 and more than triple by 2100.

Every graph will be different because it is predicted population for the future. It cannot yet be proven to be true.

What is the Earth’s Carrying Capacity? Various scientists believe Earth has a maximum carrying capacity of 9 billion to 10 billion people. One scientist, the Harvard University sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, bases his estimate on calculations of the Earth’s available resources. Beyond the limited availability of freshwater, there are limitations on the amount of food that Earth can produce. Even in the case of maximum efficiency, in which all the grains grown are dedicated to feeding humans, there's still a limit to how far the available quantities can stretch.

Carrying Capacity for Human Life on our Planet By definition, carrying capacity is the maximum number of a species an environment can support indefinitely, or earth can support in this instance. For human carrying capacity, estimates involve creating future predictions about future trends in demography, resource availability, technological advances, and economic development. SO the question is: What can we all do to keep earth from passing its carrying capacity? To be straight forward: School’s need to stop being afraid to educate students about safe sex, and how to use contraceptives. There needs to be a more effective way instead of telling them ”just don’t do it” It is not just teenagers that need to be educated, it is also adults who are careless with protection and some even just end up giving the baby away, which causes over flow in orphanages. Hopefully together we can improve technology, slow down population growth, and change global culture by EDUCATING. “Promoting access to contraceptives, developing economies, saving children, empowering women, educating men, and doing it all at once.” -Joel Cohen

What if Garrett was a bubble? What would our carrying capacity be? If the town of Garrett was its own “earth”, there would be various factors that would limit how many people could live there. For example: We would have to create more room to grow our own produce, raise all of our animals, build more factories to manufacture our own supplies and food, and create various buildings for health issues or emergencies people or animals may have. This leads to having less room to build homes for people to live in. Every adult would have to work either as a farmer, doctor for people or animals, construction worker, or factory worker. The population of Garrett we live in now would have to be cut almost in half (roughly 3,143) in order to fit all of the necessary buildings and businesses we need to survive.

Works Cited “Current World Population.” World Population Clock, Worldometers, www.worldometers.info/world- population/. Accessed on Jan. 18, 2017. Wolchover, Natalie. “How Many People Can Earth Support?” LiveScience, Purch, 11 Oct. 2011, www.livescience.com/16493-people-planet-earth-support.html. Accessed 18 Jan. 2017. “World Population Projected to Reach 9.7 Billion by 2050.” United Nations, United Nations, 29 July 2015, www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html. Accessed on 19 January 2017.