The Environmental Impact of Population Growth

 A larger population makes more demands on the Earth’s resources and leads to environmental problems including: 1. Urbanization: population growth leads to the growth of cities, destroying habitat & reducing biodiversity 2. Climate Change: increased atmospheric temperature from greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity (e.g. burning fossil fuels, raising cattle) 3. Ozone Layer Depletion: thinning of the protective layer of ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere that protects us from UV rays caused by CFCs 4. Soil degradation: decline in soil quality through misuse (e.g. pollution, erosion, nutrient depletion) which leads to loss of fertile land, damage to waterways, desertification and increased flooding

5. Desertification: growth of deserts due to climate change & destructive land use (e.g. over-farming, over-grazing) 6. Deforestation: the destruction of forests, usually due to urbanization or expansion of agricultural land; it contributes to climate change, desertification & other problems 7. Acid rain: any precipitation made acidic from atmospheric pollution that causes damage to waterways, plants, buildings & other exposed surfaces 8. Water contamination: destruction of fresh drinking water through pollution and misuse 9. Groundwater depletion: lost to pumping out water faster than it can be replenished or contamination by pollution seeping through the soil (e.g. landfills, septic systems, road salt, acid rain)

 Some international agreements have been made in an attempt to reduce the environmental impact of human activity: 1. Brundtland Report (Our Common Future-1987): written by the UN World Commission on Environment & Development, it focused on sustainable development, but offered little analysis of how current economic structures contributed to environmental harm 2. Canada-US Air Quality Agreement (1991): designed to combat acid rain, both countries agreed to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions; the Ozone Annex was added later to reduce emissions that cause smog 3. Global Environmental Facility (GEF-1991): UN agency that funds projects to improve the environment & promote sustainable development 4. Agenda 21 (1992): an agreement to move towards a sustainable world economy signed at Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro

5. Kyoto Protocol (1997): countries promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6% by Montreal Protocol (2000): all industrial countries agreed to cut their use of CFCs resulting in a small reduction in the size of the hole in the ozone layer 7. Clean Air Act (2006): replaced Canada’s Kyoto targets with a goal of reducing GHGs by 45-65% by 2050  For the most part, these agreements haven’t been honoured in a way that significantly reduced environmental damage