1. Sustainability:
Global Population – History, Changes, Areas of Crisis, Causes, and the Future

2. Global population is exponentially increasing:
It takes fewer and fewer years for the population to grow by the same amount.
econosystemics.com

3. How can we have such drastic changes over such a short period of time?
Technology has allowed us to raise Earth’s carrying capacity for our species time and again.
Tool-making, agriculture, and industrialization each enabled humans to sustain greater populations.

4. History of Population Growth:
What are some of the reasons that the world’s population has increased rapidly since the 1800s?
Sanitation Improvements:
In the early 1800s, soap use greatly increased.
By the mid to late 1800s, municipal sanitation systems were much more common.
Improved sanitation results in fewer people dying from infectious diseases.
Before municipal sewer systems, many communities dumped their sewage into nearby rivers (where their drinking water also came from) or even directly into centers of streets (where it drained to nearby water sources)!
For example, in the 1860s, London built an extensive sewer system.

5. Changes in population continued…
2. Medical Improvements:
Before improvements in sanitary conditions in hospitals, people were very likely to die from other infectious diseases transmitted there.
Improving sanitation practices in the medical community
New medicines – particularly antibiotics and vaccinations
These improvements have resulted in fewer infant and children deaths as well as a longer average lifespan around most of the world.
Before antibiotics, minor infections could easily kill people.

6. Changes in population continued…
3. Agricultural Changes:
Increased use of pesticides and fertilizers as well as new equipment allowed for greater crop density
Greatly increased crop production per acre from the mid 1940s to early 1980s.
Crop production is no longer increasing
–Overall, many more people are fed on smaller pieces of farmland compared to 100 years ago.
Large-scale monoculture puts plants at great risk from diseases and pests.
Crop production no longer increasing--there are problems with soil, water and plant diseases using current farming practices.
For example, today the average acre of agriculture in the U.S. is producing 5-6 times more food than it did in 1940.
Many fertilizers are made from petroleum and so are not really sustainable and are increasing in cost.

7. Changes in population continued…
Worldwide – child mortality is much lower and life expectancy is much greater than in the past.
However, not all parts of the world have low mortality or long life expectancy.

8. Population Concerns—Developing Countries
Population Concerns—Developing Countries

9. Developing Countries have a greater fertility rate
Total Fertility Rate
Developing countries are experiencing considerably faster population increases compared to developed countries.
Developing Countries have a greater fertility rate
Different economic conditions – more likely to be rural and agricultural (where more children is beneficial to the family).
An ever-increasing population base continues to magnify high fertility rate.
However, developing countries (even though they have MUCH greater populations) do not use as many resources as developed countries.
mapsofworld.com

11. Female education and TFR
Female literacy and school enrollment are correlated with total fertility rate:
More-educated women have fewer children.

12. Maternal Mortality
More than 500,000 women die every year from pregnancy or childbirth:
Primarily in developing countries
Often associated with poor health and very little time between pregnancies
Women (and couples) in developing countries often have no access to birth control even when they want it

13. Birth
Control
Methods
Vastly differing access to family planning and birth control options in the developing world. (political, social, religious factors) 14

14. The concern of increasing population…
High population does not mean high consumption:
The majority of the World’s population lives in developing countries.
However, the majority of the World’s resources are consumed in developed countries.
Projected Coal Plants:
As developing countries gain technology and industrialization, their citizens will begin (and are beginning) to use more resources.

15. Challenges w/ Population growth— Developed Countries
1. For 99% of human history we were hunter/gathers. Population was stable at approximately 1 million people. (Dallas has 1 million people.)
 2.The agricultural revolution occurred 10,000 years ago. Due to increased carrying capacity & storage of food the population grew slowly.
It took from 10,000 years until about A.D for human population to reach 1 billion people.
 3. Population doubled between 1800 and 1930 to 2 billion. (130 years)
to 4 billion (45 years)
to 5 billion (12 years)
billion (12 years )
7. Oct 31, billion (12 years)
1/10th of all people are alive today.
geostuff.net

16. Challenges w/ Population growth— Developed Countries
Developed countries have a fairly stable population growth rate and some countries are actually decreasing in population
However, each person in a developed country uses FAR more resources
Ecological Footprints
United States – 8-10 hectares/person
Developing nations hectare/person

17. Possessions…
The richest 20% of the world’s people consumes 86% of its resources, and has >80 times the income of the poorest 20%.
Residents of developed nations have larger houses, more possessions, and more money than residents of developing nations.

18. Ecological footprints

19. The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth’s ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. 21 21

20. Environmental Impact = Population x Affluence X Technology
I = PxAxT
P = number of people per area
A = affluence or average resource-use per person
T = technology or the beneficial & harmful environmental effects of the technologies used to provide & consume each unit of resource 22

21. Social costs of increasing human pop?
Poverty: 3 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty (on less than $2/day).
Sanitation: More than 1 billion people do not have access to clean (and safe) drinking water.

22. Social costs of increasing human pop?
Shortage of fuel wood: Can be a matter of life & death.
a. used to cook food (some can’t be eaten raw)
b. used to boil water (waterborne diseases common)
25 million people/yr, most of them children die of diseases contracted from dirty water. (Lima Peru st cholera epidemic in Western Hemisphere in more than 75 years.) 24

23. Social costs of increasing human pop?
Hunger and malnourishment: Thousands of children die everyday from lack of food and poor nutrition.
War: Many conflicts worldwide are directly or indirectly caused by too many people wanting a limited number of local resources. Millions of people are forced to become refuges every year.

24. Economic costs of increasing human pop?
Host countries overwhelmed: provide education, health care & jobs.

25. Environmental costs of increasing human pop?
Pollution of soil, water and air:
Few environmental protection plans exist in developing countries.
Areas under strain from higher populations often have poor land, water and air quality.

26. Environmental costs of increasing human pop?
Soil infertility
as a result of intensive farming = decreasing the carrying capacity of the land which may take hundreds of years to recover if it can.