1. Do you think that overpopulation should be dealt with as an environmental issue or a moral issue? Why?
2. Do you think that there is an "ideal number" of kids that people should have? Or is there another hard and fast solution?
3. What is the relationship between overpopulation and the environment?
Overpopulation is when there are too many people in the world for the earth to sustain in a way that can give everyone in present and future, their basic needs. Right now, the world is about to hit the breaking point, the fine line between just the right amount of people and too many. The world as our environment is struggling to survive with the amount of people in the world. The CO2 emissions are drastically high, and studies have sadly shown, that the amount of people in the world have a huge role with it. I feel in this way that overpopulation is mainly an environmental issue. Though it is a moral issue, for only the person has the real right to decide how many children they want, they cannot only focus on themselves. At this point in time, we also have to consider how how many children we have will affect the environment and the sustainability of the environment. If overpopulation is treated as an environmental issue, then the fear of global warming, economic decline etc will gradually go away and the economy could even out. There should not be an "ideal number" of kids however. Making a law will, one, cause people to break out against the law, and two, is not a decision that the government can mandate. I cannot think of a hard and fast solution for these things take time. We just need more education, and more incentives for having less children. This article mentions that 1/2 of the pregnancies in the U.S are unintended pregnancies. If these pregnancies can be lowered, then some of our fears and worries can disappear as well. Education can fix this problem as well.
ReplyDeleteI believe that overpopulation should be viewed as a environmental issue due to that we as humans are a part of the world we live in, and what we do effects everything around us. More people in the world further adds to consumption of natural resources and ultimately increases the rate of global warming. Our population's impact on the environment around us I believe is very apparent. In the Industrial Revolution and Baby Boom era's human population and life expectancy exploded and these are the time periods in which we see a large increase in emmisions. There is truly no set number of children that a person should have. However I think that people should be responsible enough to be aware of a population increase that can hurt the earth and possibly cut back on all of their baby making. The relationship between population and the environment is very fragile. As population grows the environment suffers by means of more consumption of resources. Referring to this relationship I think that we as humans need to be smarter in the decisions we make in terms of what we consume and think about our future generations.
ReplyDeleteOver population in the world is a serious problem that falls under the environmental and moral categories, making it a tricky issue. Something definitely needs to be done to start reducing the rate of births or the world will no longer be able to support its inhabitants. There will be severe food shortages, habitat destruction for many species and organisms, global warming, and many other environmental problems.
ReplyDeleteBecause limiting the number of children someone can have is immoral, there is no good way to adress this problem. In first-world countries such as the US, I believe education is the best option. As the organization in this article was doing, educating citizens on the affects of overpopulation will hopefully encourage them to do their part and minimize unwanted pregnancies and large numbers of children.
For third-world countries, such as Nigeria and Yemen mentioned in the article, the birth rate is alarmingly high. One of the main reasons this birth rate is so high is lack of access to contraception. The easiest way to lower the birth rates in these countries is to provide better access to contraception.
Over population is certainly becoming a more pressing issue as time brings more and more environmental problems. It could be our most difficult issue to solve as it has no easy solution within the bounds of freedom and morality. It should be the persons choice to decided how many children they would like to bring into this world and take care of and it is definitely a moral right that should not be taken away from anyone. However, there is no way around the fact that having less humans occupying the earth would help the state of its environment tremendously. In that sense, it must be taken as both a moral and an environmental issue.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible to solve to a degree although there will not be a clear cut answer. First, people need to be educated. Not only about the alarming number of people that are inhabiting this earth, but about the environmental effects we have on the earth everyday. It is an obvious connection to be made that we are harming the earth with our lifestyle and bringing more people onto the earth will only harm it further. As the population grows exponentially, so will the damage.
After taking these issues into consideration, people will then be able to make a better decision on the amount of kids they would like to bring into their families and the lifestyle choices their family will make. The issue clearly is not just that there are to many people, its what the people that are here are doing to the earth. In the article, it says that a child in the U.S. emits 169 times more carbon than a child in Bangladesh. That means that 169 babies can be born in Bangladesh and will only make the same effect as 1 kid in the U.S.. That, I believe, is the most alarming statistic of all. If we can do something about that number by cutting our carbon emission and harm to the environment, we may be able to slightly offset the overpopulation problem.
I believe that population growth should be dealt with as an environmental issue. As it is seen with how these companies try to have people think about animals when opening a condom should be a strong message to tell people to really think about the situation. I believe that people should think more about thier actions and how many kids they want to have versus how many kids they should have to help protect the environment. There is no right answer to this question, but there are also many children being born as mistakes that could lessen population growth. It is important people start putting the environment first because otherwise the generations behind us wont have very much time on earth if any.
ReplyDeleteEducation is huge when talking about population growth. People need to know the pros and cons about when to have a child and how many. People should be aware of what could happen if more people are born. There is no clear cut answer but people just have to be smarter about when they have a child and if they even want one. China has a limited child policy and you have to pay extra taxes if you go over that amount. So there are countries starting to do something, but that is a very controversial subject.
Plain and simple, the more people there are, the more resources will be used. The world doesnt have an unlimited amount of resources, and people need to be smarter about how much of the earth they really use. Overall, population growth is a very controversial subject, but needs to be made aware to the people, otherwise there will be no more Earth for generations to come.
I think that overpopulation needs to be dealt with as an environmental issue. As people living on Earth, we have the responsibility to preserve and protect it, not destroy it because of our greed. If we want to do that, I think the condom campaign in the article is a good way to start off. I think that the increasing birth rate is a huge problem to the environment. The more people there are in the world, the more resources we use up, the worse the environment gets. Another factor that plays into the overpopulation issue is that because our technology has been growing, the mortality rate has gone down. I'm not saying we should let people die but because of this factor, we need to control the thing we can control: birth rate. I think we also need to educate people on this issue because I feel like a lot of people are not aware of this problem and we need to state it. I do think that people should have “ideal number” of kids because not only are you protecting the environment by doing that, you also help yourself financially. Some families due to the large amount of members in their family, have less to eat because they have so much to go around. I think that this problem will need to be solved step by step and we have done a good job by starting that with the condom campaigns. There is no immediate solution we can do to solve this environmental issue. The relationship between overpopulation and the environment is that the more people we have, the more space we need to shelter those people. We also need more fossil fuels for people to drive with.
ReplyDeleteI believe that overpopulation should be dealt with as both an environmental and moral concern. It is a very difficult issue to address, and is also one of the greatest problems we are currently facing. It is both related to ethics and the environment because it is hard to think of a solution to overpopulation without encountering ethical dilemmas, however, without implementing one these morally ambiguous solutions, the environment will continue to suffer and in increasing severity. I think that there is no true “ideal number” of kids for a family; it is a personal decision that should involve a lot of thought and consideration. While I do feel that people should be thoughtful as to how many children they have and are able to support, I do think that for most families I feel that this number is less than how many children they really have. Considering almost 1/3 of the growth rate is accounted for by immigration (according to the article), I think that stricter immigration regulation is a possible solution. However, this does not help with the global issue of overpopulation. The relationship between overpopulation and the environment is that as more individuals enter the earth, more space is needed for growth, which results in more deforestation. Also, more food needs to be produced which affects agricultural land. More people requires more water, which directly affects the water issue. Moreover, more people means more clothing, and other material objects need to be produced, which means more factories, which means more CO2 released into the atmosphere. As it is easy to see, overpopulation has many damaging effects on the environment that need to be addressed before the situation gets even worse.
ReplyDeleteOverpopulation is a huge problem. The Earth alreayd cannot sustain the population right now for an extended period of time. As the population increases further, even more resources will be used and emissions and pollution produced. Unfortunately, its a really scary problem because it seems there is no true solution. Every other environtmental problem for the most part can be dealt with. For example if people want to reduce air pollution then can simply drive less and refuse buy products made by companies that contribute heavily to air pollution. However its morally incorrect to tell people they can't reproduce. If people want to, they will: there is no logical answer to solving it. It is only gonna get worse until something significantly bad happens or people are conviced to reprodue less overall.
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