Megan ByrnePopulation Continues Rapid Growth But Not As Quickly
October 21st 2006 04:30
Within the next week or so, the US population will reach 300 million. This figure suggests an enormous environmental impact.
The Center for Environment and Population (CEP) in Connecticut released the results of a recent study that refers to the expansion of the US population as “super-sized resource appetites” making far too many claims on Earth’s resources.
According to the CEP, the US, with only five percent of the world’s population, consumes almost a quarter of its natural resources. As the population grows, environmental pressures will be challenging.
The study says we eat “disproportionately high amounts of meat and dairy products”, which use more land, water and energy to produce than do grain and vegetable-based diets. In addition, our “sprawl development” habits result in about 3,000 acres of farmland being plowed under daily.
On the other hand, a study conducted by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Luxemburg, Austria), predicts an 85 percent chance the population of the world will stop growing in the next hundred years. They forecast the population of 6.1 billion today will only rise to about 9 or 10 billion in that time.
According to Warren Sanderson of IIASA, co-author of the report, these figures indicate “we are going to have a stable population. So we have to make sure we have a sustainable environment and a sustainable economy to go with the sustainable population”.
Not surprisingly, the study shows the world population will be much older in the future, with 34 percent over the age of 60 by the turn of the next century.
The study is not without its critics, who feel that population growth can’t be accurately measured because the basic factors of fertility and mortality are uncertain and the actual outcome will depend on social behavior.
The Center for Environment and Population (CEP) in Connecticut released the results of a recent study that refers to the expansion of the US population as “super-sized resource appetites” making far too many claims on Earth’s resources.
According to the CEP, the US, with only five percent of the world’s population, consumes almost a quarter of its natural resources. As the population grows, environmental pressures will be challenging.
The study says we eat “disproportionately high amounts of meat and dairy products”, which use more land, water and energy to produce than do grain and vegetable-based diets. In addition, our “sprawl development” habits result in about 3,000 acres of farmland being plowed under daily.
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On the other hand, a study conducted by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Luxemburg, Austria), predicts an 85 percent chance the population of the world will stop growing in the next hundred years. They forecast the population of 6.1 billion today will only rise to about 9 or 10 billion in that time.
According to Warren Sanderson of IIASA, co-author of the report, these figures indicate “we are going to have a stable population. So we have to make sure we have a sustainable environment and a sustainable economy to go with the sustainable population”.
Not surprisingly, the study shows the world population will be much older in the future, with 34 percent over the age of 60 by the turn of the next century.
The study is not without its critics, who feel that population growth can’t be accurately measured because the basic factors of fertility and mortality are uncertain and the actual outcome will depend on social behavior.
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