Overpopulation

            
             Do you feel that all humans have the right to enjoy natural beauty? The right to decent spacey shelter? The right to eat healthy food and drink pure water? To breathe clean air and avoid pesticide poisoning? Most people would say every human has a right to all of these things, but in some areas of the world, these rights are not being met. .
             Most species have a sideways "S" shaped graph reflecting growth rate, meaning the amount of species will grow in total population, but will eventually start to go down again. The human population graph resembles more of a "J", starting out low and then skyrocketing exponentially upwards. At our current growth rate, it would take the world's population of 5.8 billion 45 years to double. The United States population would double in less than 100 years. Today, the birth rate is about three times the death rate world wide. The closer these two rates are, the slower population growth will be, but with the birth rate growing further away from the death rate, future efforts must be made by the government to slow down the world population growth.
             Overpopulation is becoming a bigger concern as the growth rate continues to skyrocket. Overpopulation is sometimes misunderstood or mistaken with other issues, such crowding, but when in fact, density is irrelevant to questions of overpopulation. What is relevant is carrying capacity. Carrying capacity refers to how much an area can hold having all things at equilibrium, including all plants and animals. An area is overpopulated when its long-term carrying capacity is being degraded by its current human occupants. David Pimentel at the Carrying Capacity Network states, "By this standard, the entire planet and virtually every nation is already vastly overpopulated." Some people say the earth is not overpopulated since the United States can produce more food and products than are used. While this point has some validity to it, one must realize that many of the products which we distribute are produced in foreign countries, countries not as well off economically as we are.