Many ecologists view human overpopulation as the foundation of all environmental problems. Thus many believe the most important environmental groups in the world to be ones like Zero Population Growth (ZPG). On the opposing side would be Population Research Institute (PRI).
According to Zero Population Growth web site, "currently at 263 million, the U.S. population is growing by about 2.5 million people each year, making the United States one of the worlds fastest-growing industrialized nations" (ZPG, 2000).
Zero Population Growth web site believes that there are simply too many people on our planet. It is having disastrous effects on our environment. The three substances that our earth consists of: land, water, and air, are being destroyed. Our forests are being cut down at an alarming rate, bearing enormous impacts on the health of earth. Our oceans and seas are being polluted and over fished. Our atmosphere is injected with increasing amounts of carbon dioxide, which hurts the entire planet. All of these problems can be traced to our vast, rapidly expanding population, which has stressed our world far too greatly. .
In 1994, the world population was 5,602,800,000. This population has grown to 6,134,767,070. That's a growth of 531,967,070 people in just six years. The massive amount of people has had highly destructive impacts on the earth's environment. These impacts occur on two levels: global and local. On the global level, there is the accumulation of green house gasses that deplete the ozone layer, the extinction of species and global food shortage. On the local level, there is erosion of soils (and the loss of vegetation), the depletion of water supply, and toxification of the air and water. The earth is dynamic though, all these aspects are interrelated, and no one impact is completely isolated. All of there destructive elements can be traced to our enormous population. As the population increases, so do all of the economic and social impacts.
