7 Billion Actions: A Global Movement For All Humanity

On 31 October 2011, the world’s population reached 7 billion. The ever increasing population is expected to overwhelm the earth's carrying capacity. A movement titled, '7 Billion Actions,' is rallying people and organizations around the world to address the challenges of overpopulation.

Population Growth and Climate Change will Add to the World Water Crisis

Water shortages will be one of the world's most pressing problems in the next decade, and this will be compounded by a growing global population and climate change.

Without some means of equitable water distribution, water may even be the cause of the next world war. Rivers lakes and aquifers are cross border issues. Already the allocation of water resources is causing disputes between Israel and Palestine, India and Pakistan, as well as the US and Mexico. Many believe that the crisis in Darfur was at least in part due to issues surrounding access to water.

Population growth will place additional demands on dwindling water supplies. The world's population is expected to grow to almost 9 billion by 2050. In addition to the population explosion, growing wealth and urbanization is fueling demand for water. The United Nations climate panel says between 90 and 220 million people in Africa will face water shortages by 2020 due to climate change. This will have a direct impact on farms, which exacerbate the problem by further depleting groundwater.

According to Britain's chief scientist John Beddington, "The availability of fresh water...[is] the first problem that has got to be addressed. Agriculture is intimately linked with that, but I would say water is probably going to be more concerning over the next 10 years."

"Population growth, an increase in wealth, urbanization, and ... climate change, all of those are going to present really big problems to humanity," Beddington told the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit.

Climate change will add additional burdens to the worsening water crisis. Climate change is forecast to disrupt rainfall patterns, leading to more severe droughts and floods, posing problems for the supply of fresh water.

"Water security fears, rising demand for food and a drive to curb greenhouse gas emissions all posed commercial opportunities," Beddington said.

To help combat growing water problems, countries need to focus on water efficiency. Countries can also reduce the burden of climate change by focusing on low-carbon technologies, including energy efficiency, renewable energy and carbon capture.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Environmental Impact of Overpopulation and Sustainable Development

For all but the willfully ignorant, it is abundantly obvious that the population explosion has fueled environmental degradation. Although some try to argue that population is not the problem, the evidence indicates that overpopulation is directly linked to water shortages, soil exhaustion, loss of forests, air and water pollution.

According to an international population and family planning review journal titled Population Reports, unclean water, along with poor sanitation, kills over 12 million people a year. Air pollution kills 3 million more.

In 64 of 105 developing countries, population has grown faster than food supplies. Overcultivation, largely due to population pressures, has degraded some 2 billion hectares of arable land. This is equivalent to the combined land masses of Canada and the US.

By 2025, with world population projected to be at 8 billion, 48 countries containing 3 billion people will face chronic water shortages. In 25 years, humankind could be using over 90 percent of all available freshwater, leaving just 10 percent for the rest of the world's plants and animals.

Half the world population lives on 10 percent of the global land mass. Almost three and a half billion people live on a densly populated coastal strip about 200 kilometers wide and this is damaging coastal ecosystems.

Over the past 50 years nearly half of the world's original forest cover has been lost. Current demand for forest products may exceed the limits of sustainable consumption by 25 percent.
Since 1950, according to one estimate, some 600,000 plant and animal species have disappeared, and currently nearly 40,000 more are threatened. This is the fastest rate of extinction in human history.

Over the past 40 years ocean surfaces have warmed an average of over half a degree Celsius, mainly as a result of carbon emissions from fossil fuel use and from burning of forests. Global warming could raise the sea level by 1 to 3 meters as polar ice sheets melt, flooding low-lying coastal areas and displacing millions of people. Global warming also could result in droughts and disrupt agriculture.

Governments and policymakers need to implement sustainable development, and this requires slower global population growth. While the rate of population growth has slowed over the past few decades, the absolute number of people continues to increase by about 1 billion every 13 years, and the environment continues to deteriorate.

Steps toward sustainable development include using energy more efficiently; managing cities better; phasing out subsidies that encourage waste; managing water resources and protecting freshwater sources; harvesting forest products rather than destroying forests; preserving arable land and increasing food production; managing coastal zones and ocean fisheries; protecting biodiversity hotspots; adopting a climate change convention among nations and stabilizing population through good quality family planning services.
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Growth in World Population Threatens Environment

The world population has grown tremendously over the past two thousand years. In 1999, the world population passed the six billion mark. This growth is due to the agricultural and industrial revolutions that decreased childhood mortality rates and increased life expectancies.

Current projections show a steady decline in the population growth rate, with the population expected to peak at around 9 billion between the year 2040 and 2050. The growth rate peaked at 2.2% in 1963 and annual births peaked at 163 million in the late 1990s.

Current estimates by the United States Census Bureau put the global population at 6,854,901,988. The CIA Factbook estimates that as of 2009, 220,980 people where being born every day.

The rapid increase in human population over the course of the 20th century has raised concerns about overpopulation. The scientific consensus is that the current population expansion and accompanying increase in usage of resources are linked to threats to the ecosystem, including rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global warming, and pollution.

Asia accounts for over 60% of the world population with almost 3.8 billion people. China and India together have about 40 percent of the world's population. Africa follows with 840 million people, 12% of the world's population. Europe's 710 million people make up 11% of the world's population. North America is home to 514 million (8%), South America to 371 million (5.3%), and Australia to 21 million (0.3%).

The list below shows past world population data back to the year one and future world population projections through the year 2050.

World Population Growth

Year 1: Population 200 million
Year 1000: Population 275 million
Year 1500: Population 450 million
Year 1650: Population 500 million
Year 1750: Population 700 million
Year 1804: Population 1 billion
Year 1850: Population 1.2 billion
Year 1900: Population 1.6 billion
Year 1927: Population 2 billion
Year 1950: Population 2.55 billion
Year 1955: Population 2.8 billion
Year 1960: Population 3 billion
Year 1965: Population 3.3 billion
Year 1970: Population Year 3.7 billion
Year 1975: Population 4 billion
Year 1980: Population 4.5 billion
Year 1985: Population 4.85 billion
Year 1990: Population 5.3 billion
Year 1995: Population 5.7 billion
Year 1999: Population 6 billion
Year 2006: Population 6.5 billion
Year 2009: Population 6.8 billion
Year 2011: Population 7 billion
Year 2025: Population 8 billion
Year 2050: Population 9.4 billion
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