Author: thermodynamicsenvgroup2

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know about the late great California drought that has been going on for the past few years. California has been undergoing a drought for the past few years because the snow caps that are usually formed during the winter time are not forming, the amount of water that is generated during summer is drastically less. This is due to a few reasons, for one, the amount of snow/rain that is occurring in winter is drastically lower than in normal years, and on top of that the temperature during winter has been skyrocketing and reaching new highs.

The effect of the lack of snow caps is causing the water reservoir to be lower than it should be forcing California to have to resort to utilizing their groundwater resources which is being depleted quickly. Not only that, but what many people fail to realize that the bulk of the water that is being taken from these reservoirs are not even being used for the people; in fact, the water from these reservoirs are being taken and used for agriculture and watering the greenery in the otherwise dead and desert-like areas of California.

However, what a lot of people seem to not pinpoint, is that California’s population has increased heavily. the overall population of California is close to 40 million now. That increase in population means that there needs to be more water now so people can drink, to bathe in, and even to use as wastewater. The population increase since the 1950s has been 30 million, which means there is so many more people to account for. Additionally, the people live in spread out areas towards the coast causing the water to be transported all around the state making the amount of water staying in reservoirs to be significantly lower. Additionally, the crops that are produced in California have to be increased in quantity to account for the immense population of people residing in California; not to mention that the crops grown in California are water intensive plants.

Maybe California’s drought issue brings forth an underlying issue that people seem to forgo: the concentration of people residing in this state is the real reason why the water shortage is as big of a deal as it is and the climate change may not be the biggest issue at hand.

Think of the human population as a being analogous to a population of rats. When healthy rats are provided with enough resources, they will continue to reproduce. Now think they were confined to a certain amount of space, a large cage perhaps. It is safe to say that there will be critical density within the cage where resources runs short and the space may become overcrowded. In this case war breaks out. Humans can be said to act the same way.

Studies show that population growth in the Middle East seems to be complimentary to the evolution in terrorism. Terrorism thrives in specific cultural areas with high growth rates of the population, combined with the collectively degraded identity factors for those people. This is usually accompanied with low socioeconomic development. Coupled with environmental degradation these factors host acts of cultural deviance, frustration, and anger or resentment with individuals, hence snowballing into terrorism.

Though many factors lead up to acts of terrorism, fighting overpopulation may be a sufficient enough tactic to thwart future attacks. Slowing overpopulation would mean that resources wouldn’t be depleted so that people have to fight over them. The environment would be in a more stable condition and can have a positive impact on urban societies that face these issues. These simple yet life changing factors could really turn the future for human kind towards a hopeful prospect.

With the close link between economic growth and energy consumption, the rise in rapid urbanization in most countries has allowed the amount of annual global energy use to increase as well. From a 2010 survey by the International Energy Agency, urban areas are responsible for 70% of global energy-related carbon emissions, a figure that will continue to rise as the trend of urbanization continues. The issue of carbon emissions is tied with the misuse of energy in households and the extensive use of fossil fuels to meet these demands. 

In the U.S. petroleum, natural gas and coal have provided more than 80% of their total energy usage. With renewable energy sources only supplying a mere 10% of it. These figures can be applied to a majority of countries worldwide, with some relying almost all on fossil fuels. The abundance of fossil-fuel power plants has led to the total release of 10,000 million metric tons since the 1900s. With the rise in the number of urbanized cities, these numbers will continue to exponential rise. A 2013 report from the Global Carbon Project found that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have reached their highest level in human history.

In order to help reduce our usage in energy we need to address our mismanagement in energy usage. On average nearly 61% of the energy that flows through the U.S. economy is wasted. This inefficiency is the result of poor household practices – leaving lights on when not in use, leaving unused electronics plugged in, etc. However, since the cooling and heating of houses account for half of the energy consumption in a household, poor insulation is another major factor that may people don’t consider. Also replacing old appliances and bulbs with new energy efficient ones, provide a significant amount of energy and cost savings for the average family. So until we minimize the energy we waste at home, the cost of urbanization might be at the risk of destroying the environment around us.

Throughout the world there are a myriad of debates on abortion, but in developed societies, one idea behind abortion is clear: forced abortions is an attack on human rights and is unacceptable. In China, however, abortion laws have been implemented since the 1970s. Due to a significant rise in population that China was undergoing at the time, the government had decided that the best course of action to limit the population growth was by creating a policy where each family was only allowed to bear one child.

The one-child policy was ruthless, with the hammer weighing heaviest in cities. China would attempt to enforce each family to have one child and would reward families that adhered to these rules with financial and economic incentives through jobs, and on the flip side, to families that did not adhere to these rules, they would be punished. Sometimes, drastic measures would be taken and China would force abortions and force many women to become sterilized as well.

From the outside, one may think that despite all of its flaws, the one-child policy can be considered a success. While that may seem to be true, there were some significant consequences as well. For one, China’s population skewed to more males overall. This was a direct consequence from the one-child policy because in Asian society, the male carries on the name of the family and is expected to take care of the parents when they become older as well as take over property. Due to Asian/Chinese culture putting so much more weight on males, Chinese parents would only want their one child to be a male and would forgo their daughters and set them up for adoption or just straight up abandon the daughters. Another significant consequence of this policy was creating a significant age gap. The vast majority of the population that was born pre-child policy laws started to become much older and the one-child policy caused the younger population to be much fewer in comparison to the older population and cause the workforce to shrink.

Fast forward to more recent times, in 2015, China finally abolished their one-child policy and instead picked up a slightly more lenient two-child policy. Despite the creation of this policy, China still would enforce forced sterilizations (of mainly women I may add) and abortions. Many people would try to go in hiding if they broke the policy because China would come check up on families every two months and would force any families with two kids already to force an abortion if a third was on the way.

All of these policies were created to tackle overpopulation. Overpopulation has changed the dynamic of China for decades. China cut its population growth significantly from these policies but at what cost? Forcing families to carry out abortions, traumatizing their own people solely so they don’t diminish all of their resources is inhumane and is why the issue of overpopulation is as big as it is.

The meat industry has become and will maintain to be a very prominent business in countries worldwide. As there are more people in the world, the demand for meat will continue to grow. This sparks concern for environmentalists, as studies have shown that this industry has a significant impact on the environment. The problem lies within the lack of efficiency for farmers to produce meat from animals. It is estimated that nearly 75-90% of the energy consumed by livestock are lost and only a fraction of the remaining energy is used for growth in mass. Being such a large industry, this means that it’s increasingly taxing for natural resources to maintain its current production rates. In America, the average person will consume 122kg of meat each year. With a population of 300 million  that is nearly, theoretically, 36 billion kg of meat consumed each year in America alone. As you see the demand for meat is high.

With an annual production of 285 million tons of meat produced each year, a staggering 1.3 billion tons of grain are needed to reach these production values. An average cow consumes about 75 to 300 kg of dry matter to produce only one kg of protein. In areas where feed is of lower quality, cows may consume nearly 10 times more to produce the same amount of protein. This lack in efficiency translates to the production of nearly 1,000 kg of carbon for each kg of meat in areas such as Ethiopia and Somalia, from the methane produced by manure and through the reduction of carbon absorption as the result of converted forests to pastureland. This does not even consider the amount resources that are needed to grow the feed, which accounts for more than 15,000 liters of water used per kilogram of feed.  Unless more efficient methods are implemented, this industry  would continue to be the industry that places the heaviest strain in the availability of our natural resources.

With plastic being such a cheap and versatile material, it plays a crucial part in our economy. It is used everywhere from food packaging to electronics to the insulation in our homes, the fact of the matter is that plastic is used everywhere. Despite the qualities of the material, its trade-off brings a concern to the environment around us. With plastic being made from in-organic compounds, it can take nearly 1000 years for this material to break down. Thus, leaving a plastic footprint that would eventually find its way to the ecosystems around us.

In a recent study, it was found that the annual global production of plastic was at 270 million tonnes. Out of that value only ten percent is recycled, the rest is either trashed and left to rot in landfills or littered across the world. With an exponential rising population, projected to reach 9.8 billion people by 2050, the demand for plastic products will rise with it as well. From 1950 to 2015, an estimated 4600 million tonnes of primary plastics went to landfills or were discarded.

A majority of the discarded plastics are found to be at high risk in entering our oceans through wind of tidal transport. With the immense amount of plastic discarded yearly, aquatic habitats are being destroyed by the buildup of plastic within the regions. The estimated 5 trillion plastic particles, have affected these regions by allowing animals to unintentionally ingest these particles, causing a host of health issues from energy depletion, inhibited growth, to fertility impacts. However, another issue that has risen was the issue of entanglement from larger particles. Plastics from packaging, ropes, netting and fish gear have affected at least 344 species to date. Often unless these animals are helped by humans, they die from their limited range of motion due to their inability to untangle themselves. 

Unless we seek better alternatives to plastic or improve our waste management systems, we will continue to see an exponential rise in our plastic footprint. With the documented effects of plastic in our environment, it has given us a view on the destruction that it has caused and what it will continue to do without us reducing our use in plastics. 

It is very well known that India is one of the most overpopulated countries in the world. India currently stands at a population of 1.33 billion people and rising. In fact, predictions show that in 2022 India will bypass China to become the most populous country in the world. In India overpopulation has depleted reserves of natural resources, caused social and religious turmoil, and has lowered the quality of life to the point where getting a seat on a train resembles war.

Many solutions have been proposed in trying to slow the India population growth. Adopting China’s one-child policy has always been in conversation but for those who don’t know, this policy ultimately failed. Imposing one child per couple created a large gender imbalance with the female population increasing significantly. This only leads the possibility of more births since there would be more mothers. Forced sterilization has been discussed in the past despite its lack of ethical value. In 1976 during a period known as the “Emergency,” a movement was started by Indira Ghandi towards sterilizing the population, which produced a total of ten million sterilizations! It is reported that few were forced and many people were compelled to get sterilized. Unfortunately, despite the massive movement there was no noticeable change in population growth thereafter. Even so, it is a human right for people to decide how many children they have, and government policy likely wouldn’t hold very well in modern India.

Rather, activists point towards education and healthcare. Many are pushing to increase literacy rates and decrease fertility rates down to a manageable 2.2 babies per mother. Kerala is a state in India that has a literacy rate near 100% and a fertility rate of 1.6, which directly shows the correlation between the two. In contrast Madhya Pradesh has an average literacy rate of 65% and a corresponding fertility rate of 3.4. With greater knowledge and educated youth will come a refrain from having children so young and having so many. Now it becomes a political battle to fight for funding for education in India as it has decreased from 4.57% of total budget in the past 5 years. This one change seems to be the best defense towards overpopulation in India right now.

With an increasing rise in the amount of industries within our society, air pollution has become a main concern with the byproducts that these factories release into the atmosphere. In industrialized regions such as China, the lack of regulation within the industry has allowed factories to release a harmful amount of toxins into the regions surrounding them. A recent report found air pollution to be the leading cause of nearly one million deaths and the reduction in over 20 million tons of crop output within the country.

These issues are driven by the release of fine pollution particles such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and aerosols. When inhaled, these particles become lodged in the blood vessels within the lungs and can cause lung disease or heart attacks over time. With China’s level of 48 micrograms of pollutants per cubic meter of air, double of the world’s average of 19 micrograms, people there are inhaling twice as much pollutants as they are in other countries. This is a concern, as more countries expand their industries, more places will suffer from the air quality that people in China have been going through.

However, it will also contribute to the rise of carbon dioxide within the atmosphere, causing a rise in global temperatures and effecting ecosystems worldwide.  The effects of climate change have already been evident throughout the years, rising temperatures has led many species of animals to the brink of endangerment. These species are unable to quickly adapt to the onset of change on the environment around them, because of this researchers are worried that these populations will slowly die out over time, unless we change.

Some of the known harmful effects of overpopulation include global poverty, virgin forests being depleted, climate change, and in some areas increased terrorism and conflict. Studies show that a good way to reduce these effects in the next century, especially carbon emissions causing climate change, is to suppress population growth today. 

Family panning has proven to work. Women in India once averaged having 6 children I 1950, and now that is down to 2. Mexican women averaged 7 children in the year 1965 which is now reduced to 2.2. These are major countries with large economic and climatic contributions so this is a great advance, but not all counties have followed this trend. Women in Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Somalia, and Uganda all still average about 6 or more children per woman, as reported by the U.N. In fact, there are women in many areas that have never even heard of birth control. The Guttmacher Institute conducted a study reporting estimates of 215 million women want to avoid getting pregnant but have no access to contraception.

Possible solutions to these problems are not limited to condoms, birth control pills, and IUD’s alone. Increased education for women globally would decrease the amount of births, since educated women are more likely to have fewer children. Also eliminating child marriages would be a major progression for global family planning so that young girls aren’t convinced into starting large families without knowing any better. Amid the constant war over abortion laws, it must be considered that contraception prevents 112 million abortions a year, per the U.N., and is definitely a working solution to slowing the population growth in general.

Overpopulation has had a growing impact on global agriculture. ¼ of a million people are added to the net global population every day that currently sits at 7.7 billion. Due to increasing demand for land development, stocks of natural resources that support the food and energy industries are being polluted, degraded and depleted. As per capita, crop land has fallen by more than half of its original amount since 1960. Grains account for nearly 80% of the food industry production which have also seen decreases in land per capita. Simply put, increases in food production, per hectare of land, has not kept pace with increases in population.  The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization reports that though grain yields are increasing in both developing and developed areas, this rate of increase is slowing down, from a rate of 3% between 1950-1980 down to 1% since.

99.7% of human food is from terrestrial environments and only 0.03% aquatic. Of the 13 million hectare of land in the world, 11% of that land is dedicated to crop land and another 27% to pastureland. These numbers are decreasing since economic activity has centered focus on transportation and the development of urban structures. In 1960 at a world population of 3 billion people, 0.5 hectare of cropland was available per capita and is now down to 0.23. China’s low rate of 0.08 hectare of cropland per capita forces the population to have a predominantly vegetarian diet, and hints towards the fact that that China is exceeding the limits of their agricultural system. China also imports a lot for grain from the U.S. which is often produced and transported via harmful fossil fuels.

Decline in cropland rates also the result of degrading soils causing agriculturalists to abandon their lands. The International Food Policy Research Institute conducted a study that found 10 million hectares are abandoned due to soil erosion. Another 10 million are lost due to salinization due to improper irrigation and drainage methods. In turn, the demand for crop land then accounts for 60% of deforestation.

Solutions have been proposed; some crops can be grown under artificial conditions using hydroponic techniques, but these techniques have been proven to be very costly (nearly 10 times more than conventional methods) and highly unsustainable.