What are the possible solutions to population growth?

Actions on the national level

• Generously fund family planning programs.
• Make modern contraception legal, free and available everywhere, even in remote areas.
• Improve health care to reduce infant and child mortality.
• Restrict child marriage and raise the legal age of marriage (minimum 18 years)

How does this increase in population affect the natural resources that maintain humans?

Generally speaking, as the human population grows, our consumption of natural resources increases. More humans consume more freshwater, more land, more clothing, etc. For example, natural gas plants have become increasingly more efficient, thus humans are able to obtain more energy out of the same amount of gas.

What is global carrying capacity?

Carrying capacity can be defined as a species’ average population size in a particular habitat. The species population size is limited by environmental factors like adequate food, shelter, water, and mates. If these needs are not met, the population will decrease until the resource rebounds.

What will happen if human activities in an area exceed the carrying capacity of the specific area?

In a population at its carrying capacity, there are as many organisms of that species as the habitat can support. If resources are being used faster than they are being replenished, then the species has exceeded its carrying capacity. If this occurs, the population will then decrease in size.

How does the growing population affect our environment?

2 Population is growing rapidly, far outpacing the ability of our planet to support it, given current practices. Overpopulation is associated with negative environmental and economic outcomes ranging from the impacts of over-farming, deforestation, and water pollution to eutrophication and global warming.

How has the growth of world population affected the environment?

More people require more resources, which means that as the population increases, the Earth’s resources deplete more rapidly. The result of this depletion is deforestation and loss of biodiversity as humans strip the Earth of resources to accommodate rising population numbers.