From what overpopulation really means, to how it'll affect our planet, to what it'll
be like in 30 years, join me as we explore the overpopulation problem via 2050.
The word "overpopulation' gets thrown around quite a lot, but do you honestly understand
what it means, and what it implies?
Here is the definition of the word: "Overpopulation is an undesirable condition
where the number of existing human population exceeds the carrying capacity of Earth."
Now, this is where it gets a bit twisted.
Because many people think that "capacity of Earth" simply means that the planet cannot
contain all the people that live on it, but that's the literal definition, but not what
it means to say.
The "capacity of Earth" is rather meant to insinuate that the Earth is not able to SUPPORT
its population.
As in, the space and resources available cannot facilitate the population that we have right
now.
So because of that true definition, people think we don't have to worry about such a
thing, because while our population is without a doubt growing, it couldn't possibly be growing
at a rate that would cripple the planet, right?
Wrong, very much so wrong.
So wrong that if not fixed, by 2050, our world could be seriously screwed in all the ways
that matter.
If you're looking for a true number to prove how bad overpopulation is getting in terms
of our current situation, then let's look at the last 220 years.
You would think that given this was a roughly small period of time in the grand scheme of
things that we would have a slow building of a population.
But you would be wrong.
If you go from 1800 to 2020 you'll see a HUGE spike in the population at certain points.
Case in point, in 1800, our population was roughly 1 billion.
In 2020, there are one billion people in the countries of China AND India alone!
And as of 2019 (as the 2020 census hasn't been done at the time of this video) the Earth's
population is roughly 7.7 BILLION people!
Which means that in the course of 200+ years, we've added nearly 7 billion people to the
worlds' population.
Go humanity!
But that does beg the question, how did we go from such a small population, to such a
big one?
And will it happen to us again to where we literally can't fill the planet with the people
that we have?
Before we answer that, be sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel, that way
you don't miss any of our weekly videos!
A big thing you have to understand about the world is that we honestly go through phases
of life.
And if you look through the history of the world, you'll see exactly what I mean.
For example, in the 18th century, most civilized nations (that were "modern" at the time) weren't
ones that were exactly...booming in population.
After all, medicine was very much not a science at this point, there were all kinds of diseases
killing people, and of course, there were divides in the people.
When add all this together, what do you get?
You get a population that TRIED to grow, but couldn't because of all the various ways you
could die.
On average, women in that era would birth about 6 children, which is a very large family
in today's standards, but the fact of the matter is that only about 2 of them were projected
to actually make it into adulthood.
And in fact, that was a big reason why the population was under 1 billion by 1800.
There were people dying left and right because in many ways...we couldn't stop it, and that
didn't change for a while.
Not even with the birth of the United States in the late 1700's.
The Industrial Revolution was one of the first things to truly help change things.
It started in the 1760's and lasted until about the mid 1800's.
With that, there was a lot more working opportunities, mass production of goods that everyone could
buy, and there were slightly better medicines.
Not perfect medicines mind you, but better than what they had at the time.
Furthermore, the roles of both men and women grew, including female workers of all kinds,
which would eventually lead to them getting the equal rights they deserved, but that was
a little bit later.
The point here is that the conditions of the world grew because of the advance in technology.
There were still poor, but less than before.
And just as important, the living conditions of the world improved drastically.
Which meant that while people still died, it wasn't as big a factor in the stunting
population as before.
A great example of this was the UK.
From 1750-1850 the population of the nation went from 6 million to 15 million.
That's a multiplier of 2.5!
And all because the food, medicine, and living conditions of their world got better.
As noted, the child rate of families used to be huge because many of them weren't expected
to live.
But once they did, people started having fewer children because it was just easier to take
care of 1-2-3 kids instead of 4-5-6 children.
And thus, the population size stabilized in the UK and other nations for a while because
fewer children were being born and dying.
"But wait a minute!" you cry out, "If the population was balanced, doesn't that mean
that the world population should've only slowly grown instead of spiking like it has?"
And to an extent, yeah, you're right.
But you're forgetting some key factors.
Key among them was that during that explosion of human growth from 1750-1850 (just to give
an example) the kids that were born in that era later gave birth to their own children.
And even if they only had 2-3 kids, that's still growing.
But even then, it's a rate much slower than before.
The other thing you need to remember is that we were looking at just the UK in their growth
in population.
Now, calculate that boom in population across all the countries of the world, and certain
"growth periods" of life.
That's a lot of people being born in a period of time, and not a lot of death because of
the better conditions.
That's 195 countries (as of today) getting a much bigger population.
And then, there are events that encourage the birth of more children, like in the United
States after World War II.
The "Baby Boom" happened because men and women were tired of war and wanted to have families
to have a happier life.
Thus, many children were born, and this happened in other countries as well.
The good news is though that while we have spiked in certain areas, especially 1940-2020,
our population growth is actually...sputtering.
There are all sorts of nations across the world that have hit what we call the "4th
Stage of Development" in terms of population growth.
Thus, if you look at the last few years, we've only grown slightly in worldwide population,
and some speculate that by say 2050...we won't have growth at all.
Or, it'll be so small that it won't matter.
This is backed up by the conditions of the world, and the various organizations that
are trying to help 3rd world countries in building themselves up so that they can have
the living conditions that many modern countries have.
And some are going so far as to say that the population of the Earth will never hit certain
numbers, including 12 billion residents on one planet.
So...that's it, right?
That's the end of it, right?
Because if the population hits a stunted growth, then we can't be "at capacity" of the planet.
Thus we don't have to worry about overpopulation as a whole, right?
Wrong.
You see, while it's true that our population will never reach certain numbers, as we outlined
earlier in the video, that won't matter if our planet can't support us on the grand scale.
After all, while our population growth has stunted largely, we still have about 7.7 billion
people to care for, which means we need resources roughly for that amount of people.
And that's not easy, what's worse, because of our expansion in the world today, we're
cutting down more and more resources and not replacing them to facilitate the balance we
need in order to survive.
Let's look at the most obvious one, trees.
Trees are without a doubt one of the most important things in our world, it's not even
close at times in regards to all that they do.
On one hand, they're one of our biggest producers of oxygen, as the massive trees taken in Carbon
Dioxide and give us oxygen to breathe.
We NEED trees to live, that's undisputed.
However, trees also have bark, which is used in a wide variety of products, not the least
of which is paper.
And humanity LOVES its paper.
in fact, if you were to look around the room you're in right now, I'd bet you'd find all
sorts of paper items.
There is so much paper being printed out and made all over the world that it's taking more
and more trees to come up with the demand needed to make the products.
Now, if there was a balance going on in the world, and we would plant trees equal to the
ones we were taking, it might be ok.
But it's not, it's not even close, the deforestation of the world has been going on for some time.
Including the chopping down of the Amazon Rainforest.
You know, the biggest forest in the world today?
Not only is it being chopped down bit by bit, it's being chopped down on all sides by various
countries who "lay claim" to the land.
Eventually, that forest will be gone, and we'll have a whole new set of problems.
All because our population is so big that we can't facilitate the needs of our population.
And that's STILL only scratching the surface of the problems.
Before we get to the humanity aspect again, we need to talk about a huge side effect of
cutting down all the trees.
Mainly, the animals that live there.
The world was made with balance in mind, and ecosystems have a very fine, yet fragile,
state of living that they try and uphold.
But when massive areas of their habitat are destroyed, they have to either move to a new
location, or die.
That's why many animal species are endangered or extinct, humanity is still growing, and
thus we need more land and items, and we have to take that away from the animals.
Then there's desertification.
Where a land becomes barren, useless, and for the most part lifeless.
A forest can turn into a desert if enough factors are met.
Such as when the Sahara Desert WASN'T a desert.
There were external factors that turned it into the desert we have now.
Imagine South America with a desert the size of the Amazon Rainforest because of what we're
doing to it.
Not a pretty picture, eh?
But let's head back to humanity for a bit.
Because our overpopulation of the world is causing another problem, living space issues.
While there is a small percentage of the world that is homeless, there are just as many who
are in terrible homes or living conditions, or are going to be needing homes of their
own as they get older.
You no doubt have seen various areas near your home town or city growing as time has
gone on.
Speaking from experience, the town this writer lived in went from the population of about
a thousand to many thousand in the course of a decade because of expansion, and it's
still growing.
Eventually, we're going to need even more space to grow to facilitate the population,
and that'll lead to problems of growth in other areas.
For example, if we need more land to put buildings, we have limited options in certain cases.
Because we need land to grow food and crops, right?
So we can't take those lands else risk food shortages.
And that's where animal parks and reserves come in, many are already being taken across
the world despite laws preventing that.
And other animal habitats are being bulldozed over without issue.
Speaking of food, you might have noticed that across the world certain food items are spiking
in costs.
That's because of the fact that crops have been having a hard time growing due to various
weather factors.
Australia was just bombarded with wildfires that nearly destroyed the whole country, and
as a result, they won't be the same for a while.
California in the United States has been having similar issues.
The more this happens the more our food supply is going to be hurt, and thus, the population,
and the planet, will suffer.
As if all of that wasn't enough, we have another very dirty issue that overpopulation brings:
trash.
OUr society has been doing better as of late to try and fix the trash issue, but the fact
of the matter is that there is tons of garbage all over the world that is in landfills and
is just being stacked up higher and higher.
Add to that, there is literal islands of trash in the ocean.
Every day, more trash is just being thrown out instead of recycled, and things like plastics
can't be easily recycled to make new things.
The more our population grows, the more trashy it gets, and that hurts us as humans, that
hurts the animals of the world, and so on and so forth.
So while it's true that our population will likely never grow to the point where we have
to "abandon ship" or do a "culling event" like many sci-fi movies predict.
Our rapid growth over the last 220 years has put us in a bind that we can't ignore.
Overpopulation may not be what you think, but its impact is very real.
Thanks for watching everyone!
What do you think about this look at overpopulation, from its causes to its effects?
Do you think that drastic steps need to be applied in order to save the world?
Or do you think we'll be fine?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!