Sci 275 - Mitigation Strategies and Solutions

Mitigation Strategies and Solutions

SCI/275

Mitigation Strategies and Solutions

Human Population

The world population in 2007 was 6.6 billion, jumping up from 6.1 billion in 2000 and it is projected to rise to 9.3 billion by 2050. Exactly these specific numbers indicate a major problem for humankind and the environment. The human population holds the responsibility of negatively influencing all the important environmental issues such as atmospheric pollution, water resources, terrestrial resources and energy conservation. Therefore, in order to fix one problem after another, the root of these problems needs to be addressed first (Population reference Bureau, 2007).

Problem

Four factors come into play and are responsible for the steady increasing population on this planet and they are birth rate, death rate, immigration and emigration. The Global Growth Rate (2008) stated, "Every minute we are adding 140 more people to the world, over 200,000 more every day, over 70 million more every year." These numbers are staggering because as the population increases, the problems of food production, water supply, energy production, and environmental destruction become more important.

Contributing Factors

Negative human impacts

Food production plays an important aspect of overpopulation when trying to meet all the consumption needs. As omnivores, human beings consume almost anything regardless of the consequences; therefore animal-based food production is a cause of most major environmental problems like global warming and air pollution. "The livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent, 18 percent more than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation," (Matthews, 2006). On top of that there is the transportation of produce that is still done by air, which uses the most fuel, or by land and sea, which uses less fuel, causing additional greenhouse gases. Furthermore, there is the land that is abused for much less important things such as building new tobacco plantations. For example, the forests that are being cleared out can lead to soil degradation and failing yields. The pesticides that run-off from the plants is released into the groundwater that we drink. Not to mention the trash that is created afterwards by the filters of the cigarettes that can cause over 500,000 tones of pollution per year (McLaren, 2005).

Water supply is a resource that without it, the human population cannot survive. Water is needed to meet many basic needs such as drinking but is also required for agriculture, manufacturing, mining, energy production, and waste disposal. However, the technologies that are being used are not up-to-date, too expensive or are wasteful. The traditional irrigation methods flood the lands by where only 40% of the water is absorbed by the plants, leaving the rest to evaporate. Additionally, this being a renewable source, it is already becoming almost impossible to meet the increasing demands given the future prospect that by 2025 many people will live in areas where there is not enough fresh water for drinking and irrigation (Berg and Hager, 2007).

As much as humanity depends on water to survive, it depends on energy to function and everything that is done requires energy. Almost everybody uses some form of transportation, heats or cools his or her home, cooks, uses lights and needs hot water to wash their laundry or to take a shower. Therefore, the energy production is very important, however as the population is increasing so is the energy consumption. Unfortunately, for right now, coal, gas and oil continue to be essential for most people and dominate the energy sources, which are producing more CO2 that contributes to air pollution and the warming of our planet's climate. In addition, these are nonrenewable resources and with the future prospect that the population will increase to 9.3 billion by 2050, it will be most likely that these resources cannot support humanity's needs and will, most likely run out (Berg and Hager, 2007).

Environmental destruction usually includes human interaction and is due to more humans populating this earth overusing the capacities provided throughout the environment such as places to live, land for agriculture and groundwater. Therefore, urbanization is definitely one major problem that leads to their destruction. The rapid growth of urbanization has many different aspects and involves many economic, environmental and social structures and when developed inefficiently causes massive production, consumption and massive wastes (Berg and Hager, 2007).

Therefore, this just shows that everything is connected to each other and that no matter what humankind does, it has and will have an effect on the environment. Humanity has the control and is the cause of most major problems that hurt the environment therefore, more detailed research needs to be done that involves everybody trying to reach sustainability.

Sustainability Plan

Table 1

Action Items Action Steps Timeline

Identifying the effects the human population and overpopulation has on the environment. Reviewing environmental magazines, websites and journals, documenting specific problems that involve and are caused by humans. Gathering the information for a power point presentation 1-2 months

Developing strategies that will help to resolve and minimize the major causes that hurt the environment and include human responsibility Providing direct facts that hurt the environment by the more increasing population, providing the aspect of it and what will happen if the population will increase up and over 9 billion by 2025. 2-4 months

Contacting local organizations, congress personal and U.S. Senators Writing letters with questions and asking to help and provide more support for population stabilization.

Looking for a local place to represent the presentation and trying to find a specific time that will allow the local congressperson to attend. 4 months

Looking for more support throughout certain organizations and asking for financial support that will help in developing new programs. Get in touch with organizations such as Center for Ecosystem Survival, Global Resource Action