Causes and Effects of Overpopulation
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The Population Explosion: Causes and Consequences by Carolyn Kinder Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute (2012)
Until recently, birth rates and death rates were about the same, keeping the population stable. People had many children, but a large number of them died before age five. During the Industrial Revolution, a period of history in Europe and North America where there were great advances in science and technology, the success in reducing death rates was attributable to several factors.
Food Production Distribution
The remarkable facts about the last 150 years has been the ability of farmers to increase food production geometrically in some places. Agricultural practices have improved in the United States in the last two centuries. Much of the world experi-enced agricultural success, especially in the last 50 years. Between 1950 and 1984, for example, the amount of grain harvested worldwide increased from 631 million tons to 1.65 billion tons. This represents a gain of 2.6 times at a time when the world population increased by only 1.9 times.9 The use of pesticides in LDCs, for example was expected to increased between 400 to 600% in the last 25 years of the twentieth century. 10 And world cereal production fell in 1993, according to the FAO, which predicted a food shortage in 20 countries during 1994. 12 However, most experts agree that there is no shortage of food, and that equitable distribution should be sufficient to meet all needs for the future. Lack of money to buy food is the problem of malnourishment. Pov-erty, in effect translates the world adequacy into national and local shortages. Within households, men and boys have priority for whatever food is available, while women and children, especially girl children are the first to suffer malnu-trition. Few resources are available to women, even though they are often re-sponsible the for food supply.13
Improvement in Public Health
People have concerns about surviving daily living, such as
The Population Explosion: Causes and Consequences by Carolyn Kinder Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute (2012)
Until recently, birth rates and death rates were about the same, keeping the population stable. People had many children, but a large number of them died before age five. During the Industrial Revolution, a period of history in Europe and North America where there were great advances in science and technology, the success in reducing death rates was attributable to several factors.
Food Production Distribution
The remarkable facts about the last 150 years has been the ability of farmers to increase food production geometrically in some places. Agricultural practices have improved in the United States in the last two centuries. Much of the world experi-enced agricultural success, especially in the last 50 years. Between 1950 and 1984, for example, the amount of grain harvested worldwide increased from 631 million tons to 1.65 billion tons. This represents a gain of 2.6 times at a time when the world population increased by only 1.9 times.9 The use of pesticides in LDCs, for example was expected to increased between 400 to 600% in the last 25 years of the twentieth century. 10 And world cereal production fell in 1993, according to the FAO, which predicted a food shortage in 20 countries during 1994. 12 However, most experts agree that there is no shortage of food, and that equitable distribution should be sufficient to meet all needs for the future. Lack of money to buy food is the problem of malnourishment. Pov-erty, in effect translates the world adequacy into national and local shortages. Within households, men and boys have priority for whatever food is available, while women and children, especially girl children are the first to suffer malnu-trition. Few resources are available to women, even though they are often re-sponsible the for food supply.13
Improvement in Public Health
People have concerns about surviving daily living, such as