How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth? Flashcards
- Give some examples of how quickly the world’s population is growing.
more than 2 people every second, 200,000 people every day
- What are some of the issues we are facing as our population continues to grow?
food, water
- What is one factor in every environmental problem that has been studied?
human density
- Not only the natural environment is threatened by population growth but it also threatens…
inequality and human suffering
- The UN estimates that by the mid Century the World’s population is expected to be?
9 billion
- The majority of this growth is not caused by people having large families. What is causing it?
a lot of teenager so a lot of babies in the future
- Where will populations shrink?
Japan, russia, germany, Eastern Europe
- How was human population kept in check historically?
by nature like animals
- What allowed the rapid growth since 1800 when we reached 1 billion people?
reduction of the death rate and the control of diseases
- Which resource is perhaps strained the most as we continue to grow?
food
- How much (%) of the earth’s available freshwater supply to humans appropriate?
2.5% and 1% available
- What uses do we appropriate this water for?
energy, built cities and food
- How many people already lack access to safe drinking water? In the coming years how much of the World’s population will live in water stressed areas?
1 billion and in coming years 1/2 of world pop
- What are some of the causes? ( of people missing water )
poor infrastructure, politics, poverty, and the environment
- What two uses consume the most water at the global scale?
industry and agriculture
- How much water does it take to make one cup of coffee? A bottle of beer? A cotton shirt?
coffee: 110L, beer:150L, cotton shirt: 3000L
- How will we double the amount of food we currently produce. Why is this approach necessary?
technology and increase productivity
- How have we done this in the past?( increase technology and productivity for more food supply )
technology
- How are the richest countries assuring their own future food security?
buy land from the poorest
- What region of the world is particularly popular with countries looking for agricultural land. Why is this problematic?
unpopulated and unagricultured areas of land. it is not profitable for the local
- How might the Rwandan conflict and genocide be partially attributed to resource shortages?
people didn’t have enough land to eat so they killed in the hope of having more
- Energy demand is expected to grow by how much over the next 2 decades?
40%
- What has cheap energy allowed us to do?
appropriated the earth to our needs without paying attention to the bad
- What are some of the examples of the damage that has been caused? ( cause by cheap energy )
10% of coral leaf degradation, 70% of all plant and animal threat of extinction
- What is carrying capacity? How is it calculated? Is it static or flexible?
calculation that say how many can a environment support. its total productivity of the earth divided by the population
- How much land is there for each living person, according to William Reese?
2 global hector each
- How many people can the earth support if we all consumed at the same rate as the average person in Indian? Rwanda? United States?
india: 15 billion, Rwanda: 18 billion, USA: 1 and a half billion
- What is overshoot?
consumption is more than the capacity of the planet ( when human demand exceeds the regenerative capacity of a natural ecosystem. )
- We need the earth to not only provide resources, but to also
take our waste
- Our current way of life requires ________ earths to support it.
1 and a half earth
- What is the implication for those of us living here in the developed world?
give up consumption
- What are the three ways we can reduce our impact on the environment?
stop consumption, change technology, reduce growth of population
- What is the current fertility rate in Kerala?
1.5
- What conditions have led to Kerala’s success in stabilizing the population?
education of women, they chose less children because they more educated, they also had less time to make big families because more education
- How did China manage to slow its population growth?
1 child policy
- What simple piece of medical technology is required for reaching population sustainability?
contraception
- What some of the glimmers of hope on the population front?
we saw the problem and we do something about it
- The number of people on the planet in the future depends on…
personal decisions
