The Earth’s population has reached 6.3 billion as of July 2003 (US Census Bureau). It will increase this decade by another billion, seen as the fastest growing in history (Population Connection 2003). As stated on a website from the University of California Irvine, every second, three people are added to the world; every day a quarter of a million people is added. D

uring the coming decade the increased population of one billion people is the equivalent of adding an extra China to the world’s population (Population Connection 2003). A recent joint statement by the US National Academy of Sciences and the British Royal Society finds that the population is growing at a rate that will lead to doubling by 2050. The U.N. predicts we’ll stabilize somewhere between 9 and 14 billion people by 2100.

One controversial issue with the growing human population is the impact that it will have on the environment. On one side of the debate, people see Earth’s natural resources and systems, and its human population inherently connected. As Roger-Mark De Souza states in his essay, Population, Health, and the Environment, the fundamental relationships between population and resources are fairly easy to grasp: People rely on food, air, and water for life. Earth provides energy and raw materials for human activities, in turn, affect the resources and ecosystems. Pollution and damage to those environmental goods adversely affect people’s health and well-being. Garrett Hardin argues in his essay, “Is more always better?”, that with human overpopulation our resources will deplete to levels that will no longer be able to sustain our needs. Our Earth’s resources are finite and if we continue to use them as we are, we will run out. As a counterpoint to this projection, Julian L. Simon states that “There is littl

Some topics in this essay:
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