Overpopulation on Earth | Teen Ink

Overpopulation on Earth

September 14, 2017
By Anonymous

In the early 1960’s the population hit the three-billion-mark, which was crazy. Three billion people, try to imagine that amount of people in one place. Then imagine six billion people in the same place, which was the world population in 1999. According to Shanghai Statistics, the current biggest city in the world is Shanghai in China. It hosts about 25 million people on a 6,340-square kilometer surface, totaling in about 4000 people per square kilometers. Now take the current world population which is about 7.5 billion people, yes 7.5 billion people, and divide it by 25 million people, and you would have about 300 Shanghai’s. The landmass would total up to the entirety of Mexico, populated as densely as the city of Shanghai. That’s crazy.
      

Right now, about four babies are born every second, and nearly two people pass away every second. That’s right, twice as many people are being born as there are people dying. That’s why the world is overflowing with people, everyone in third world countries are getting three, four even eight children, and they are the leading contributors to this over population.
       

So, how do we slow down the population explosion? In some countries like China, they have imposed laws that make it illegal to have more than one child, attempting to decrease their huge population. Of course, there was a loophole, being that if you had enough money, you could have multiple kids. This prevented the lower class of China to legally have more than one child. China is notoriously known for being sexist and misogynistic. The only way for their family name or family business to carry on, is if they have a son. So, when poor Chinese people had a daughter, they would kill their child and try again, hoping to get a son to carry their name into future generations. A couple of years later this idea backfired, when there was a huge lack of girls for the guys to marry, and there were barely any children being born, so the population decreased, and continues to do so. On the one hand, this was a great idea to decrease their population. On the other hand, this was horribly executed due to the Chinese traditions of business and marriage.
         

Many people believe that, earth is the only habitable location for humans. I do not agree with that. Just as when the British population was exploding and the living conditions were poor back in the 1600s, they migrated to America, in search of a better life. Unfortunately, we have run out of continents on this planet, so where can humanity migrate to now? Mars. The new frontier. Space colonization is just like normal colonization, without native Martians, hopefully. Moving out from the earth is the only one true answer to overpopulation in my opinion.
         

At the same time that I believe, Mars is the solution, I also believe, that it is a huge risk, that is very unnecessary at this moment. Fortunately for us, overpopulation is not that big of a deal yet, but it is on the rise, and needs to be taken into consideration at all times.



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