Introduction
The increase of human population is a grave issue that is growing by shocking geometric progression. Each day, about two hundred thousand people die but in the contrary, about four hundred and fifty thousand others are born (Jones, Schoonbroodt & Tertilt, 2011). Indeed, this indicates that there are about two hundred and fifty thousand new people to feed each coming day. However, it is very hard to support infinite population growth on a finite planet; resources are becoming scare with each coming day. In this regard, a debate has come up, which rotates around two basic questions: whether an increased population is bad or good for welfare and human development and how the growth of the population responds to the shifting economic conditions (Jones, Schoonbroodt & Tertilt, 2011). In the course of the last century, economists handled such issues as distinctive subjects, directing the first problem in the welfare or resource economics realm and dealing with the second within the context of the fertility theories. However, it is increasingly clear that minimal progress can be realized without handling both issues simultaneously: undertaking the assessment of economic consequences of the increasing population calls for the consideration of feedback effects of tighter scarcity of resources on fertility. However, although the human population increasing at a very rapid rate and putting much pressure on the available resource taking appropriate measures such as using suitable technologies to increase food production will help to sustain human existence on the planet (Peretto, 2002).
Population Growth and Resources
Indeed, such recognition serves as the cause of double strands of the recent literature. The first strand is the “Unified Growth Theory”, which refers to a model that exploits the current day tools for dynamic analysis to offer constant explanations of historical development phases, starting from “Malthusian Stagnation” to the present day system of sustained increase in per capita incomes (Galor & Weil, 2011). Indeed, the “Unified Growth Theory” model’s two building blocks are the endogenous fertility as well as the assumption that consumer products are produced by using natural resources, mainly land, and human capital (Madsen, 2008). In this regard, such structure gives a highlight of the core mechanism behind the environment-economy interactions: the growth of population has an effect on the scarcity of natural resources as well as labor productivity, and at the same time, income dynamics stimulate feedback effects on fertility, which deter the growth of population in the future.
The interaction between population and resources is studied in the literature about bio-economic systems that looks for ways to offer an explanation to increasing and falling of civilization. Indeed, such contributions draw clear connections between the population dynamics and the biological regeneration laws, which control resource availability. People work in a closed system and the stock of resources follows a particular logistic process that directly impacts harvesting choices. The relationship between the biological laws and population growth creates rich dynamics, encompassing “feast-famine equilibrium paths and/or environmental crises that eventually drive human society to extinction” (Taylor 2009, p. 1240). Indeed, the biological frameworks have been regulated to facilitate replication of the decline of the Easter Island as well as other similar historical episodes” (Good and Reuveny, 2009). Moreover, a number of authors have presented an argument that the economy of the Easter Island and served to extend the model to encompass manufactured gods, deliberate capital bequests as well as endogenous technological changes (Harford, 2000).
It is reported that the carrying capacity of the planet during the prehistoric times was possibly not more than one hundred million people (The Olympian, 2014). However, in the absence of their prehistoric technologies as well as their ways of living, the number would possibly be far much less. The coming up of agriculture made it possible the population to increase more calling for having more practices that involved intensive use of land. During their peak, the agricultural practice might have served to sustain 3 billion human beings in poverty on a nearly vegetarian diet.
At the present, the total number of people on earth is estimated at about seven billion (Ellis, 2013). However, with the present day industrial technologies, the FAO of the UN has made estimates that the over 9 billion individual that are expected to inhabit the earth by 2050 while the population approaches its peak could be supported provided that the essential investments in the infrastructure and favorable trade, food security and anti-poverty policies are implemented. According The Olympian (2014), human beings are currently utilizing the earth’s resources up to almost two times faster than what the plan can actually regenerate. It is projected that this will go up by three times faster in the course of the mid-twentieth century. Indeed, this means that, human beings are slowly but unavoidably obliterating the ability of the plant to sustain human beings and other living things. Being living things that have determination to live for the current day, human beings are blindly working toward a future that is bleak, which has severe competition for primary resources including water and food. Among the scientists, there are those who make predictions that there will be an ecological collapse before approaching the United Nations population projection in 2050. However, according The Olympian (2014), in order for human beings to have a chance to survive in the long-run, there is a need to do two main things. The first thing is to ensure stabilization of world population and the wealthier, developed nations have to consumer less nature resources, although this will not be easy. Indeed, in order to accommodate population growth in the consumption of resources among the developing countries, which have in the course of history experienced extreme poverty and hunger, individuals from the wealthier nations including the United States of America have to consume less (The Olympian 2014).
According to Ellis (2013), it was only after a long period of research in the agriculture ecology in China that a point was reached why observations compelled researchers to see beyond the biologist’s blinders. Incapable of giving an explanation to how populations increased for thousands of years while raising the productivity levels of the same land, the researchers made a discovery that population growth has a tendency of overrunning food supply. Easter Boserup, an agricultural economist, offered theories that considered population growth as a driver of the productivity of land gave explanation to the data gathered in ways Malthus could never have done (Ellis, 2013).
Indeed, the human sustenance science is intrinsically a social science. Certainly, neither chemistry nor physics, nor even biology is sufficient to comprehend the way it has been possible for a single species to engage in the reshaping of its own destiny as well as future of a whole planet. In this regard, this is “a science of the Anthroposcene” (Ellis, 2013). The notion that humans have to survive within the limits of the natural environment of earth does not accept the realities of the whole of the human history, and possibly the future; human beings are indeed niche creators. In this regard, they change ecosystems in order to be able to sustain themselves. The earth’s human-carrying capacity emanates from the human abilities of the social systems as well as the technologies more than from any limits of the environment.
It is reported that, about two millenniums ago, human beings started out this path and the earth will never remain the same again (Ellis, 2013). Now is an opportune time for individual to stand up to take measure, the technological and social systems, which sustain human beings need to be improved. In essence, there is no valid environmental reason for human being to go without food in the current day or even in the future. Certainly, it is needless to utilize any additional land with an intention of sustaining humanity; increasing the productivity of land by utilizing technologies can promote international food supplies and there can be even some surplus. In this regard, this ought to be an objective that is more possible and more popular than ever before.
Conclusion
It has been established in this research that, although the human population increasing at a very rapid rate and putting much pressure on the available resource taking appropriate measures such as using suitable technologies to increase food production will help to sustain human existence on the planet. The current increase of human population is a grave issue that is growing by shocking geometric progression. Each day, about two hundred thousand people die but in the contrary, about four hundred and fifty thousand others are born. Indeed, this indicates that there are about two hundred and fifty thousand new people to feed each coming day. However, it is a quite task to support infinite population growth on a finite planet; resources are becoming scare with each coming day. It has been established that, for human beings to have a chance to survive in the long-run, there is a need to do two main things. The first thing is to ensure stabilization of world population and the wealthier, developed nations have to consumer less nature resources, although this will not be easy. Indeed, in order to accommodate population growth in the consumption of resources among the developing countries, which have in the course of history experienced extreme poverty and hunger, individuals from the wealthier nations including the United States of America have to consume less.
The belief that humans have to survive within the limits of the natural environment of earth does not accept the realities of the whole of the human history, and possibly the future; human beings are indeed niche creators. In this regard, they change ecosystems in order to be able to sustain themselves. The earth’s human-carrying capacity emanates from the human abilities of the social systems as well as the technologies more than from any limits of the environment. Now is actually the right time for human beings to jointly stand up to take measure, the technological and social systems, which sustain human beings need to be improved. In essence, there is no valid environmental reason for human being to go without food in the current day or even in the future. Certainly, it is needless to utilize any additional land with an intention of sustaining humanity; increasing the productivity of land by utilizing technologies can promote international food supplies and there can be even some surplus.
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