Portal:Population
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
|
Introduction
In biology, a population is all the organisms of the same group or species, which live in a particular geographical area, and have the capability of interbreeding. The area of a sexual population is the area where inter-breeding is potentially possible between any pair within the area, and where the probability of interbreeding is greater than the probability of cross-breeding with individuals from other areas.
In sociology, population refers to a collection of humans. Demography is a social science which entails the statistical study of human populations. Population in simpler terms is the number of people in a city or town, region, country or world; population is usually determined by a process called census (a process of collecting, analyzing, compiling and publishing data)
In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living, and was estimated to have reached 7.7 billion people as of November 2018. It took over 200,000 years of human history for the world's population to reach 1 billion; and only 200 years more to reach 7 billion.
World population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Great Famine of 1315–17 and the Black Death in 1350, when it was near 370 million. The highest population growth rates – global population increases above 1.8% per year – occurred between 1955 and 1975, peaking to 2.06% between 1965 and 1970. The growth rate has declined to 1.18% between 2010 and 2015 and is projected to decline further in the course of the 21st century.
Selected general articles
- Overdrafting is the process of extracting groundwater beyond the equilibrium yield of the aquifer.
There are two sets of yields, safe yield and sustainable yield. Safe yield is the amount of water that can be taken out of the ground without there being any undesirable results. Sustainable yield is extraction that takes into account both recharge rate and surface water impacts Read more...
View of suburban development in the Phoenix metropolitan area
Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl describes the expansion of human populations away from central urban areas into low-density, monofunctional and usually car-dependent communities, in a process called suburbanization. In addition to describing a particular form of urbanization, the term also relates to the social and environmental consequences associated with this development. In Continental Europe the term "peri-urbanisation" is often used to denote similar dynamics and phenomena, although the term urban sprawl is currently being used by the European Environment Agency. There is widespread disagreement about what constitutes sprawl and how to quantify it. For example, some commentators measure sprawl only with the average number of residential units per acre in a given area. But others associate it with decentralization (spread of population without a well-defined centre), discontinuity (leapfrog development, as defined below), segregation of uses, and so forth.
The term urban sprawl is highly politicized, and almost always has negative connotations. It is criticized for causing environmental degradation, and intensifying segregation and undermining the vitality of existing urban areas and attacked on aesthetic grounds. Due to the pejorative meaning of the term, few openly support urban sprawl as such. The term has become a rallying cry for managing urban growth. Read more...- Optimum population refers to the size of a population that produces the best results according to chosen end targets. One text from 1926 presented a single end target as being "...the largest per capita income of consumers' goods possible under the given conditions".
Other potential end targets in favour of lower levels of population are cited, including: long term sustainability, efficient operation of democracy, the preservation of personal freedom and the preservation of biodiversity while potential end targets in favour of higher levels of population are cited, including the abilities to preserve and foster cultural diversity, to stimulate intellectual, artistic, and technological creativity and to facilitate social infrastructure. Read more...
Logo of the Club of Rome.
The Limits to Growth (LTG) is a 1972 report on the computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth with a finite supply of resources. Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and commissioned by the Club of Rome, the findings of the study were first presented at international gatherings in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1971.:186 The report's authors are Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, representing a team of 17 researchers.:8
Since its publication, some 30 million copies of the book in 30 languages have been purchased. It continues to generate debate and has been the subject of several subsequent publications. Most recently, The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update was published on June 1, 2004. Read more...
The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices. The environmental impact of agriculture varies based on the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. Ultimately, the environmental impact depends on the production practices of the system used by farmers. The connection between emissions into the environment and the farming system is indirect, as it also depends on other climate variables such as rainfall and temperature.
There are two types of indicators of environmental impact: "means-based", which is based on the farmer's production methods, and "effect-based", which is the impact that farming methods have on the farming system or on emissions to the environment. An example of a means-based indicator would be the quality of groundwater, that is effected by the amount of nitrogen applied to the soil. An indicator reflecting the loss of nitrate to groundwater would be effect-based. The means-based evaluation looks at farmers' practices of agriculture, and the effect-based evaluation considers the actual effects of the agricultural system. For example, means-based analysis might look at pesticides and fertilization methods that farmers are using, and effect-based analysis would consider how much CO2 is being emitted or what the Nitrogen content of the soil is. Read more...
Earth's energy budget accounts for the balance between the energy Earth receives from the Sun, the energy Earth radiates back into outer space after having been distributed throughout the five components of Earth's climate system and having thus powered the so-called Earth’s heat engine. This system is made up of earth's water, ice, atmosphere, rocky crust, and all living things.
Quantifying changes in these amounts is required to accurately model the Earth's climate. Read more...
A chart of estimated annual growth rates in world population, 1800–2005. Rates before 1950 are annualized historical estimates from the US Census Bureau. Red = USCB projections to 2025
A Malthusian catastrophe (also known as Malthusian check, Malthusian spectre or Malthusian crunch) is a prediction that population growth will outpace agricultural production – that there will be too many people and not enough food. Read more...- Population Control: Real Costs, Illusory Benefits is a nonfiction book by Steven W. Mosher, first published in 2008.
Population Control is a detailed exposition on the global effort to combat overpopulation, arguing that not only population control is immoral in many cases, but that overpopulation is a myth.
Mosher was first exposed to population control policies when he visited China as an undergraduate sociologist in 1979 to conduct anthropological research. While there, he documented the implementation of China’s one child policy with forced abortions firsthand. Read more... - The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (Danish: Verdens sande tilstand, literal translation: The True State of the World) is a book by Danish environmentalist author Bjørn Lomborg, controversial for its claims that overpopulation, declining energy resources, deforestation, species loss, water shortages, certain aspects of global warming, and an assortment of other global environmental issues are unsupported by statistical analysis of the relevant data. It was first published in Danish in 1998, while the English edition was published as a work in environmental economics by Cambridge University Press in 2001.
Due to the scope of the project, comprising the range of topics addressed, the diversity of data and sources employed, and the many types of conclusions and comments advanced, The Skeptical Environmentalist does not fit easily into a particular scientific discipline or methodology. Although published by the social sciences division of Cambridge University Press, the findings and conclusions were widely challenged on the basis of natural science. This interpretation of The Skeptical Environmentalist as a work of environmental science generated much of the controversy and debate that surrounded the book. Read more... - The environmental impact of concrete, its manufacture and applications, are complex. Some effects are harmful; others welcome. Many depend on circumstances. A major component of concrete is cement, which has its own environmental and social impacts and contributes largely to those of concrete.
The cement industry is one of the primary producers of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas. Concrete causes damage to the most fertile layer of the earth, the topsoil.
Concrete is used to create hard surfaces which contribute to surface runoff that may cause soil erosion, water pollution and flooding. Conversely, concrete is one of the most powerful tools for proper flood control, by means of damming, diversion, and deflection of flood waters, mud flows, and the like.
Light-colored concrete can reduce the urban heat island effect, due to its higher albedo.
Concrete dust released by building demolition and natural disasters can be a major source of dangerous air pollution.
The presence of some substances in concrete, including useful and unwanted additives, can cause health concerns due to toxicity and radioactivity.
Wet concrete is highly alkaline and should always be handled with proper protective equipment. Concrete recycling is increasing in response to improved environmental awareness, legislation, and economic considerations. Read more...
The effect of industrialisation shown by rising income levels in the 19th century. The graph is showing that the gross national product (at purchasing power parity) per capita between 1750 and 1900 in 1990 US dollars for First World nations (Europe, United States, Canada, Japan) and Third World nations (Asia, Africa, Latin America).
'Industrialisation or industrialization is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society, involving the extensive re-organisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing. Read more...- Food security is a condition related to the availability of food, and individuals' accessibility and affordability to it. There is evidence of being in use over 10,000 years ago, with central authorities in civilizations ancient China and ancient Egypt being known to release food from storage in times of famine. At the 1974 World Food Conference the term "food security" was defined with an emphasis on supply. Food security, they said, is the "availability at all times of adequate, nourishing, diverse, balanced and moderate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices". Later definitions added demand and access issues to the definition. The final report of the 1996 World Food Summit states that food security "exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life".
Household food security exists when all members, at all times, have access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Individuals who are food secure do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. Food insecurity, on the other hand, is a situation of "limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways", according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Food security incorporates a measure of resilience to future disruption or unavailability of critical food supply due to various risk factors including droughts, shipping disruptions, fuel shortages, economic instability, and wars.
In the years 2011–2013, an estimated 842 million people were suffering from chronic hunger. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, or FAO, identified the four pillars of food security as availability, access, utilization, and stability. The United Nations (UN) recognized the Right to Food in the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and has since noted that it is vital for the enjoyment of all other rights. Read more...
The environmental impact of shipping includes greenhouse gas emissions, acoustic, and oil pollution. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates that Carbon dioxide emissions from shipping were equal to 2.2% of the global human-made emissions in 2012 and expects them to rise 50 to 250 percent by 2050 if no action is taken.
The First Intersessional Meeting of the IMO Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ships took place in Oslo, Norway on 23–27 June 2008. It was tasked with developing the technical basis for the reduction mechanisms that may form part of a future IMO regime to control greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping, and a draft of the actual reduction mechanisms themselves, for further consideration by IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC). Read more...
Sustainable development is the organizing principle for meeting human development goals while at the same time sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which the economy and society depends
. The desired result is a state of society where living conditions and resource use continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity and stability of the natural system. Sustainable development can be classified as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations.
While the modern concept of sustainable development is derived mostly from the 1987 Brundtland Report, it is also rooted in earlier ideas about sustainable forest management and twentieth century environmental concerns. As the concept developed, it has shifted to focus more on economic development, social development and environmental protection for future generations. It has been suggested that "the term 'sustainability' should be viewed as humanity's target goal of human-ecosystem equilibrium (homeostasis), while 'sustainable development' refers to the holistic approach and temporal processes that lead us to the end point of sustainability". The modern economies are endeavouring to reconcile ambitious economic development and obligations of preserving the natural resources and ecosystem, the two are traditionally seen as of conflicting nature. Instead of holding climate change commitments and other sustainability measures as a drug to economic development, turning and leveraging them into market opportunities will do greater good. The economic development brought by such organized principles and practices in an economy is called Managed Sustainable Development (MSD). Read more...
World energy consumption is the total energy used by the entire human civilization. Typically measured per year, it involves all energy harnessed from every energy source applied towards humanity's endeavours across every single industrial and technological sector, across every country. It does not include energy from food, and the extent to which direct biomass burning has been accounted for is poorly documented. Being the power source metric of civilization, World Energy Consumption has deep implications for humanity's socio-economic-political sphere.
Institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the European Environment Agency (EEA) record and publish energy data periodically. Improved data and understanding of World Energy Consumption may reveal systemic trends and patterns, which could help frame current energy issues and encourage movement towards collectively useful solutions. Read more...
I = PAT is the mathematical notation of a formula put forward to describe the impact of human activity on the environment.
:I = P × A × T Read more...
Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance which is discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use.
Examples include municipal solid waste (household trash/refuse), hazardous waste, wastewater (such as sewage, which contains bodily wastes (feces and urine) and surface runoff), radioactive waste, and others. Read more...
Palm oil, produced from the oil palm, is a basic source of income for many farmers in South East Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. It is locally used as a cooking oil, exported for use in many commercial food and personal care products and is converted into biofuel. It produces up to 10 times more oil per unit area than soyabeans, rapeseed or sunflowers.
Oil palms produce 38% of the world's vegetable-oil output on 5% of the world’s vegetable-oil farmland. Palm oil plantations are under increasing scrutiny for their effects on the environment, including loss of carbon-sequestering forest land. There is also concern over displacement and disruption of human and animal populations due to palm oil cultivation. Read more...
World energy resources are the estimated maximum capacity for energy production given all available resources on Earth. They can be divided by type into fossil fuel, nuclear fuel and renewable resources. Read more...- The United Nations coordinated an International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt, on 5–13 September 1994. Its resulting Programme of Action is the steering document for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Some 20,000 delegates from various governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and the media gathered for a discussion of a variety of population issues, including immigration, infant mortality, birth control, family planning, the education of women, and protection for women from unsafe abortion services. Read more...
Graph of human population from 10000 BCE to 2000 CE. It shows exponential rise in world population that has taken place since the eighteenth century.
Human overpopulation (or population overshoot) occurs when the ecological footprint of a human population in a specific geographical location exceeds the carrying capacity of the place occupied by that group. Overpopulation can further be viewed, in a long term perspective, as existing if a population cannot be maintained given the rapid depletion of non-renewable resources or given the degradation of the capacity of the environment to give support to the population. Changes in lifestyle could reverse overpopulated status without a large population reduction.
The term human overpopulation refers to the relationship between the entire human population and its environment: the Earth, or to smaller geographical areas such as countries. Overpopulation can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates, an increase in immigration, or an unsustainable biome and depletion of resources. It is possible for very sparsely populated areas to be overpopulated if the area has a meagre or non-existent capability to sustain life (e.g. a desert). Advocates of population moderation cite issues like quality of life, carrying capacity, and risk of starvation as a basis to argue for population decline. Scientists suggest that the human impact on the environment as a result of overpopulation, profligate consumption and proliferation of technology has pushed the planet into a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene. Read more...
The environmental impact of mining includes erosion in the environment, formation of sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, and contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface water by chemicals from mining processes. Besides creating environmental damage, the contamination resulting from leakage of chemicals also affects the health of the local population. Mining companies in some countries are required to follow environmental and rehabilitation codes, ensuring the area mined is returned close to its original state. Some mining methods may have significant environmental and public health effects. Nuss and Eckelman (2014) provide an overview of the life-cycle wide environmental impacts of metal production associated with 62 metals in year 2008.
Erosion of exposed hillsides, mine dumps, tailings dams and resultant siltation of drainages, creeks and rivers can significantly impact the surrounding areas, a prime example being the giant Ok Tedi Mine in Papua New Guinea. In wilderness areas mining may cause destruction and disturbance of ecosystems and habitats, and in areas of farming it may disturb or destroy productive grazing and croplands. In urbanised environments mining may produce noise pollution, dust pollution and visual pollution. Read more...- 7 Billion Actions is a worldwide campaign established by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in 2011 to commemorate the world population milestone of 7 billion people. UNFPA is a United Nations organization that works on population and development issues, with an emphasis on reproductive health and gender equality. 7 Billion Actions works with multiple corporations, organizations and individuals to address the 7 Key Issues such as poverty, gender equality, youth, ageing, urbanization, environment, and reproductive health and rights. The UN has declared the World Population surpassing 7 billion on 31 October 2011. Prior to this date, the UN celebrated the Day of Six Billion in October 1999. Read more...
The environmental impact of aviation occurs because aircraft engines emit heat, noise, particulates and gases which contribute to climate change and global dimming. Airplanes emit particles and gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, lead, and black carbon which interact among themselves and with the atmosphere.
Despite emission reductions from automobiles and more fuel-efficient and less polluting turbofan and turboprop engines, the rapid growth of air travel in the past years contributes to an increase in total pollution attributable to aviation. From 1992 to 2005, passenger kilometers increased 5.2 percent per year. And in the European Union, greenhouse gas emissions from aviation increased by 87 percent between 1990 and 2006. Read more...
Land degradation is a process in which the value of the biophysical environment is affected by a combination of human-induced processes acting upon the land.
It is viewed as any change or disturbance to the land perceived to be deleterious or undesirable. Natural hazards are excluded as a cause; however human activities can indirectly affect phenomena such as floods and bush fires.
This is considered to be an important topic of the 21st century due to the implications land degradation has upon agronomic productivity, the environment, and its effects on food security. It is estimated that up to 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. Read more...
Population Matters, formerly known as the Optimum Population Trust, is a UK-based charity that addresses population size and its effects on environmental sustainability. It considers population growth as a major contributor to environmental degradation, resource depletion, conflict and involuntary migration and societal problems such as housing scarcity and transport congestion. Read more...
Human population planning is the practice of intentionally controlling the rate of growth of a human population. Historically, human population planning has been implemented with the goal of increasing the rate of human population growth. However, in the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, concerns about global population growth and its effects on poverty, environmental degradation and political stability led to efforts to reduce human population growth rates. More recently, some countries, such as Iran and Spain, have begun efforts to increase their birth rates once again.
While population planning can involve measures that improve people's lives by giving them greater control of their reproduction, a few programs, most notably the Chinese government's "one-child policy and two-child policy", have resorted to coercive measures. Read more...- The environmental impact of biodiesel is diverse. Read more...
- A Malthusian growth model, sometimes called a simple exponential growth model, is essentially exponential growth based on the idea of the function being proportional to the speed to which the function grows. The model is named after Thomas Robert Malthus, who wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), one of the earliest and most influential books on population.
Malthusian models have the following form:
:
where Read more...
Kuwaiti oil fires set by retreating Iraqi forces during the Gulf War caused a dramatic decrease in air quality.
Study of the environmental impact of war focuses on the modernization of warfare and its increasing effects on the environment. Scorched earth methods have been used for much of recorded history. However, methods of modern warfare cause far greater devastation on the environment. The progression of warfare from chemical weapons to nuclear weapons has increasingly created stress on ecosystems and the environment. Specific examples of the environmental impact of war include: World War I, World War II, the Vietnam War, the Rwandan Civil War, the Kosovo War and the Gulf War. Read more...- In population dynamics and population ecology, overshoot occurs when a population temporarily exceeds the long term carrying capacity of its environment. The environment usually has mechanisms in place to prevent overshoot. For example, plants are only able to regenerate and regrow a few times after being consumed before completely dying off. The consequence of overshoot is called a collapse, a crash or a die-off in which there is a decline in population density. The entire sequence or trajectory undergone by the population and its environment together is often termed 'overshoot-and-collapse'.
Overshoot can occur due to lag effects. Reproduction rates may remain high relative to the death rate. Entire ecosystems may be severely affected and sometimes reduced to less-complex states due to prolonged overshoot. The eradication of disease can trigger overshoot when a population suddenly exceeds the land's carrying capacity. An example of this occurred on the Horn of Africa when smallpox was eliminated. A region that had supported around 1 million pastoralists for centuries was suddenly expected to support 14 million people. The result was overgrazing, which led to soil erosion. Read more...
Environmental impact of the oil shale industry includes the consideration of issues such as land use, waste management, and water and air pollution caused by the extraction and processing of oil shale. Surface mining of oil shale deposits causes the usual environmental impacts of open-pit mining. In addition, the combustion and thermal processing generate waste material, which must be disposed of, and harmful atmospheric emissions, including carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. Experimental in-situ conversion processes and carbon capture and storage technologies may reduce some of these concerns in future, but may raise others, such as the pollution of groundwater. Read more...
Schematic of a multistage flash desalinator
A – steam in
B – seawater in
C – potable water out
D – waste out
E – steam out
F – heat exchange
G – condensation collection
H – brine heater
Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in soil desalination, which is an issue for agriculture.
Saltwater is desalinated to produce water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. One by-product of desalination is salt. Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on cost-effective provision of fresh water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, it is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources. Read more...
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a landfill), is the process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds, or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or land fill.
In a number of other jurisdictions, including parts of the United States, the term "reclamation" can refer to returning disturbed lands to an improved state. In Alberta, Canada, for example, reclamation is defined by the provincial government as "The process of reconverting disturbed land to its former or other productive uses." In Oceania it is frequently referred to as land rehabilitation. Read more...
A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenalian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. The essay suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocked heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as British policy toward the Irish in general. The primary target of Swift's satire was the rationalism of modern economics, and the growth of rationalistic modes of thinking in modern life at the expense of more traditional human values.
In English writing, the phrase "a modest proposal" is now conventionally an allusion to this style of straight-faced satire. Read more...
Population density (in agriculture: standing stock and standing crop) is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume; it is a quantity of type number density. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and most of the time to humans. It is a key geographical term. In simple terms population density refers to the number of people living in an area per kilometer square. Read more...
Human migration is the movement by people from one place to another with the intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily in a new location. The movement is often over long distances and from one country to another, but internal migration is also possible; indeed, this is the dominant form globally. People may migrate as individuals, in family units or in large groups. A person who moves from their home to another place because of natural disaster or civil disturbance may be described as a refugee or, especially within the same country, a displaced person. A person seeking refuge from political, religious, or other forms of persecution is usually described as an asylum seeker.
Nomadic movements are normally not regarded as migrations as there is no intention to settle in the new place and because the movement is generally seasonal. Only a few nomadic people have retained this form of lifestyle in modern times. Also, the temporary movement of people for the purpose of travel, tourism, pilgrimages, or the commute is not regarded as migration, in the absence of an intention to live and settle in the visited places. Read more...
Water scarcity is the lack of fresh water resources to meet water demand. It affects every continent and was listed in 2015 by the World Economic Forum as the largest global risk in terms of potential impact over the next decade. It is manifested by partial or no satisfaction of expressed demand, economic competition for water quantity or quality, disputes between users, irreversible depletion of groundwater, and negative impacts on the environment. One-third of the global population (2 billion people) live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least 1 month of the year. Half a billion people in the world face severe water scarcity all year round. Half of the world’s largest cities experience water scarcity.
A mere 0.014% of all water on Earth is both fresh and easily accessible. Of the remaining water, 97% is saline and a little less than 3% is hard to access. Technically, there is a sufficient amount of freshwater on a global scale. However, due to unequal distribution (exacerbated by climate change) resulting in some very wet and some very dry geographic locations, plus a sharp rise in global freshwater demand in recent decades driven by industry, humanity is facing a water crisis. Demand is expected to outstrip supply by 40% in 2030, if current trends continue. Read more...
A population pyramid, also called an "age-sex pyramid", is a graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in a population (typically that of a country or region of the world), which forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing. Males are conventionally shown on the left and females on the right, and they may be measured by raw number or as a percentage of the total population. This tool can be used to visualize and age of a particular population. It is also used in ecology to determine the overall age distribution of a population; an indication of the reproductive capabilities and likelihood of the continuation of a species. Read more...- Deep ecology is an ecological and environmental philosophy promoting the inherent worth of living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, plus a radical restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.
Deep ecology argues that the natural world is a subtle balance of complex inter-relationships in which the existence of organisms is dependent on the existence of others within ecosystems. Human interference with or destruction of the natural world poses a threat therefore not only to humans but to all organisms constituting the natural order. Read more... - The Population Research Institute (PRI) is a non-profit organization based in Front Royal, Virginia, USA. PRI describes itself as "a non-profit research group whose goals are to expose the myth of overpopulation" as well as "human rights abuses committed in population control programs, and to make the case that people are the world's greatest resource." It operates programs against the advancement of contraception, sterilization, and abortion. PRI is a 501(c)(3) organization and claims contacts to pro-life groups in over 30 countries. Results are being released in an own online periodical, PRI Review. Read more...
- Satellite image of deforestation in progress in eastern Bolivia. Worldwide, 10% of wilderness areas were lost between 1990 and 2015.
Deforestation, clearance, or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31 percent of Earth's land surface is covered by forests.
Deforestation occurs for multiple reasons: trees are cut down to be used for building or sold as fuel (sometimes in the form of charcoal or timber), while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock and plantation. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in habitat damage, biodiversity loss, and aridity. It has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also been used in war to deprive the enemy of vital resources and cover for its forces. Modern examples of this were the use of Agent Orange by the British military in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency and the United States military in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. As of 2005, net deforestation rates have ceased to increase in countries with a per capita GDP of at least US$4,600. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland. Read more... - Human impact on the environment or anthropogenic impact on the environment includes changes to biophysical environments and ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans, including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society is causing severe effects, which become worse as the problem of human overpopulation continues. Some human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment on a global scale include human reproduction, overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution, and deforestation, to name but a few. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss pose an existential risk to the human race, and overpopulation causes those problems.
The term anthropogenic designates an effect or object resulting from human activity. The term was first used in the technical sense by Russian geologist Alexey Pavlov, and it was first used in English by British ecologist Arthur Tansley in reference to human influences on climax plant communities. The atmospheric scientist Paul Crutzen introduced the term "Anthropocene" in the mid-1970s. The term is sometimes used in the context of pollution emissions that are produced from human activity but also applies broadly to all major human impacts on the environment. Read more... - A two-child policy is a government-imposed limit of two children allowed per family or the payment of government subsidies only to the first two children. It has previously been used in Vietnam. In British Hong Kong in the 1970s, citizens were also highly encouraged to have two children as a limit (although it was not mandated by law), and it was used as part of the region's family planning strategies. Since 2016, it has been implemented in China, replacing the country's previous one-child policy. Read more...
World population milestones were unnoticed until the 20th century, since there were no reliable data on global population dynamics.
It is estimated that the population of the world reached one billion for the first time in 1804. It would be another 123 years before it reached two billion in 1927, but it took only 33 years to rise by another billion people, reaching three billion in 1960. Thereafter, the global population reached four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999 and, by some estimates, seven billion in October 2011 with other estimates being in March 2012. It is projected to reach eight billion by 2024–2030. According to current projections, the world's population is likely to reach around nine billion by 2035–2050, with alternative scenarios ranging from a low of 7.4 billion to a high of more than 10.6 billion. Projected figures vary depending on underlying statistical assumptions and which variables are manipulated in projection calculations, especially the fertility variable. Long-range predictions to 2150 range from a population decline to 3.2 billion in the
'low scenario', to 'high scenarios' of 24.8 billion. One scenario predicted a massive increase to 256 billion by 2150, assuming fertility remains at 1995 levels. Read more...
Need help?
Do you have a question about Population that you can't find the answer to?
Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.
Selected images
The distribution of human world population in 2018
Subcategories
- Select [►] to view subcategories
Topics
| Major topics | |
|---|---|
| Biological and related topics | |
| Human impact on the environment | |
| Literature |
|
| Publications | |
| Lists | |
Events and organizations | |
| Related topics | |
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
Wikibooks
Books
Commons
Media
Wikinews
News
Wikiquote
Quotations
Wikisource
Texts
Wikiversity
Learning resources
Wiktionary
Definitions
Wikidata
Database
- What are portals?
- List of portals

