Executive summary: An essay on human population throughout history and the growing issues of exponential overpopulation

Table of contents for this essay:

Data Analysis : the scope of human population throughout history

: the scope of human population throughout history Oh the Places You’ll Grow : 1 Billion humans existed at the start of the Industrial Revolution

: 1 Billion humans existed at the start of the Industrial Revolution Now We Increase by Another Billion People Every 13 Years : Exponential population growth is now the norm

: Exponential population growth is now the norm The Dangers of Overpopulation: Analyzing if this type of exponential growth can provide humans long-term survivability

Analyzing if this type of exponential growth can provide humans long-term survivability What could be done to decrease this growth? Reviewing natural and manufactured means to help control humanity’s population issue

Reviewing natural and manufactured means to help control humanity’s population issue With great power comes great responsibility: What should be done to lower extreme population growth rates or better adapt our environment to support extreme population levels?

What should be done to lower extreme population growth rates or better adapt our environment to support extreme population levels? Closing thoughts — we must rescue ourselves: Positive change can come from education, tolerance, coexistence, and taking care of the planet

Data Dreamer Analysis: the scope of human population throughout history

Few data sets are as important to the long term survival of the human species as that of human population. Humans share one planet with a finite amount of resources. Let’s begin our analysis with a look at population throughout the ages:

The line graph above gives us explains the scope in which human populations have grown at exponential rates throughout, especially in the last 200 years. Specifically, it provides insight into human population growth since the dawn of civilization, which was formed roughly 6,000 years ago. During these ancient times, in the year 4,000 before common era (BCE), a mere 7 million humans existed. From there, human population has grown quite consistently.

From 4,000 BCE to the commencement of the common area (CE), our population has roughly doubled every one thousand years:

In 3,000 BCE, the total population doubled to 14 million.

Then from 3,000 BCE to 2,000 BCE, our population nearly doubled again to a total of 27 million humans.

In the year 1,000 BCE, there was an estimated 50 million people that roamed the earth.

In another 2,000 years, around the year 200 CE, human population quadrupled to nearly 200 million people.

And that’s when the human population started getting really big:

At this point in history in 200 CE, Rome was still the largest city in the world. During this time, the growth rate increased significantly faster compared to BCE rates: population started to increase by about 100 million people, every 100 or so years.

In the year 1,000 CE, there was an estimated human population of 275,000,000.

Then in the year 1,200, this grew to 360 million people.

And in the year 1,600, humanity hit a major milestone: we reached half a billion people.

Oh the Places You’ll Grow: 1 Billion humans existed at the start of the Industrial Revolution

Then something happened that changed everything. We learned to build machines. An outgrowth of these machines was a revolution: an industrial one. The age of industrialization started around the year 1,804. And during the first few years of the 1800s, humanity grew even more, blossoming to more than 1 billion people.

With the awesome power of machines, humans started living in more clustered areas, specifically the cities. And the number of people on earth skyrocketed.

Another Billion People Every 13 Years: Exponential population growth is now the norm

These are seriously large numbers. Besides bats, mice, rats, and squirrels, humans are the most abundant species on earth.

Andrew Hwang, Associate Professor of Mathematics at the College of the Holy Cross, summarized the growth this way:

“It took 127 years for the world population to double from one billion to two. By contrast, it took only 47 years, from 1927 to 1974, to double from two billion to four. Since 1960, world population has grown by about one billion every 13 years.” (Source: 7.5 billion and counting: How many humans can the Earth support?, 2018).

The Dangers of Overpopulation: Analyzing if this type of exponential growth can provide humans long-term survivability

Humans are currently growing faster than they ever have in all of recorded history. Besides rodents, humans are the most abundant mammals. Then after humans, cows take the rank as the next largest population of mammals, at approximately 1.5 billion.

Source of Data: [© FAO] [2019] [FAQSTAT Live Animals] [http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QA/visualize] [Date accessed 12/8/2019]

This type of population growth is alarming, in regards to long term sustainability. With large populations, there are strains on natural resources, and negative effects on the environment such as global warming. A 2013 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated:

“Total emissions from global livestock: 7.1 Gigatonnes of Co2-equiv per year, representing 14.5 percent of all anthropogenic GHG emissions. . .Cattle (raised for both beef and milk, as well as for inedible outputs like manure and draft power) are the animal species responsible for the most emissions, representing about 65% of the livestock sector’s emissions” (Source).

Billions of bodies are creating more waste, garbage, and greenhouse gas emissions. And more people cause other social problems, including poverty and ideological wars.

The Dangers of Overpopulation: Analyzing if this type of exponential growth can provide humans long-term survivability

You may be shocked at just how fast humans are multiplying. You may also ask yourself, is this type of exponential growth sustainable?

The answer quite unknowable, as history is still being written. However, we do know that the larger a population is, the larger and more numerous risks that may occur.

The definition of overpopulation is: “the condition of having a population so dense as to cause environmental deterioration, an impaired quality of life, or a population crash.”

The dangers of overpopulation are demonstrated throughout history. Before vaccinations were discovered and widely disseminated, diseases such as the bubonic plague decimated large populations. Likewise, humans have always fought wars for ownership of land. And despite humanity’s mastery over science and technology, these risk still threaten humanity as a whole. There’s evidence that suggests that growth of this magnitude is not scalable or sustainable, without intervention of some kind.

With less land available for humans to form communities, how will they sustain their population growth in the next few hundreds of years? As humans start to consider the feasibility of colonizing other planets, will the earth and our globalized society be able to handle the burden of several billion more humans?

With more people living in densely populated areas, combined with the threat of super viruses emerging that are immune to antibiotics like Penicillin, what happens when a global pandemic emerges similar to the bird flu calamity of 1997?

How will global warming be increased with deforestation, gas based carbon emissions, and ballooning populations?

Questions and things that we should consider regarding overpopulation:

As always, I do not have the answers, but I think learning about the issues and getting people more aware of things is a great way to educate the populous and hopefully incite change.

We need to start by considering what could be done to decrease this growth to something more sustainable.

Actions that could be done:

Ultimately, governmental law will have the largest impact. Laws like the Environmental Protection Act are useful. Here are additional idea on how to remedy these issues.

Colonizing other planets and terraforming them

Impact: Escape our home planet and spread out across the cosmos

Likelihood of it happening: Eventually, it will likely happen. Certain companies are already planning to send a small colony of humans to live on Mars. is certainly something that humans will need to survive in millions of years into the future. After all, the earth is doomed to be destroyed the expanding red giant Sun in 7.6 billion years.

Population control laws

Impact: Requires little scientific effort, but massive amounts of governmental and societal buy-in

Likelihood of it happening: No likely at all, as only totalitarian governments such as China has this type of law. Reproduction rights are guaranteed by most democratic governments. China has legal limitations on how many children their citizens can have. I don’t know if humanity as a whole would consider measures like this as a necessary evil to reduce overpopulation.

Sterilize a certain percentage of the world population

Impact: If 1/3 or ½ of all people did not have the ability to reproduce, population growth may tamper off

Likelihood of it happening: Not very likely. This idea was the plot of a villain in the novel “Inferno” by Dan Brown. For this to occur, governments would have to agree to enact and enforce new laws. Further, the determination of who would be forced to be sterilized borderlines on eugenics.

Find ways to protect the environment such as redesigning society to utilize less resources and using cleaner energy methods

Impact: This is only a half measure, as it doesn’t stop human populations from continuing to grow exponentially, it attempts to remedy the effects of a large human population on earth’s environment. Further, shifting society to significant lifestyle changes

Likelihood of it happening:

This seems the most likely solution it seems realistic, it doesn’t infringe on people’s rights, and businesses are being incentivized by governments and market conditions to invest efforts to clean energy efforts.

Nuclear War or a 3rd World War (fought without nuclear weapons)

Impact: Unfortunately, war never changes. It’s always been part of civilization and will likely continue as the military industrial complex is extremely profitable. In the event of another World War, that does not utilize nuclear weapons (as mutually assured destruction would obliterate most major countries), a global war would have colossal effects on human populations. The “Fallout” video game series investigates this possibility as an alternative timeline to world history. In this hypothetical scenario, world governments engage in a 3rd world war, out of desperation from overpopulation and limited resources. This is certainly the most likely method that an extinction-level event would happen.

Likelihood of it happening: Sadly and scarily, a wide scale war is entirely possible. For example: The 2017–18 North Korea crisis was a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States throughout 2017, which began when North Korea conducted a series of missile and nuclear tests that demonstrated the country’s ability to launch ballistic missiles beyond its immediate region and suggested that North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability was developing at a faster rate than had been assessed by the U.S. intelligence community.[4][5][6]” (source: Wikipedia page for 2017–18 North Korea crisis)

Global pandemic

Impact: If a new super virus emerged our modern antibiotics suddenly lost effectiveness, human populations would be in serious jeopardy.

Likelihood of it happening:

Combined with globalization and antibiotics now losing effectiveness, there’s a strong probability of an event occurring that would decimate human populations: “Pandemics are large-scale outbreaks of infectious disease that can greatly increase morbidity and mortality over a wide geographic area and cause significant economic, social, and political disruption. Evidence suggests that the likelihood of pandemics has increased over the past century because of increased global travel and integration, urbanization, changes in land use, and greater exploitation of the natural environment” (Jones and others 2008; Morse 1995).

What should be done to lower population growth rates to something that will be more sustainable in the long run?

People should recycle

People should recycle! We only have one earth and we’re not really doing the best job we can at taking care of it.

People should recycle! We only have one earth and we’re not really doing the best job we can at taking care of it. People should live more modestly

The individualistic culture of many capitalistic societies create populations of extreme consumption. More naturalistic lifestyles and laws against billionaires could help level out the utilization of natural (and limited) resources to less drastic amounts.

The individualistic culture of many capitalistic societies create populations of extreme consumption. More naturalistic lifestyles and laws against billionaires could help level out the utilization of natural (and limited) resources to less drastic amounts. People should consider adopting or having smaller families

People need to realize that reproductive rights are not fully inconsequent. I feel very split on this as it doesn’t seem moral to tell people that they can’t have as many kids as they’d like. Regardless, if every person on earth has 5, 7, or 9 kids, then humanity’s population could continue to balloon at an even faster rate. Also, with so many kids in foster homes, people should consider adopting.

People need to realize that reproductive rights are not fully inconsequent. I feel very split on this as it doesn’t seem moral to tell people that they can’t have as many kids as they’d like. Regardless, if every person on earth has 5, 7, or 9 kids, then humanity’s population could continue to balloon at an even faster rate. Also, with so many kids in foster homes, people should consider adopting. Technologies should be used to help save the environment

My personal opinion is business often impacts governments which trickles down to how our society truly operates. Therefore, I think the most likely thing will be businesses innovate new technologies such as electric, magnetic, or solar powered vehicles. Further, with virtual and augmented reality, traveling to other countries may eventually be reduced; as VR/AR could replace the desire for pleasure or the need for work reasons to travel to other parts of the world via fuel-powered airplanes.

My personal opinion is business often impacts governments which trickles down to how our society truly operates. Therefore, I think the most likely thing will be businesses innovate new technologies such as electric, magnetic, or solar powered vehicles. Further, with virtual and augmented reality, traveling to other countries may eventually be reduced; as VR/AR could replace the desire for pleasure or the need for work reasons to travel to other parts of the world via fuel-powered airplanes. Space

Eventually, we’re going to need to go to space and escape our solar system to survive as a species. Over a long enough time, say a few billion years, we’ll also likely need to colonize other galaxies besides the milky way. Thus, we’ll need to eventually invest more money in space travel.

To prevent war, governments need to improve public and free education, kids need to be raised to be more empathic, adults need to act more empathic, governments need to find democratic methods to avoid war

There’s never really been peace on earth. And it’s likely that there’s always going to be a need for countries to have militaries, if only for defensive purposes, as there’s likely always going to be bad people and terrorist organizations that want to do evil deeds. But imagine if all the companies involved in making weapons shifted their priorities from making weapons to making technologies that could improve society and help clean up the environment. To put military spending in perspective, the Pentagon announced a $34 billion F-35 contract with Lockheed Martin, the largest contract yet for the defense company’s costly fighter program. (Source: Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter program gets $34 billion Pentagon contract, its biggest yet, October 2019). If people weren’t always fighting against each other, or against other nations, or other religions, or different philosophies, or against an economy that failed them, then maybe they wouldn’t be so desperate and violent. Humans have shown to be extremely creative. If people were educated to simply be kind to one another, and their basic needs were met, I think our world would change in ways we can’t really imagine. In the words of the song Sorrow by the band Bad Religion: “When all soldiers lay there weapons down Or when all kings and all queens relinquish their crowns Or when the only true messiah rescues us from ourselves It’s easy to imagine There will be sorrow no more.”

In conclusion:

Population is an issue that needs to be taken seriously, not addressing it would like hoping that cancer would just go away. The earth is our gracious host and we need to take care of it. We only have one earth. And we need to take care of each other. All systems, all populations, can only be sustained in the long-term by coexistence.

I ask you: what do you think we can do to help with overpopulation issues?

And if the task seems to monumental, I apologize. Unfortunately, the real world we live in is a complex one with no simple way to stop that which woes us. But there’s always hope. I leave you with this incredible quote, from the late, great Carl Sagan:

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Click here to download an Excel file with the Data from this essay. I hope you enjoyed the read!