Extra Credit

Most scientists concur that we are very likely hundreds of years away from a population crisis, or reaching the earth's sustainability point (the point at which it can no loner sustain the number of people inhabiting it); however, there is an obvious population situation. While birth rates have declined in man regions of the world such as in Mexico where in 1970 the average number of children per woman was seven and is today at only three. Much of this can be attributed to education about birth control and health but it can also be attributed to economic hardship and high mortality rates for infants and women in childbirth as health resources become more scarce. In specific regions of the world, there is already a population problem, such as in China where the population is 1.2 billion for approximately the same area as the United Sates where the population is only 270 million (http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/population.html). I
It is unlikely that we will reach a population crisis based solely on numbers of people though as environmental concerns or “footprints” become a dominate issue. An environmental footprint is the mark that people leave on the world. Countries with larger populations leave, on average, six times the footprint of less developed countries. These footprints are irreversible damage to the environment, thus diminishing its ability to support us in ways we are accustomed to being supported (healthy crops, clean water, breathable air). Since methods of birth control and understanding of natural population growth and declines have been resolved by modern science, our real task is to determine how the environment can sustain population growth at any rate. We must educate people on population trends and methods of birth control in order to maintain numerical population but we must also educate people on how to minimize their environmental footprint. The idea is that population (numerically) can always be slowed or enhanced, given planfulness, but our environment cannot be rejuvenated once it has been damaged. I would suggest, in conjunction with educational programs already in place, populations become educated about how to treat the environment in such a way that our resources are not outlasted by our lives.