The human population is a thriving growing entity. It
stands at a massive 7 billion and continues to increase. Throughout history
there have been several forces and factors that have affected the human
population, either helping to increase the population by leaps and bounds or
decreasing the population. These forces and factors can be summarized into four
categories: geographical location, natural resources, disease, and technology.
But the population growth is not without consequences. We have caused
irreparable damage to the environment through deforestation, decreasing
Biodiversity, and creating and adding to global warming. There are several predictions
for the future, one of which is that the earth has reached its carrying
capacity and the population growth will soon begin to plateau. It is difficult
to say if the population can grow any larger, but most likely it will. The most
important part though is education and awareness of how population growth will
affect us on an individual, communal, and global scale. If we are aware of how
we impact the world, maybe we can stop the population from spinning out of
control and causing our own destruction.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your blog. It is extremely organized and covers a wide range of topics including both the causes and effects of human population growth trends. I really liked the fact that you discussed the trends of human populations in different civilizations throughout history. Because of the fact that human population growth is such a major concern in today’s world, it is hard to believe that our population did not start to rise out of control until recently. I couldn’t imagine living in a society such as that of ancient Rome where individuals were encouraged to have as many children as possible and were actually looked down upon when they didn’t. I was really shocked to learn about all of the different steps that other countries have taken to control populations and the issues associated with large populations. I had always viewed the widespread availability of contraceptives to women in the US as being more of a social and women’s rights issue, but now I realize how important it is to population control. Although I believe that this type of population control is pertinent, it seems almost unreal that people in countries outside the US could be forced to have abortions or become sterilized in today’s world.
ReplyDeleteYou spend a great deal of time discussing both the contributors to population growth and the factors that inhibit population growth. One of those major inhibitors that you mentioned is disease, including HIV/AIDS which has killed a substantial portion of the population since it became an epidemic in the 1980’s. I care deeply about worldwide disease prevention. I will be spending several weeks over the summer working in an HIV/AIDS clinic in Kenya. Your blog made me really think about how the efforts of disease prevention go hand in hand with prevention of unplanned pregnancy from a population control perspective. As amazing as it will be to one day discover and distribute a cure for diseases that are epidemics throughout the world, there would still be a tremendous number of individuals dying from famine and other issues associated with poverty, so population control is a huge issue that must be addressed simultaneously.
The only suggestion that I would have for you is to add a section that discusses the trends that are expected if the world wide population growth rate is left unchecked. What do the experts have to say about what the future holds for human population? An in depth analysis of expectations for the future would be extremely interesting to read:)
As someone who also wrote about human population, I really enjoyed your blog. First off, the structure of the blog into its sub-topics, such as Geographical Location, Disease, allowed your thoughts to be very focused. In addition, the blog does good job in covering each topic in depth. As a whole, I felt the blog read well like a large paper, with its sub-sections, introduction, and conclusion. This cohesion allowed great fluidity in the blog. Also, the use of the graphs and figures supplemented the text well. However, I wouldn’t mind seeing more figures to break up some of the large blocks of text. The writing level was good. While there were few awkward phrasings, there was nothing that distracted the reader too much from the core message. I learned a great deal in the section about diseases. While I read about some of the diseases in textbooks or through history classes, I had little knowledge about the actual diseases and their impact, such as for small box, and measles.
ReplyDeleteWhen discussing the climates, I would have liked to see it connected to the ITCZ, as discussed in class. However, the story told by the author is very good and comprehensive.
In the section of natural resources, I was bit confused by Figure 4. First, the graph is labeled as, “A graph of the use of different fossil fuels,” while the different fuels presented in the graph aren’t actually fossil fuels. Also, I am not sure why biofuels are such a huge portion of the graph, unless oil is used here as biofuels.
I would have liked to see a final section on the future of the human population. While you pointed out the growth continues to the present day, it’d be interesting to look specifically at what is modeled for the future.
Great job!