An introduction to human population issues

1. Today we will
• Begin Ch. 6 notes
Objective:
Identify the reasonsIdentify the reasons
why the humanwhy the human
population is stillpopulation is still
growing exponentiallygrowing exponentially
and explain why thoseand explain why those
things contribute to thisthings contribute to this
growthgrowth

2. The Human Population
and Its Impact
Ch. 6, part 1
Jot down the number of people
in the world now

3. Our Growth Continues
Only in the
last 200
years
has it
been
going up
so
sharply

4. Napkin Demo
Fold your napkin in
half 4 times
How thick would it
be if you folded it in
half 29 more times?
3400 miles –
distance from
Boston to Germany

5. Question 1
Hypothesize as to WHY
our population growth
continues to be so high

6. Why?
3 main reasons
We’ve gotten better at living in more places
More efficient agriculture means we can
feed more people
Better sanitation, medicines, and vaccines
keeps disease under control

7. The results of all this
Death rate drops significantly
Birthrate has actually slowed - but it is
not enough to counter the low death
rate

10. Some numbers
The global population is growing
at ~ 1.13% per year
Already over 68 million people
added this year
Every second 5 people are born,
2 people die - a net gain of 3
people
That’s over 200,000 people per
day, 140 people/minute

11. Where are all these
people?
We are not evenly spread out
Of the 82 million added in 2008
1.2 million added in the developed nations
80.8 million added in the developing nations

12. Developed vs.
Developing Nations
Developed
US
Canada
Japan
Australia
Italy
England
France
Highly
industrialized
High GDP -
Gross
Domestic
Product
Developing
Most of Africa
Most of Asia
Most of Latin
America
China
India
Brazil
Turkey
Thailand
Mexico
Highly
agricultural
Low GDP
What is theWhat is the
differencedifference
between thesebetween these
two groups?two groups?

13. What
information
do you see
in this chart?
List at least 3
specifics

14. Beans Demo
Close your eyes
First – Americans – beans represent
how much money the average
American will spend in their entire life
Second – average global citizen
Third – Average citizen of Malawi

15. Developing nations
97% of the population growth from now
to 2050 will occur in these countries
More than 1/2 the people in the world
live in extreme poverty (less than
$2/day; 17% of those on less than
$1/day)

16. So how big are we going
to get?
?
Projections are 8-11 billion by 2050

17. Vote!
Should the United States adopt a population
control policy? Defend your position.

19. How many people can the
Earth support?
Low estimates - 2
billion
High estimates -
30 billion
Is this even the
right question to
ask?

20. Another way of looking at
it
Many analysts think we should be
asking:
What is the optimum sustainable
population based on a cultural carrying
capacity?
The optimum level at which most people
can live in comfort and freedom without
sacrificing that for future generations

21. Some basics
Birth rate higher
than death rate =
population growth
Birth rate lower
than death rate =
decline
Equal births and
deaths = stable
population

22. 3 rates control human
population size
Birth rate
Death rate
Migration rate
We calculate the population change by
subtracting those who leave (death,
emigrants) from those who arrive
(births, immigrants)

23. Rates
We don’t use raw
numbers usually, we use
RATES
Birth rate - the number of
births per 1000 per year
Death rate - the number
of deaths per 1000 per
year

24. Who has the most
people?Number 1: China at 1.4 billion
Number 2: India at 1.2 billion
Number 3: USA at 325
million
Number 4: Indonesia at 250
million
Number 5: Brazil at 200
million
Number 6: Pakistan at 189
million
Together
they have
36% of the
people

25. Women are having fewer
babies
Fertility rate - the
number of children
born to a woman
during her lifetime

26. 2 types
1. Replacement level fertility rate - the
number of children a couple must
have to replace themselves
1. 2.1 in developed nations
2. 2.5 in developing

27. WHYWHY
2.something?2.something?
Why not just 2?Why not just 2?

28. 2 types
2. Total fertility rate - the average number of
children born to women in a population during
their reproductive years
This has been going down
Developed nations
1950 - 2.5
2008 - 1.6
Developing nations
1950 - 6.5
2008 - 2.8

29. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
1. Children in the
work force
1. Developing
nations tend to
have more
children in the
work force
More or less kids?More or less kids?

30. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
2. The cost of raising and
educating children
- birth rate lower in
developed countries
where it is much more
expensive to raise kids
(they don’t work for the
family usually)
- costs about
$300,000 to raise a kid
to 18 years old in USA
More or less kids?More or less kids?

31. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
3. Private and public
pension systems (or
lack thereof)
Pensions reduce the
need for children to
care for adults in their
old age
More or less kids?More or less kids?

32. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
4. Urbanization -
urban areas have
more family
planning clinics -->
less kids
rural families need
kids to help raise
crops/livestock
More or less kids?More or less kids?

33. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
5. Education for
women
fertility rate lower
when women are
educated
marriage is
delayed also
More or less kids?More or less kids?

34. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
6. Infant Mortality Rate
- the number of children per 1000 births who
die before age 1
More or less kids?More or less kids?

35. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
7. Age at marriage
More or less kids?More or less kids?

36. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
8. Ability to have abortions
each year ~ 190 million pregnancies
~ 46 million abortions
(about half illegal) More or less kids?More or less kids?

37. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
9. Availability of birth
control methods
More or less kids?More or less kids?

38. 10 Factors that affect the birth
rate
10. Religious beliefs,
traditions, culture More or less kids?More or less kids?

39. Is it rational for a poor couple
in a developing country such
as India to have 4 or 5
children?
Explain your thinking.

40. It’s about the status of
women in society
Lack of access to birth
control
Lack of access to safe
abortions
Lack of access to family
planning clinics
Young brides
Lack of education for girls
High infant mortality
Low status of women in
society

41. Jot down the number of people in the
world now
How many people were added during our
lesson?

42. The People Connection
Read the article and complete the
worksheet as you do
Class discussion to follow

43. The People Connection
Please have your green article and your
white worksheet out on your desk
Citations from text to
SUPPORT this statement
Statements Citations from text
that REFUTE this
statement
Population growth
continues to be so high
because of high birth
rates in countries all
over the world
As the years go on, the
time it takes to double
the size of the human
population gets shorter
and shorter
There is plenty of land
space to support every
person on this planet
Because 98% of the
population growth is
happening in developing
nations, it does not
matter how many children
an American family has

44. Directions
Please respond to the prompt with a
statement like this:
“This idea is supported/refuted by this
part of the text: ______________”
Please also paraphrase what the last
person said

45. Support/Refute this
common statement
Population growth is still so high
because people are having large
families

46. Support/Refute this
common statement
The time it takes to double the human
population size is getting shorter and
shorter

47. Support/Refute this
common statement
There is plenty of land space for every
person on this planet

48. Support/Refute this
common statement
Because the vast majority of population
growth is happening in developing
nations, Americans don’t need to limit
their family size

49. Why do we have environmental
problems?
5 major reasons:
Population growth
Wasteful and unsustainable resource use
Poverty
Failure to include the environmental cost of
products in their prices
Lack of knowledge about how the environment
works

50. Poverty
Definition - when
people are unable to
meet their basic
needs for food, water,
shelter, health, and
education

51. How poverty hurts the environment
Focus is daily
survival
Desperate for
resources, these
people will degrade
or deplete whatever
is available
Worrying about the
long term survival of
an ecosystem is a
luxury they cannot
afford

52. Slum city in Mexico

53. Poverty hurts children
Often trapped in an
endless loop of
poverty
Parents have many
kids to help with
Gathering food, water
Tending crops,
livestock
Caring for them in their
old age

54. People in Poverty suffer the
affects of pollution more
acutely
Malnutrition - lack of
protein and nutrients in
diet
More likely to die from
things like diarrhea and
measles
Over 12,000 children
under 5 die from
diarrhea every day

55. Food for thought
This is equivalent to 60
fully loaded 200-
passenger airliners
crashing and killing
everyone aboard, every
day

56. "When one man dies it is a tragedy, but
when a million people die it’s a statistic.”
Trayvon Martin Statistics?

57. People in poverty suffer the
affects of pollution more
acutely
No sanitation
systems for 38% of
the world’s
population
Water for drinking,
bathing, cooking
contaminated with
human waste

59. Life-Straw - personal
filtration system could
save millions
Poor Man’s Gatorade
Palm full of sugar and a
pinch of salt
We CAN solve these
problems - if we
WANT to

60. Affluence hurts the
environment, too
High levels of consumption
Wasteful use of resources
Fueled by advertising
making us think having
more stuff will make us
happy
It takes 27 trailers of
resources per year for each
American