# data[].attributes.body
1. Food shortage; due to increase in pop, food security is a big issue since alll the resources are being used up.

2. climate change increasing pop means greater development and more industries which leads to more emission of carbondioxide LEADING TO CC.

3. Unavailability of land : urbanization is leading to scarcity of land

4. deforestration : increasing pop requires land for which alot of trees are being cut down leading to land, air and water pollution.

5. Poverty: increasing pop leads to higher poverty and unemployment rates due to saturation in feilds.

6. Poor sanitation: du to lack of resources proper sanitation is not provided in multipe countries.

7. Disease outbreak: growing pop is also favouring conditions of new diseases.

8. Water crisis: contamination due to industrialization leads to lack of clean water.

# data[].attributes.body
More population means an increased demand for food water shelter electricity medication transportation & etc

it will also led to deforestation as we have to build more houses and industries which will result in urbanisation and climate change and water pollution

the scarcity of resources can lead to violence and political crisis as there are wars going over land and water

as population of human increases more in number human factors are destroying wild life and marine biodiversity which causes natural disasters such as earthquakes loss of habitats deforestastion , globalwarming and floods

# data[].attributes.body
We can lower the birth rate globally by taking some strict measures. Such as;

. We can promote women education and empowerment, so women know their rights and stand up for themselves, when being forced to reproduce or are under pressure.

. People should take pre-cautionary measures such as taking birth control pills and other respective things.

. Family planning plays a crucial part in population control as the couple can communicate when to kids.

. Quality education for all, despite gender inequality. Males and females should be given quality education and on same levels.

. Finishing the concept of poverty

. Imposing laws and regulations, such as, one child policies and time limits

# data[].attributes.body
educate the people

increase resources

medical facilities

empowering women

resource management

polices

international colaboration

laws

# data[].attributes.body
Causes : exceeded birth rate , less death rate

Rural to urban migration

Less education about contraceptions and birth control pills

Increased fertilty rate

Medical advances

Poverty

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Although population growth in the 20th and 21st centuries has skyrocketed, it can be slowed, stopped and reversed through actions which enhance global justice and improve people's lives. Under the United Nations' most optimistic scenario, a sustainable reduction in global population could happen within decades.

We need to take many actions to reduce the impact of those of us already here - especially the richest of us who have the largest environmental impact - including through reducing consumptionto sustainable levels, and systemic economic changes.

One of the most effective steps we can take to reduce our collective environmental impact is to choose smaller family size, and empower those who can't make that choice freely to do so.

A little less makes a lot of difference

The United Nations makes a range of projections for future population growth, based on assumptions about how long people will live, what the fertility rate will be in different countries and how many people of childbearing age there will be. Its main population prediction is in the middle of that range - 9.7bn in 2050 and 10.4bn in 2100.

It also calculates that if, on average, every other family had one fewer child than it has assumed (i.e. 'half a child less' per family), there will be one billion fewer of us than it expects by 2050 - and about 3.5 billion fewer by the end of the century (within the lifetimes of many children born now). If that happens, our population will be smaller than it is today.

We can bring birth rates down

Many countries have had success in reducing their birth rates through policies which improved lives and empowered people. Our report Power to the People: how population policies work looks at some examples and the evidence that shows how different approaches work. Thailand, for instance, reduced its fertility rate (the average number of children per woman) by nearly 75% in just two generations with a targeted, creative and ethical population programme, which helped it to grow economically.

In the last ten years alone, fertility rates in Asia have dropped by nearly 10%.

1) Empowering women and girls

Where women and girls are empowered to choose what happens to their bodies and lives, fertility rates plummet. Empowerment means freedom to pursue education and a career, economic independence, easy access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, and ending horrific injustices like child marriage and gender-based violence. Overall, advancing the rights of women and girls is one of the most powerful solutions to our greatest environmental and social crises. Solutions 2 and 3 below are both tightly linked with female empowerment.

2) Removing barriers to contraception

Nearly half of all pregnancies are unintended. Currently, more than 200 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using modern contraception. There are a variety of reasons for this, including lack of access, concerns about side-effects and social pressure (often from male partners) not to use it.

These women mostly live in some of the world's poorest countries, where population is set to rise by 3 billion by 2100. Overseas aid support for family planning is essential - both ensuring levels are high enough and that delivery of service is effective and goes hand-in-hand with advancing gender equality and engaging men.

Across the world, some people choose not to use contraception because they are influenced by assumptions, practices and pressures within their nations or communities. In some places, very large family sizes are considered desirable; in others, the use of contraception is discouraged or forbidden.

Work with women and men to change attitudes towards contraception and family size has formed a key part of successful family planning programmes. Religious barriers may also be overturned or sidelined. In Iran in the 1980s, a very successful family planning campaign was initiated when the country's religious leader declared the use of contraception was consistent with Islamic belief. In Europe, some predominantly Catholic countries such as Portugal and Italy have some of the lowest fertility rates.

3) Quality education for all

Ensuring every child receives a quality education is one of the most effective levers for sustainable development. Many kids in developing countries are out of school, with girls affected more than boys due to gender inequality. Education opens doors and provides disadvantaged kids and young people with a "way out". There is a direct correlation between the number of years a woman spends in education and how many children she ends up having. According to one study, African women with no education have, on average, 5.4 children; women who have completed secondary school have 2.7 and those who have a college education have 2.2. When family sizes are smaller, that also empowers women to gain education, take work and improve their economic opportunities.

A UN survey showed that the more educated respondents were, the more likely they were to believe that there is a climate emergency. This means that higher levels of education lead to the election of politicians with stronger environmental policy agendas.

4) Global justice and sustainable economies

The UN projects that population growth over the next century will be driven by the world's very poorest countries. Escaping poverty is not just a fundamental human right but a vital way to bring birth rates down. The solutions above all help to decrease poverty. International aid, fair trade and global justice are all tools to help bring global population back to sustainable levels. A more equal distribution of resources and transitioning away from our damaging growth-dependent economic systems are key to a better future for people and planet.

5) improving child and maternal health

Where children do not survive into adulthood, people tend to have larger families. Reducing infant and child mortality has been key to bringing birth rates down across the world. Family planning and gender equality helps to achive that, through allowing women to start having children when they are older and increase spacing between children. As family size goes down, that also allows greater investment in health services, especially in low income countries.

6) Exercising the choice

In high income countries, most of us have the power to choose the size of our families - although we may also face pressures of all kinds over the size of the families we choose to have. When making choices about that, it's important to remember that people in the rich parts of the world have a disproportionate impact on the global environment through our high level of consumption and greenhouse gas emissions - in the UK, for instance, each individual produces 70 times more carbon dioxide emissions than someone from Niger. When we understand the implications for our environment and our children's futures of a growing population, we can recognise that choosing smaller families is one positive choice we can make.

Join Us
Want to support our work towards a healthier, happier planet with a sustainable human population size that respects Earth's limits? Join us today!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although population growth has skyrocketed, it can be slowed and reversed through actions which enhance global justice and improve lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
ENVPK.COM - Best Environmental Website Of Pakistan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Human Population Growth - Causes and Effects

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The increasing human population at an alarming rate is raising concerns over natural reserves i.e. water resources that are being subjected to overexploitation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Conversations about overpopulation can quickly become controversial because they beg the question: Who exactly is the cause of the problem and what, if anything, should be done about it? Many population experts worry discussions around overpopulation will be abused by small-minded people to suggest some are the "right people" to be on the planet (like themselves), and some people are "the wrong people" (usually people in poverty, people of color, foreigners, and so on-you get the drift). But there are no "right" or "wrong" people on the planet, and discussing the problems of global overpopulation can never be an excuse, or in any way provide a platform, for having that type of conversation.

Each human being has a legitimate claim on a sufficient and fair amount of Earth's resources. But with a population approaching 8 billion, even if everyone adopted a relatively low material standard of living like the one currently found in Papua New Guinea, it would still push Earth to its ecological breaking point. Unfortunately, the "average person" on Earth consumes at a rate over 50% above a sustainable level. Incredibly, the average person in the United States uses almost five times more than the sustainable yield of the planet.

When we use the term "overpopulation," we specifically mean a situation in which the Earth cannot regenerate the resources used by the world's population each year. Experts say this has been the case every year since 1970, with each successive year becoming more and more damaging. To help temper this wildly unsustainable situation, we need to understand what's contributing to overpopulation and overconsumption and how these trends are affecting everything from climate change to sociopolitical unrest.

The Causes of Overpopulation

Today the Earth is home to more than 7.8 billion people. By 2100 the population is on track to hit 10.8 billion, according to the United Nations - and that's assuming steady fertility declines in many countries. Interestingly, if extra progress is made in women's reproductive self-determination, and fertility falls more than the United Nations assumes is likely, the population in 2100 might be a relatively smaller 7.3 billion.

For now, the world's population is still increasing in huge annual increments (about 80 million per year), and our supply of vital non-renewable resources are being exhausted. Many factors contribute to these unsustainable trends, including falling mortality rates, underutilized contraception, and a lack of education for girls.

Falling Mortality Rate

The primary (and perhaps most obvious) cause of population growth is an imbalance between births and deaths. The infant mortality rate has decreased globally, with 4.1 million infant deaths in 2017 compared to 8.8 million in 1990, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This is welcome public health news, of course.

At the same time, lifespans are increasing around the world. Those of us who are alive today will likely live much longer than most of our ancestors. Global average life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900, thanks to advancements in medicine, technology, and general hygiene. Falling mortality rates are certainly nothing to complain about either, but widespread longevity does contribute to the mathematics of increasing population numbers.

Underutilized Contraception

The global fertility rate has fallen steadily over the years, down from an average of 5 children per woman in 1950 to 2.4 children per woman today, according to the UN Population Division. Along with that promising trend, contraceptive use has slowly but steadily increased globally, rising from 54% in 1990 to 57.4% in 2015. Yet, on the whole, contraceptive use is still underutilized. For example, according to the WHO, an estimated 214 million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy are not using modern contraceptives.

These women aren't using contraceptives for a variety of reasons, including social norms or religious beliefs that discourage birth control, misconceptions about adverse side effects, and a lack of agency for women to make decisions around sex and family planning. An estimated 44% of pregnancies were unintended worldwide between 2010-2014. Getting more women the access and agency to utilize family planning methods could go a long way in flattening the population curve.

Lack of Female Education

Although female access to education has increased over the years, the gender gap remains. Roughly 130 million girls worldwide are out of school currently, and an estimated 15 million girls of primary school age will never learn to read and write, compared with 10 million boys.

Increasing and encouraging education among women and girls can have a number of positive ripple effects, including delayed childbearing, healthier children, and an increase in workforce participation. Plenty of evidence suggests a negative correlation between female education and fertility rates.

If increased female education can delay or decrease fertility and provide girls with opportunities beyond an early marriage, it could also help to mitigate current population trends.

The Effects of Overpopulation

It is only logical that an increase in the world's population will cause additional strains on resources. More people means an increased demand for food, water, housing, energy, healthcare, transportation, and more. And all that consumption contributes to ecological degradation, increased conflicts, and a higher risk of large-scale disasters like pandemics.

Ecological Degradation

An increase in population will inevitably create pressures leading to more deforestation, decreased biodiversity, and spikes in pollution and emissions, which will exacerbate climate change. Ultimately, unless we take action to help minimize further population growth heading into the remainder of this century, many scientists believe the additional stress on the planet will lead to ecological disruption and collapse so severe it threatens the viability of life on Earth as we know it.

Each spike in the global population has a measurable impact on the planet's health. According to estimates in a study by Wynes and Nicholas (2017), a family having one fewer child could reduce emissions by 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent per year in developed countries.

Increased Conflicts

The scarcity brought about by environmental disruption and overpopulation has the potential to trigger an increase in violence and political unrest. We're already seeing wars fought over water, land, and energy resources in the Middle East and other regions, and the turmoil is likely to increase as the global population grows even larger.

Higher Risk of Disasters and Pandemics

Many of the recent novel pathogens that have devastated humans around the world, including COVID-19, Zika virus, Ebola, and West Nile virus, originated in animals or insects before passing to humans. Part of the reason the world is entering " a period of increased outbreak activity " is because humans are destroying wildlife habitats and coming into contact with wild animals on a more regular basis. Now that we're in the midst of a pandemic, it has become clear how difficult it is to social distance in a world occupied by nearly 8 billion people.

What Can Be Done?

When addressing overpopulation, it's crucial to take an approach of providing empowerment while mobilizing against anybody advocating for the use of coercion or violence to solve our problems. The combined efforts of spreading knowledge about family planning, increasing agency among women, and debunking widely held myths about contraception will measurably change the trajectory of the world's population.

As we carry out our work at Population Media Center (PMC), we see first-hand that spreading awareness about family planning methods and the ecological and economic benefits of having smaller families can change reproductive behavior. For example, listeners of our Burundian radio show Agashi ("Hey! Look Again!") were 1.7 times more likely than non-listeners to confirm that they were willing to negotiate condom use with a sexual partner and 1.8 times more likely than non-listeners to say that they generally approve of family planning for limiting the number of children.

At PMC we harness the power of storytelling to empower listeners to live healthier and more prosperous lives, which in turn contributes to stabilizing the global population so that people can live sustainably with the world's renewable resources. Discover how PMC is taking action against overpopulation today!

More Readings

Get Involved

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is Overpopulation? Causes, Effects, and Solutions

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Overpopulation is one of the most pressing issues facing our planet today. In this article, Population Media Center examines the root causes of overpopulation, its impact on our environment and society, and what we can do to address it.