Essay Example on Population Growth: Multiple Factors Impacting Our World

Multiple factors influence the population growth rate. They include the availability of access to healthcare, birth control, political stability, quality food, land, technology, and social norms among other factors. The availability and access to healthcare reduce the number of deaths that would have been caused by disease. Sufficient health care facilities in all world countries have significantly helped in the reduction of mortality rates. More specifically, they offer timely treatment to ailing individuals, stabilizing their vital signs and helping them to fight diseases.

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The availability of birth control methods also influences population growth. When people have access to daily contraceptive pills, the morning after pill, condoms, Intra-Uterine Devices (IUD), and contraceptive injections, they can determine the number of children that they will have and raise (Nadakavukaren & Caravanos, 2020). In addition to that, contraceptives have given people control to determine the best time for them to bear children and those periods they need to avoid bearing more children.

The political stability and integration of world governments is another factor that determines the rate of population growth. When there is no infighting within a country, it is worth mentioning that the citizens will feel secure enough to settle and have families. On the other hand, whenever there is a constant civil war within a country, people will become busy seeking ways to flee and to be secure a living and asylum. In such a case, the hardships associated with displacements and immigration of families oblige people to retain small families.

Similarly, availability and the production of quality food have proven to help facilitate population growth worldwide. The availability of plenty and high-quality food helps in offering any given population nutrition that is necessary for growth and development. Lack of food renders a population infertile simply because a lot of time will be spent in searching for natural resources as opposed to settling and building families. Likewise, starved families are less likely to have productive families as compared to those that are well fed.

The land has emerged to be a scarce resource and very expensive in different parts of the world. The availability of land encourages the growth of families and populations at large within a particular area. The land is a natural resource that comes in handy for any population (Nadakavukaren & Caravanos, 2020). Mainly, land facilitates the building of homes, provides an opportunity for people to set up businesses, and offers agricultural space, which is all essential in sustaining families. A majority of people do not settle for a family unless they find land to build a house or start a business. Given this predisposition, some people tend to spend some of their supreme fertility time seeking financial stability to enable them to secure a permanent premise to settle together with their families. Unfortunately, in contemporary society land is trending as a rental place making some of these delays irrelevant.

Technology also is emerging as a stout factor in determining population growth. People have embraced technology widely because it makes life easier and more convenient. For instance, today people have well equipped and modern health facilities and have adopted sophisticated methods of dealing with disasters. In the past, people were predisposed to a lot of natural risks because of limited technology. For example travel by sea and safer became safer with the advent of technology. Long ago a lot of individuals lost their lives because limited technology defined their working environments, healthcare, and transport among a host of other things.

Additionally, cultural and social norms can influence population growth either positively or negatively. For instance, some cultures encourage the formation of small families because they believe they are manageable. However, they are those that have been advocating for large families and reduced strictness to family planning (Nadakavukaren & Caravanos, 2020). Therefore, some social norms and cultures facilitate the increase in population while others are aiming at managing and reducing the number of birth per a given period.

Can the population continue to grow indefinitely? Why or why not?

Within the confines of an ecosystem, no populace can grow indefinitely. The reliance on the ecosystem for resources to support a growing population will get overstretched making it difficult to facilitate further growth. Therefore, every population would realize equilibrium size based on the available resources. Every ecosystem has a definite supply of resources that can only grant sustenance to a specific size of a human population. A population can only continue to grow indefinitely if resources are supplied adequately from both internal and outside sources (Nadakavukaren & Caravanos, 2020). However, focusing on planet earth as a single ecosystem, it is not possible to have the earth's population growing indefinitely because of the overexploitation of natural resources.

Choose two countries, one in the developing world and one in the industrialized world. What are the rates of population growth in each country? Discuss the factors affecting the rate in each country.

They are several countries classified as industrialized or developing nations. Each category shares similar characteristics on the rate of population growth. Some of the industrialized nations include the United States, Germany, China, Japan, and France among other nations. On the other hand, some of the developing nations include Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Brazil, and Colombia among other nations. African countries such as Angola, Kenya, and Nigeria among others are also categorized among developing nations

By comparing the rate of population growth between industrialized and developing nation there is a huge difference. For instance, the United States has an annual population growth rate of about 0.7 percent while a country such as Nigeria has an annual population growth rate of about 2.60 percent. The high population growth rate in Nigeria is attributed to high fertility and an increased life expectancy. The high rates of fertility in the previous years due to improved health facilities in Nigeria has enabled people to have large families. Similarly, as compared to industrialized nations Nigeria has a high mortality rate among children, which encourages parents to have a large number of children.

On the other hand, the population in the United States has been on a decline. The fertility rate and influx of immigrants have been declining to lead to the decreasing population growth rate. Likewise, the number of deaths in the country has been steady because of the aging population but there are a few newborns to keep up with the mortality rate. As a result, the population growth rate in America has been decreasing (Nadakavukaren & Caravanos, 2020).

Compare and contrast industrial agriculture and sustainable agriculture. What might happen to the economy and population of the United States if the government passed laws severely restricting one type of agriculture more than the other?

Industrial agriculture is the process through which the cultivation, growing, harvesting, and processing of food is realized through mechanization. On the other hand, sustainable agriculture is conducting farming in maintainable ways. It is hinged on the need to meet a society's immediate food and textile wants and needs, minus any compromise of the ability of generations in the future to meet their wants and needs. If the United States government passed rules and regulations that severely restricted one type of agriculture, especially sustainable agriculture (in favor of industrial agriculture) what would happen is that the country would face a shortage of food domestically (Konefal, Hatanaka & Constance, 2019). As a result, this would force the United States to import food from other countries.

On the other hand, if the government were to severely restrict sustainable agriculture owing to its tendency to make use of genetically modified seeds and fertilizers, the country would still experience a shortage of food. Just like in the previous case, a shortage of food would force the economy to depend on food from outside sources.

In the face of a growing world population and the pressure that growth places on the natural resources of Earth, do you think we ultimately will have a choice about whether or not to adopt genetically modified (GM) crops, livestock and other food resources?

In the wake of a growing global population and the pressure that growth places upon Earth's natural resources, I think that we will ultimately not have a choice regarding whether or not we ought to adopt crops that are genetically modified, livestock and a multiplicity of food resources. There are several reasons why this is the case. First, the land available for farming is continuously decreasing and there is a need to get 100 percent yields owing to the large global population (Blair & Regenstein, 2020). Unlike crops that are fully grown through natural methods, genetically modified foods are not affected by insects, weather, and weeds.

Genetically modified crops are very capable of addressing the problems caused by weeds or insects (even though several GMOs are presently being tested for enhanced nutrition). Concerning insects, there are genetically modified plants that are capable of repelling only the very specific types of insects that feed on it. With multiple GM crops, this has significantly brought down the need to apply pesticides. Other genetically modified plants ought to be developed to be resistant to specific herbicides, therefore, making the control of weeds less costly and less complicated.

If we do not adopt GM food resources, how might we produce enough food to feed an ever-growing population?

If we choose not to grow food that is genetically modified, the best way to produce sufficient food to sustain an ever-growing populace is to do land reclamation on parcels of land that were otherwise rendered infertile (Blair & Regenstein, 2020). Through reclamation attempts to return the land to its most natural form, the environmental mechanisms at play will bring about several natural machinations such as the infusion of humus into the ground that will guarantee fertility. It is only this way that land will be able to feed an ever-growing populace.

In conclusion, there is a need to have a controlled population growth rate worldwide to avoid overexploitation of natural resources. Mainly, the available land for cultivation has been decreasing due to the expansion of industries and urbanization. Similarly, the global population has also been increasing making it difficult for agricultural products to sustain the large population. In this case, a call for controlled birth rate and campaign for having small families in all nations would lead to achieving sustainable agriculture. Lastly, industrialization has resulted in increased pollution that has changed climatic patterns. The pollution is also responsible for adverse weather conditions such as drought and increased acidic rains, which is not preferable for farming. Therefore, there is a need to have global eco-friendly production campaigns and policies to reduce increasing pollution, which will result in the establishment of better agricultural environments and conditions. As a result, agricultural outputs would increase and the world would have made a step forward in attaining sustainable agricultural production.

References

Blair, R., & Regenstein, J. M. (2020). GM food and human health. In Genetically Modified and Irradi...