Population & The Environment Essay

Discussions regarding the environmental impact of increasing population densities crosswise the globe never lose their currency. From Thomas Malthus to Paul R. Erlich and onwards, on that point is a persistent business organisation that a growing international population may non only reach a tipping point in which the artificial satiatellites ability to provide for it is stretched to its limit, but begin to experience bad effects in the form of environmental problems.This concern is non only if a matter of numbers, but a matter of how industrial civilizations down consistently failed to curtail anthropogenic impacts. As Donella Meadows (199) opines, not only are there so many much of us, but each of us is bigger when one measures the measuring stick of animation and material we use and the measure of pollutants and waste created by the industries we piss created to support our energy and material use. In effect, The number of heap is not what degrades the earth its t he number of people times the flow of energy and material each person commands. oneness of the most frequently cited means by which highly dense populations negatively impact the environment is through intense railway car use. Alex Steffen (2008) notes that intensive car use within a finite geographic territory is not only a great contributor to babys room emissions that are heat the planet, but they also command a large amount of resourcefulness use through the inputs necessary to maintain highway infrastructure, build the substantial cars and fuel them.Granted, the resource consumption and greenhouse emissions caused directly by personal cable car self-command is absolutely no surprise to anyone, but the slight obvious implication that Steffen reports is that exhaust emissions are only a separate of the environmental impact of the automobile. Over the course of the mid-20th century onwards, the increasing jut of the automobile as part of modern living has necessitated t he construction of massive highway infrastructure.The result is that when you factor dense populations with intense private ownership and use of automobiles is that not only is there a massive amount of greenhouse emissions, but the amount of pavement this infrastructure commands can fetch significantly to the heat island effect which has become a concern among urban planners as of late. Heat islands not only increase the amount of energy expended on indoor standard pressure conditioning, but they can worsen air quality. (Steffen, 2008)As such, Steffen argues that no matter the great lengths that todays automobile manufacturers go to in order to make their automobiles into shiny fuel-efficient emissions-reduced green things to sate the eco-minded consumer, it will not be enough to remediate environmental impacts brought somewhat by car use. Take for example the squeeze towards biofuels, which is essentially, a push for auto manufacturers, in collaboration with energy companies, to make automobiles that run on renewable agricultural products that emit a reduced amount of greenhouse gases.While there is much fuss in the mainstream press well-nigh the extent to which the biofuel industry is cannibalizing the viands supply, a more overlooked concern is the manner in which the expansion of industrial agriculture to such a massive scale negatively impacts the environment. Simply put, the principal concern is not the ability of agriculture to feed populations, but rather how the expansion of the food supply, combined with the accommodations made for biofuels, has a deleterious effect on the environment.Manning (85-89) notes that the solid and unsustainable approach of industrialized corn-based agriculture is detrimental to the health of the soil. As such, there is a possibility that the massive conversion of lands towards the production of corn could diddle the conditions of The Great Dust Bowl, a period in the American heartland which proverb hundreds of tho usands of would-be wheat farmers plow the soil to death to profit from halcyon grain.Thus, as civilizations increase in population density, so too do their demands in food and automobile use, effectively exerting a greater price on the planets natural environment. In any case, we mustiness be mindful to remember that the problems inherent with a massive military man population should not lead us to conclude that humans have no ecologically acceptable place in the planet. Humanity is not a virus on the operating system of the planet. Rather, what human companionship should begin to acknowledge is that it must begin to take a more comprehensive look at its impacts in order to correct them thoroughly.REFERENCESMeadows, Donella. The thickheaded Six. Grist. 12 October 1999. Retrieved online on March 14, 2009 from http//www. grist. org/comments/citizen/1999/10/12/deep/index. hypertext mark-up language Steffen, Alex. My Other Car is a Bright Green City. Worldchanging. 23 January 20 08. Retrieved online on March 14, 2009 from http//www. worldchanging. com/archives/007800. html Manning, Richard. Against the Grain How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization. New York mating Point Press, 2004.