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Population Growth - Impacts on the Environment

Human population growth is the number one threat to the world's environment. Each person requires energy, space and resources to survive, which results in environmental losses. If the human population were maintained at sustainable levels, it would be possible to balance these environmental losses with renewable resources and regeneration. But our population is rapidly rising beyond the earth's ability to regenerate and sustain us with a reasonable quality of life. We are exceeding the carrying capacity of our planet.

We need to limit our growth voluntarily, and promote contraceptive use, before Nature controls our population for us with famines, drought and plagues. Our children's future depends on us.

The population reached 6.1 billion in 2000. The United Nation projects that world population for the year 2050 could range from 7.9 billion to 10.9 billion, depending on the actions we take today.

Population Facts - The Future in Just 22 Years

Scarce Water. Currently, 434 million people face either water stress or scarcity. Depending on future rates of population growth, between 2.6 billion and 3.1 billion people may be living in either water-scarce or water-stressed conditions by 2025.

Scarce Cropland. The number of people living in countries where cultivated land is critically scarce is projected to increase to between 600 million and 986 million in 2025.

Fisheries. Most of the world 's ocean fisheries are already being fished to their maximum capacities or are in decline.

Forests. Today over 1.8 billion people live in 36 countries with less than 0.1 hectare of forested land per capita, an indicator of critically low levels of forest cover. Based on the medium population projection and current deforestation trends, by 2025 the number of people living in forest-scarce countries could nearly double to 3 billion.

Global Warming. In 1998, the last year for which global data are available for both population and heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, per capita emissions of CO2 continued the upward trend that dominated the middle 1990s. When combined with growing world population, these increased per capita emissions accelerated the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere and, thus, future global warming.

Species Extinction. More than 1.1 billion people live in areas that conservationists consider the most rich in non-human species and the most threatened by human activities. While these areas comprise about 12 percent of the planet's land surface, they hold nearly 20 percent of its human population. The population in these biodiversity hotspots is growing at a collective rate of 1.8 percent annually, compared to the world's population 's annual growth rate of 1.3 percent.

Consumption Plus Population. When population growth is coupled with excessive consumption of resources, problems multiply. Currently, 20 percent of the world's people in the highest-income countries account for 86 percent of the total private consumption expenditures, while the poorest 20 percent consume only 1.3 percent. The unequal distribution of wealth and resources leads to oblivious waste and excess in the wealthy nations, and suffering in the resource-starved regions.

Speaking

The interview of a correspondent of “Time” with Rwandan President Paul Kagame

(extract)

Read the dialogue and answer the questions:

- What measure is undertaken to limit birthrate in Rwanda? Is it efficient?

- What other measures can be offered?

Time: There are some analyses of the genocide that suggest the background to the ethnic division was overpopulation. Too many people, and not enough resources. If that's true, then development becomes a way to eliminate the divisions of the past. If people prosper, they don't fight any more. Do you agree with that?

Kagame: I don't think it's correct that the genocide happened as a result of overpopulation. The seeds of genocide were planted here six or seven decades ago, when the country was not overpopulated. For example in 1932, when the Belgians introduced the identity card, to make a difference between a Hutu and Tutsi.

Time: One focus of yours is population control. You're trying to limit families to three children.

Kagame: We are not forcing people. There is no law. We are encouraging people by showing the benefit of smaller families. Our population growth is very high. And Rwanda is already one of the most crowded countries in the world. As much as the economy is growing and expect 6.5% this year population growth cuts a deep hole in that. And with the levels of poverty we have, the growth is simply unsustainable. The population is 9 million now, but in 10 years, it could be double. So we have to be careful. We are trying to formulate incentives for people to have fewer children. But it all starts with education.

Unit 3

Traffic and Air Pollution

"I can't imagine a right more basic than the right to breathe clean air.

We've debated for years how that might be possible.

Now that we know it is, will we have the courage

and the conviction to get there?"

~ Ed Begley

Warm up

- Have you ever heard someone say they are going outside "to get a breath of fresh air"?

- Have you ever tried to imagine what life would be like if the air were so dirty that people couldn't "get a breath of fresh air"?

- How does air become dirty?

Humans probably first experienced harm from air pollution when they built fires in poorly ventilated caves. Since then we have gone on to pollute more of the earth's surface. Until recently, environmental pollution problems have been local and minor because of the Earth's own ability to absorb and purify minor quantities of pollutants. The industrialization of society, the introduction of motorized vehicles, and the explosion of the population are factors contributing toward the growing air pollution problem. At this time it is urgent to find methods to clean up the air.

Vocabulary

1) route маршрут

2) congestion перегруженность, пробка

3) escalate расширять

4) cut down рубить (деревья)

5) exhaust fumes выхлопные газы

6) breathe дышать

7) hang (hung, hung) висеть

8) combustion сгорание

9) engine двигатель

10) moderate небольшой, умеренный

11) drowsiness сонливость

12) impair ухудшать, портить

13) alertness живость, активность

14) vehicle транспортное средство

15) cough кашель, кашлять

16) suspend подвешивать

17) minute мельчайший

18) solid particles твёрдые частицы

19) lead свинец

20) settle оседать

21) gasoline бензин

22) emissions выбросы, выделения

23) install устанавливать

24) power снабжать, усиливать

25) storage batteries аккумуляторные батареи

26) charge заряжать