SCIENCE IN SOCIETY - CBA 2

CONTENTS

• Sustainable population estimates
• Population growth
• How lifestyles affect the sustainable population
• Solutions to stay on Earth
• Solutions involving space travel
• Conclusion
• Sources

As the population on Earth grows, the resources needed to sustain humans, is in high demand. Using ways to reduce the population through education, space travel, helping developing countries develop etc. can we can improve the lives of future generations and the current ones.

ESTIMATED SUSTAINABLE POPULATION

• From a number of sources I have found there to be a general estimation of 11 billion people, yet there are around 65 estimations ranging from 2 billion to 1,024 billion. The majority of the studies done (20 of 65) have said that 8 billion is the maximum sustainable population.

HOW FAST IS THE POPULATION GROWING?

• Since the 1900’s, the population has gone from around 2 billion to 7.5 billion. Projections based on the UN and HYDE ones show that by 2050 our population could pass 9 billion and by 2100 it could pass 11 billion. The population growth has slowed down since 1950 onwards. In 1962 the population growth was at it highest (2.1%), and is now around 1.2%. It is estimated to drop to 0.1% by 2100.
• (https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth)

HOW LIFESTYLE CAN LOWER THE SUSTAINABLE POPULATION

• The majority of people in developed countries use up large amounts of resources and have higher carbon emissions. If everyone were to have lifestyles demanding enormous quantities of fuel, food, electricity, etc. we would be unable to sustain the population.
• For us to sustain the current population, and/or future numbers, we must look at some ideas to solve the growing population.
• (http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160311-how-many-people-can-our-planet-real...)

SOLUTIONS

• Make contraceptives more available in developing countries.
• Increasing the quality of education to people in developing countries.
• Improving gender equality in the law and society.
• These are some of the many solutions that could help towards slowly changing the population growth but there are some interesting theories as well.
• (https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/how-to-stop-population-growth)

HALF EARTH SOLUTION

• Since our use of resources is way too fast for them to recover, we need a way to allow them to recover.
• According to ‘The Guardian’, EO Wilson has an idea of ‘half Earth’. By this he is referring to protecting large areas of Earth and letting them recover and to help tackle species extinctions.
• (https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/save-the-planet-half-earth-k...)

LEAVING EARTH

• On the other side of finding solutions companies such as NASA have been looking for other habitable planets. If we were to find a way to get to a planet that’s habitable, is it the best option?
• According to astronaut.com, it is one of the only ways to insure mankind’s survival. When it comes to fuel used in space research and all other resources many critics say we should stop damaging the planet rather than trying to leave it.
• According to NASA, their missions to space help us live longer, happier lives.
• (https://astronaut.com/more-people-more-problems-overpopulation-and-the-impo...), (https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/nasa_lsp-transcript.html)

HABITABLE PLANETS

• To be a habitual planet, a planet needs to meet a number of criteria to be classified as a ‘habitual planet’. These criteria are: having a thin enough atmosphere, it can not be too small or too large, the surface temperature must be suitable etc.
• NASA has discovered about 30 habitable exoplanets, such as Proxima Centauri and Kepler-442.
• (https://www.space.com/42275-habitable-exoplanets-kepler-discoveries-revised...),
• (http://sci.esa.int/eddington/31160-habitable-planets/?fbodylongid=678)

CONCLUSION

• As the population is growing rapidly and many countries can’t support the population they have, I think we should start with solutions that allow us to control the population while keeping basic rights, because space travel isn’t guaranteed anytime soon, I believe it’s better to wait and see how things develop for space travel.

SOURCES

• https://na.unep.net/geas/archive/pdfs/geas_jun_12_carrying_capacity.pdf
• http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160311-how-many-people-can-our-planet-real...
• https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth
• https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/save-the-planet-half-earth-k...
• https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/how-to-stop-population-growth
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-overpopulation-still-an-is...
• https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/nasa_lsp-transcript.html
• https://astronaut.com/more-people-more-problems-overpopulation-and-the-impo...
• https://www.space.com/42275-habitable-exoplanets-kepler-discoveries-revised...
• http://sci.esa.int/eddington/31160-habitable-planets/?fbodylongid=678