Population explosion

not only problem

OTTAWA (CUP)-- by Vincent Lam

eadlines read ‘‘green D house effect’’, ‘‘ozone depletion’’, ‘‘habitat de-

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India with 750 million. Thi is not the case. What deter mines ecological impact i not the sheer number 0 people, but the resourc

struction’’. A radio announcer \ a Sek we Q \ consumption of these peo shouts, ‘‘aaand, the UV rating WE concent SS ple. is...”’. The planet falls apart and tee Une ~ Y N Rich, sparsely populate: slick TV ads flash messages, sae g ; countries often have alarm ‘*phosphate-free soap’’, ‘‘donate NN ingly high resource con: tosave the forests’’,‘‘re-cycle.” sy were : WS sumption. Caring For Th More disasters, new scientific Lwe-vts! ae 3 World, A Strategy fo ANTE Sustainability notes, ‘“Th

findings. Everything that could go wrong with the planet sud- denly has. Someone said, ‘‘know a your enemy’’. Today, environ- mental enemies are everywhere. So many, so different, how to know them all? How to know the problems of this planet?

Most environmental problems are ultimately due to humanity’s ecological impact on the planet. All organisms make their presence felt ecologically, by using resources and reproduc- ing. The more organisms there are and the more they consume, the larger the ecological impact.

In 4000 BCE, there were two million hu- mans. By 500 BCE, 100 million people and today, over six billion homo sapiens. Anyone can guess that our ecological impact is not small and this explains much.

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Global warming occurs because there are many people burning fuel. De-forestation is rampant since many people eat many hamburg- ers. Ozone depletion can thank billions of styrofoam cups and refrigerators. Most envi- ronmental problems are due to the phenomenon of high numbers of people using resources at a rapid rate.

The damaging effect. of the planet’s high human population may lead one to believe that the world’s problems rest with the most popu- lous countries, like China, with 1.1 billion and

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chief value for large num. bers of people today i: growth in personal level: of consumption.’

Each of Canada’s 2: million people consume over 40 times as much energy as an averag African, which has the ecological impact 0 over one billion effective people. Global popu lation problems are more accurately viewed 4 consumption problems and that rich nation! like Canada consume a vast proportion of re sources.

Many nations of large population, such 4 China and India, already make concerted ¢ forts to reduce population growth. It is equall important for rich nations to reduce consump tion. ir

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Graph 3

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Population

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