Human Overpopulation - We Are Driving the Rest of Life to Extinction

By Thomas Ryaner

That human overpopulation is reaching a crisis point is a fact that few would try to disagree with. We all know that if we hit 7 billion, 8 billion, 9 billion and beyond there are going to be some very serious ecological problems on this planet.

The issue with our current perception of the population crisis is that we think of it as an isolated problem. But it is not isolated. It is intertwined deeply with all the major crises we face in the 21st century. We didn't get into this position by accident. Nor was it inevitable that we would arrive in this predicament. Humans don't just breed exponentially by their very nature.

Like every creature our population is a function of our food supply. The more food we have the more people there will be. World leaders think that we need to produce more food to feed a growing population when it fact it is the other way around. All this extra food we produce is what fuels the growing population. The problem that human overpopulation creates is a decline in the numbers of non-human life. The more humans there are, the less of everything else there is.

The earth's biomass is limited by the amount of sunlight that falls on the planet. Sunlight is what fuels life on this earth. The bigger the share of the pie that humans eat the less there is for all other creatures. So as the human population rises everything else falls. This has gotten so bad that currently 200 species a day are becoming extinct. This is a bigger problem than asking how we are going to feed 10 billion mouths in the next few decades.

Because as more and more species become extinct the integrity of the earth's ecosystems is weakened. They become more fragile and more susceptible to breaking down. If extinction continues at this rate the planet is in for some serious trouble.

We won't stop our population with birth control. The only way to stop it is with food control. If we stop producing more food we will stop producing more people.

About The Author

Thomas is a writer whose passion is Deep Ecology. This is a world-view that sees a value in nature regardless of its usefulness to humans. It is partly about saving the world but primarily about creating a better place for humans to live. Living as part of the community of life and not apart from it is a much richer and more satisfying way of life. But in order to live as part of the community we have to stop laying waste to the earth through human overpopulation. We have to let the rest of life flourish. For more free articles, videos, books, interviews and more visit Deep Ecology Hub.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Thomas_Ryaner
http://EzineArticles.com/?Human-Overpopulation---We-Are-Driving-the-Rest-of-Life-to-Extinction&id=4197104