Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Is Family Planning the Key for proper Population Sustainability and Environmental Preservation?

Malcolm Potts says the need for family planning is the key for the control of our population leading to the conservation of the world. Currently there are about 7 billion humans living on this earth. Ideally, with that many people and the amount of resources we consume, we would need 1.3 earths to support us comfortably. By year 2035 it is estimated that we will need two earths to sustain adequately the amount of population growth. Also by 2050 it is estimated that the population will rise to an astounding 9.075 billion people, an increase of roughly 2 billion people from the present time (Potts, 2007).

A solution to the problem, The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), at Cairo recommended that governments ‘‘meet the family-planning needs of the populations as soon as possible and should, in all cases by the year 2015, seek to provide universal access to a full range of safe and reliable family-planning methods.’’ . Funding for the program was supposed to be around 5.2 billion dollars however around 500 million or less was made available. This program was designed for developing countries which it is estimated that 99% of the population growth seen between 2005 and 2050 will be concentrated in developing countries, and 90% will be in the least developed. These underdeveloped countries consume an unbalanced amount of the world’s resources as well as produce more greenhouse gases.

The poorest of countries have no access to medical services, leading to no or very little access to contraceptives. Also, some religions restrict the use of contraceptives in developing and developed countries.
Let us compare India and Canada. The population of India is approximately 1.147 billion people and the land area 3.28 million square kilometers (Ads by Google) That results in 323 people per square kilometer. Now Canada consists of about 33.2 million people and 9 984 670 square kilometres which results in 3.32 people per square kilometer (Unknown, 2009). Therefore Canada is approximately one tenth less dense than India. India is also considered a developing country and one of the leading pollution producing countries in the world. So Can we afford 90% of the world’s future population growth go to a country that already is overcrowded and limited on their resources? What about the environment? The more people the more wastes produced.

Some of the most prestigious scientific academies such as the American Society of Sciences state that humanities ability to deal successfully with its social, economic, and environmental problem will require the achievement a zero population growth with the lifetime of a generation. A crisis point is upon us with respects to population, environment, and development (Potts, 2007)

References

Unknown, Significant Canadian Facts http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/facts/supergeneral.html, Accessed Oct. 13th/09\

http://www.worldwide-tax.com/india/indpopulation.asp Accessed Oct. 13th/09

(Potts, Malcolm) http://www.springerlink.com/content/u710256014r52u68/fulltext.pdf (2007) Accessed Oct.13/09

3 comments:

  1. I found your article to be interesting and to the point. I agree with everything that you and Potts stated. I believe that it is of the utmost importance to raise awareness about family planning to provide a safe and healthy planet for future generations. In Potts primary article I think he should have taken into consideration the economic status in many developing countries. And that even with contraceptive methods available and proper health care woman there will still choose to have many children because they need them to work and because if high mortality rates. But overall your article was well written with the information that you were given.

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  2. Mike, I thought your article was very interesting and i also think that population control is necessary for the conservation of Earth. I agree that providing universal "Family Planning" methods would greatly improve the problem of overpopulation. Some of your claims are very attention grabbing such as the ones concerning population density in Canada compared to India. Overall your article was very good and is able to keep the attention of others, nice work.

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  3. I liked the way you structured your article... the statements were brief and to the point. The subject you chose to write your article on was really interesting and also agree that family planning is important and it is crucial to have a sustainable environment.

    overall i just really found your article interesting and easy to read. it kept my attention and held it.

    good job! well written.

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