Rapid Growth in Global Population
Rapid Growth in Global Population by Yoshie Kikuchi
Introduction
The rapid growth in global population is not caused by any single reason. The frequent appearance of the subject in different United Nations Conferences such as the Conference on Environment and Development and the International Conference on Population and Development reflects the complexity of the problem. Population growth is so intricately intertwined with international economic imbalances and environmental degradation that none of the problems can be solved individually without improvements of the others. Therefore, keeping the situation in mind, it is necessary to stabilize the population growth in order to achieve the common goal of human survival.
Background
Through most of human history, the world 's population remained below 300 million. Sometime after the year 1600, it slowly started turning upward. Accompanied with the improvements in agriculture and other technologies, and then with the Industrial Revolution, the world population grew faster than before through the eighteenth century. It took the earth eighteen centuries to reach the first one billion inhabitants. The population increase continued into the twentieth century at a much faster pace, and since the end of World War II, the earth has been experiencing the steepest population growth in human history.
Today the earth holds about 5.7 billion people. According to United Nations ' predictions, by 2050, the world will probably have at least 7.9 billion by the "low variant" projection and 9.8 billion by the "mid-range" projection; and the largest figure predicts the population will grow to be 12 billion. More than 90 percent of this projected growth will occur in developing countries. South Asia, which includes India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iran, will have the largest numerical increase, from 1.2 billion today to 1.5 billion people by the end of the century. Africa will experience the greatest percentage increase–38
Introduction
The rapid growth in global population is not caused by any single reason. The frequent appearance of the subject in different United Nations Conferences such as the Conference on Environment and Development and the International Conference on Population and Development reflects the complexity of the problem. Population growth is so intricately intertwined with international economic imbalances and environmental degradation that none of the problems can be solved individually without improvements of the others. Therefore, keeping the situation in mind, it is necessary to stabilize the population growth in order to achieve the common goal of human survival.
Background
Through most of human history, the world 's population remained below 300 million. Sometime after the year 1600, it slowly started turning upward. Accompanied with the improvements in agriculture and other technologies, and then with the Industrial Revolution, the world population grew faster than before through the eighteenth century. It took the earth eighteen centuries to reach the first one billion inhabitants. The population increase continued into the twentieth century at a much faster pace, and since the end of World War II, the earth has been experiencing the steepest population growth in human history.
Today the earth holds about 5.7 billion people. According to United Nations ' predictions, by 2050, the world will probably have at least 7.9 billion by the "low variant" projection and 9.8 billion by the "mid-range" projection; and the largest figure predicts the population will grow to be 12 billion. More than 90 percent of this projected growth will occur in developing countries. South Asia, which includes India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iran, will have the largest numerical increase, from 1.2 billion today to 1.5 billion people by the end of the century. Africa will experience the greatest percentage increase–38
References: Human population growth rate[edit source | editbeta] Annual population growth rate in percent, as listed in the CIA World Factbook (2011 estimate).[4] Growth rate of world population (1950–2050) Population of the world from 10,000 BCE to 2000 CE (logarithmic scale)