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The Population Solution

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The Population Solution
The Population Solution

Question... 1. Most people assume that human numbers will stabilize at some point in the future. Discuss the conditions which can contribute to the solution of the population explosion.

"Let us suppose that the average human being weighs 60 kilogram 's. If that 's the case then 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 people would weigh as much as the whole Earth does. That number of people is 30,000,000,000,000 times as many people as there are living today. It may seem to you that the population can go up a long, long time before it reaches the point where there are
30,000,000,000,000 times as many people as there are today. Let 's think about that though. Let us suppose that the population growth rate stays at 2.0 per cent so that the number of people in the world continues to double every 35 years. How long, then, will it take for the world 's population to weigh as much as the entire planet? The answer is - not quite 1,600 years. This means that by
3550 AD, the human population would weight as much as the entire planet.... Even if that were possible, it wouldn 't give us much time. If the growth-rate stays at 2.0 per cent, then in a little over 2,200 years - say, by 4220 AD - the human populat i on would weigh as much as the entire Solar system, including the Sun... and by about 6700 AD - the human population would weigh as much as the entire
Universe." The preceding paragraph, by Isaac Asimov describes quite alarmingly just how bad the population problem really is, that in considerably less time that has passed since the days of Julius Caesar the population will equal in mass of that of the earth. Most people assume that human numbers will stabilize at some point in the future. Hopefully it will, but not without conditions that will contribute to the solution of the population explosion, conditions which include education, birth control methods and government action.

Although not the largest in terms of population size, Kenya has one



Bibliography: Asimov, Isaac. "Let 's suppose..." Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship. New York: John Day Co., 1974 Doubled & Company Inc., 1984 Noble, Mike

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