Too Many People, Not Enough Space

Too+Many+People%2C+Not+Enough+Space

Picture by Matthew Chartier

As time passes by, more and more people are being born. Due to the amount of people suffering from starvation, many consider overpopulation a problem. But the true cause of this problem is poor distribution of food.

According to Mit.edu, “Enough food is produced worldwide to feed all the people in the world” (Leathers, p. 133). However, nearly 1 billion people are suffering from chronic hunger today. We have enough food in our world to feed everybody and prevent starvation; we just do not distribute the food well throughout parts of the world. Population growth does result in more consumption of resources, but it is not the cause of starvation. These malnourished people are from countries with bigger problems such as food distribution and poverty.

Many countries need higher population in order to create a steady population since humans are producers as well as consumers. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government pays women to have more children. Since people in countries like Russia are being paid to raise the population, it is foolish to think that overpopulation is currently a problem.

We should not worry about having space for new generations. Factslist.net states, “ If you were to consider every square foot of the earth and divide it by the number of people on the planet, we would all have a good chunk of square footage. However, the majority of the Earth is water, hence the reason for the perception of overpopulation.” Due to the unbalanced land to ocean ratio on the Earth, many believe that we do not have enough land to sustain everyone, leading to overpopulation. However, we have enough land for each person and their families. According to factslist.net, the world population could sink into Texas. If we can fit every single person in the second largest state in one country, we have more that enough land to fit many more people on Earth.

Overpopulation is not an issue; it is a myth. We have enough food and land to sustain people. Although more population does lead to more consumption, we need to remember that more people leads to more creation.