Human Population: the Future
Created by Abby VanVliet and Andrea Tel, January 2023.
Supply and Demand:
Earth's natural ecosystems provide all species on the planet with necessary things like food, water, shelter. Ecosystems also have the ability to recycle naturally occuring wastes. But they can only give and recycle a limited amount of resources. What happens when we use up the resources or they don't recycle as quickly as we use them? If this happens we could end up in an ecological deficit.
Different ecosystems vary in their capacity to meet our needs. Each ecosystems has a different biocapacity. Which is the ability to produce biological materials that are useful to humans and to absorb the wastes that we create. It is dependent on the available biologically productive areas of land and water. It is measured in global hectares. (gha) So an actual hectare of land could have a more and 1 or less than one global hectare.
It is dependent on the natural conditions and how the land is used. It is not distrubed evenly, according to the Living Planet Report (in 2007), 10 countries held 60% of the world's biocapacity.
Ecological Footprint is a way to measure the humans population demand's on nature. In 2010, Ontario footprint of 8.4 gha per person. A high gha is a 3. If our ecological footprint exceeds our biocapacity there is a ecological defict.
Terms:
Ecological deficit: When the use of resources and waste production exceedsa sustainable level.
Biocapacity: a measure of an ecosystem's ability to produce and absorb biological materials useful and created by humans.
Human Population Projections:
No one can predict our future with certainty since things are subject to change. For example, some projections predict that the world's population will double in 40 years (if growth continued at the same rate), but some studies show that the rate is not as high as it was in the last century.
Population can depend on many things (such as fertility rates). For example, compared to 1970- 1975, 152 countries had lower human fertility in 2000-2005, three had an increase in fertility, and seven countries had no change.
Concerned about global population, the world leaders adopted the UNMDG in 2000:
eliminating poverty and hunger
universal education
gender equality
improved child health
improved maternal health
reduction in contractions of HIV/AIDS
environmental sustainability
global partnership
Terms:
UNMDG: The United Nations Millennium Development Goals were eight international goals for the year 2015.
Consider.... How would you take action to reduce the impact of our population on the environment?
Conservation:
Biodiversity, the variety of life, is an important global issue.
Scientists estimate that with about 10% of known species will be increasingly at risk of extinction for every 1°C rise in temperature. Some species can adapt or adjust but others can't.
What can you do?
use solar panels, wind turbines, hyrdoelectricity and green natural gases
have green buildings
design sustianable neighbourhoods