Lesson 2.02 Human Population Growth: Trends and Factors

• Introduction
• Learn
• Try It
• Task

Introduction

"Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we posses. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim."
- Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader and Nobel laureate

"Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation."
- Helen Keller, world-renowned deaf and blind author and lecturer

The two quotes above are from two of the most influential and intellectual people of the 20th century. They understood the potential problem of human population growth and what could be done to combat the problem. Like all populations, human population growth occurs when birth rates are greater than death rates. It is limited by factors in the environment like other populations.

The one difference between human populations and other populations is that humans posses an intellect that enables them to solve problems and overcome many of the variables, such as factors that determine carrying capacity, which limits a population's ability to continue growing. Humans can tend to manipulate the laws of nature and seemingly increase the environment's carrying capacity for them. However, this puts a greater stress on the environment and causes problems that affect, and in some cases destroy, parts of the environment, and ultimately will impact the human population itself.

Remember from your study of food webs, all things within the environment are connected either directly or indirectly and affect all other parts of the environment.

Visit NOVA: Human Numbers Through Time and launch the interactive to see how the human population has changed in the last 2,000 years.