Population Growth
By: Carrie Pettibone
What does Population Growth have to do with The Tragedy of the Commons?
Not all people believe population growth to be an example of The Tragedy of the Commons, but some scientists do. The common resource in this example is Earth and all its shared resources. Anyone who lives uses, needs air, land, water, and food, and all of those resources come from this planet. With our population being 7.125 billion, population growth can be seen as a huge problem.
The "Key Players" of Population Growth
Everyone plays a part in this problem, obviously. Having children (making the population go up) is a natural thing in this world. Some places try to control the growth of population, China being an example of that. China, with a population of 1.357 billion, has been trying to lower the number of people with a law that says a couple can only have one child. This plays a big role in trying to control the rapid growth of population, even if it's just in China.
Expected Population Growth
This picture, from 2009, shows what is expected of the growth in population from 2000-2080.