A world of 10 billion
By Travis Matthews
Progression
Day by day earth continues to become more crowded. Beginning at 1 1/2 billion people, our earth has now reached the 7 billion mark, and is continuing to rise. Can you imagine what kind of situation we would be in if we got to the predicted, dreaded 10 billion mark.
Our countrys would be in a complete state of panic and disaster. Earths Landscapes would have a complete makeover, be totally trashed, and have some big climate changes. We would have to find whole new sources to provide us with air, food, and water. Not to mention we would all be crammed tighter than a suitcase trying to make it through bagging check at the airport.
And eventually, we will start to see less, and less vegetation. Because if we keep reproducing at the rate we are now and reach 10 billion, were going to have to build more houses for people to live in. And we've already started running out of space to build, so what do we do ? We start clearing more and more forested, natured areas to construct on. loosing more and more vegetation.
And these are only some samples of what will unfold if we reach 10 billion in population.
Resources
One of the effects we would start to see with the growing population is, a panic for resources. Try to imagine all the grocery stores scrambling and searching for a provider of food and goods, but all the providers, have nothing to sell. There farm land has just been bought and cleared to build new residency. There cattle, all bought up as well. They have nothing to make there product from, which means no more milk, bread, and cheese. With no supplier, grocery stores will be a mad chaos of people, in and out trying to get there hands on what's left. And eventually grocery stores won't have any use and start to shut down.
Now it won't just be food sources we see slip away. There will become less forested areas on earth. As I explained above, the more people we gain the more housing, and work buildings we will need to create. With very little building space, we turn to clearing away nature to make room.
One of the other big, important resources in danger, that I have not mentioned, is gasoline. The More people we have, the more cars on the roadway we have. And the demand, and consumption of gasoline will sky rocket. Eventually we will get to a point were, we will all be driving electrical cars, because we will have practically extinguished the resource of gasoline.
Sadly the more of us there are, the higher demand and use for resources we have. That's a tough reality to face.
Non human species
Lets start with animals.
Lets face it our animal friends have already been through enough. From the oil spill a few years ago, to humans continuous expansion for building land, by bulldozing nature. According to the IUCN red list there are 16,306 animal species in danger today. Now can we begin to imagine what this number will look like in the future when we have 10 billion people on this earth. And the number of hunters increase, and we continue to take away more land to bulldoze into building space. We are going to have almost no animal species left here on earth. Were talking massive extinction for the animals who lost their homes, and the predators who depend on them for food. Then for the little producers, and organisms at the bottom of the food chain, we would start to see, possibly massive, out of control overpopulation.
All from our growing population and demand.
Now our other big non-human species that would be in danger, is plants.
Plants are in the same boat with animals. There are16,306 plant species in danger today. And at the rate that were clearing forest, and cutting down trees, were going to be one big tundra, without out the freezing climate. No more pencils, printer and news paper, no more firewood for the winter. ...... If we see another winter. It's going to be pretty tough trying to survive with barley any oxygen to take in.
As you can see now, our increasing population won't just affect humans.
Climate
For once, humans don't get all 100% of the blame for a problem occurring on our earth.
Our climate we know is already seeing some changes, you know with global warming and the earth heating up. ....... So what effect could our climate have in the future if it continues on this path? Well according to what scientist have said, if our earth continues to get hotter and hotter, we will see a more violent occurrence of events from what we already see today. Such as maybe complete melting of the ice caps, to even stronger storm systems ( like rain, hurricanes, and tsunamis) .
We can see potential need for some migration/ and moving around to escape the effects . But here's were we hit a road block. With 10 billion people on this earth, there is going to be barley any place to move to. Were going to be so jam packed, it will be hard to find a new space to live. Which means were going to be seeing a lot more homeless people than we do today, wandering around, trying to find a new place to call home.
Climate change is going to be a huge hurtle for us to leap in the future, for our growing population.
Biomes
Think how many resources we use, and take from our biome systems today as a human race. A 7.2 billion human race. Now think about how much that would multiply if we grew another 3 billion. How many more houses we would need to build, how many more work buildings we would need to build to create more job opportunities, and how much space we would have to make to create these structures. Within no little time at all we would almost have no biomes or vegetation left. Plus we would have tons of animal species homeless, moving around, possibly into suburban areas to find homes. Then there will be some that don't even make it out of what was their home, and we can add more animal species to our extinction list.
Then it will turn to absolute mad chaos when were all struggling to find a new source of oxygen, or air to breathe in. Because there will be so little sources of it left.
The destruction of these biomes can defiantly lead to our downfall.
Bibliography
Chow, By Denise. "What 11 Billion People Mean for Climate Change." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 21 Nov. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Kasnoff, Craig. "Endangered Earth – Promoting the Plight of Endangered Species and the Efforts to Save Them." Endangered Earth. N.p., 2015. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
Staff, By Live Science. "What 11 Billion People Mean for the Planet." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 19 Nov. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2015
Main, Douglas. "What 11 Billion People Mean for Earth's Animals." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.
"Improving Agriculture." Growth of the World Population. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Apr. 2015.