Biology For Dummies by Fester Kratz Rene

Author:Fester Kratz, Rene [Fester Kratz, Rene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119345381
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2017-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

If Figure 11-5 doesn’t impress you, here are a few statistics that might:

The human population doubled in the 40 years between 1950 and 1990.

Every second, about four new people are born.

The global human population passed the 6 billion mark at the end of the 20th century.

At current growth rates, the human population is projected to reach 9 to 12 billion by the end of the 21st century. Imagine that for a minute. What would your life be like if twice as many people lived on Earth as do today? There’d be twice as many people dining at restaurants, driving around, going to the movies, hiking in the woods … you get the idea.

What’s scary is that scientists question whether the Earth can even support that many humans. The exact carrying capacity of the Earth for humans isn’t known because, unlike other species, humans can use technology to increase the Earth’s carrying capacity for the species. Currently, scientists estimate that humans are using about 25 percent of the Earth’s primary productivity, which is the ability of living things like plants to make food. Humans also use about half of the world’s fresh water. If humans continue to use more and more of the Earth’s resources, the increased competition will drive many other species to extinction. (This pressure on other species from human impacts is already being seen, endangering species such as gorillas, cheetahs, lions, tigers, sharks, and killer whales.)

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