ARTICLE TITLE: Human Population Grows Up AUTHOR/SOURCE: Joel E.

Cohen MAIN POINTS: Before 2000, young people outnumbered old people. From 2000 onward, old people will outnumber young people. 2007 rural people outnumbered urban people. After 207, urban people will outnumber rural people. From 2003 on, the median woman worldwide will have too few or just enough children during her lifetime to replace herself and the father the following generation. No person who died before 1930 lived through a doubling of human population, nor is any person born in 2050 or later likely to live through a doubling. Everyone 45 or older has seen more than a doubling of human numbers from 3 billion to 6.5 billion from 1960 to 2005. Peak population growth rate reached 2.1% a year, occurred between 1965 and 1970. Population never grew with such speed before 20th century and is never again likely to grow with such speed. Dramatic fall since 1970 of global population growth rate to 1.1 or 1.2% a year today resulted primarily from choices by billions of couples around the world. The next half a century will see an enormous shift in the demographic balance between more developed and less developed regions. By 2050 the ration between less developed populations vs. more is 6 to 1. Social Security reforms in the U.S fail to recognize the fundamental population aging. Current levels of growth are still greater than any experienced prior to WWII First absolute increase in population by one billion took from beginning of time until 19th century. By 2050, the world's population is projected to reach 9.1 billion plus or minus 2 billion people, depending on birth and death rates. Anticipated increase (2.6 billion) exceeds total population of world in 1950 which was 2.5 billion. Rapid population growth hasn't ended. Human numbers increase by 74 million to 76 million annually= adding another U.S every 4 years. Most increases aren't occurring in countries with the wealth of the U.S. Between 2005 and 2050, population will triple in the poorest countries on Earth. All population growth in the next 45 years is expected to happen in today's economically less developed regions. Poor countries population grows faster because of the higher birth rate. Poor-2.9 children, rich-1.6 children Half the global increase is from nine nations, U.S and China being 2 of them. In contrast, 51 countries will lose population between now and 2050.

Children aged 4 years and younger peaked in 1955 at 14.5% and declined to 9.5% in 2005. Older increased from 8.1 percent to 10.4 percent from 1960 to 2005. If trends continue as projected in 2050, all of the world's population growth will be in urban areas. Poor countries will have to build equivalent of a city of more than one million people each week for next 45 years. Question is whether 2050's billions of people can live with freedom of choice and material prosperity, however freedom and prosperity may be defined by those alive in 2050. Worry is as old as recorded history, Babylonians, Thomas Malthus in 1798, Donella Meadows in 1972. Early efforts to calculate Earth's human carrying capacity assumed that a necessary condition for a sustainable human society could be measured in units of land. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek estimated in 1679 that the inhabited area of Earth was 13,385 times larger than Holland. He wrote "the inhabited earth...yields...13,385,000,000 human beings on earth." In 2002, Mathis Wackernagel and his colleagues sought to quantify amount of land humans used to supply resources and to absorb wastes. Prelim assessment concluded that humanity used 70 percent of global biospheres capacity in 1961 and 120 percent in 1999. By 1999, people were exploiting the environment faster than it could regenerate itself. Approach has many problems. Wackernagel and colleagues calculated the area of forests that would be needed to absorb CO2 produced in generating the energy. Approach fails because energy generation technologies that do not emit CO2. Attempts to quantify Earth's human carrying capacity or a sustainable human population size face the challenge of understanding the constraints imposed by nature, Choices faced by people and the interactions between them. Constraints imposed by nature are dealt with elsewhere. Most published estimates of Earth's human carrying capacity uncritically assumed answers to one or more of the questions like what level of risk are people willing to live with? Estimates ranged from less than one billion to more than 1,000 billion. Estimates are political numbers, used to persuade people that too many people are on Earth or there is no problem with continuing rapid population growth. Major cities were est. in regions of exceptional agricultural productivity. If the urban population doubles in the next half a century from 3 billion to 6 billion, while the world's rural population remains roughly constant at three billion, and if many cities expand in area rather than in density, agricultural lands could be removed. Most densely settled half of the planet's population lives on 2 to 3 percent of all ice-free land. If cities double in area as well as population by 2050, urban areas could grow to occupy 6 percent of land. Each rural person on average will have to shift from feeding him or herself and one city dweller today to feeding herself and two urbanites in less than half a century

If intensity of rural agricultural production increases, demand for food, along with tech supplied by growing cities to the rural regions may lift the agrarian population from poverty.

AUTHOR'S POINT: This article talks about the demographics and population peaks throughout the 1960's to right now, and the predictions until the year of 2050. The change in todays population rate isnt being noticed by the public, but catches the attention of the politics. Populations in poorer countries are estimated to have a higher population growth rate than in rich countries like the United States. The reason behind this is because the birth rates are higher. Population is also estimated to rapidly increase by 74 to 76 million each year. With this rapid increase spurs questions about carrying capacity. Prelim assessment concluded that humanity used 70 percent of global biospheres capacity in 1961 and 120 percent in 1999.By 1999, people were exploiting the environment faster than it could regenerate itself. No one knows the exact number this earth can hold, but with this knowledge we could make tomorrow a better day. MY THOUGHTS: I found this article very interesting from the beginning. The author made sure he made his point from the beginning of the article and caught the readers attention. I think it is true that the Earth has a carrying capacity. Over using the earths Biosphere can be bad for our environment. The carrying capacity can be real high if we know how to sustain our resources and know how to use them wisely. We need to inform more people about what is going on and make sure that the population rate stays stable. So What..? Rapid population growth spurs the question of how much population the Earth can hold. What if..? The carrying capacity was found? What if nobody noticed how bad earth was being over populated by humans? Says Who? Joel E. Cohen What does this remind you of..? A cup while pouring water in it. Too much water will overflow the cup.