Possible Solutions to Overpopulation

On March 23, 2012, in English 400, by Bryan Johnson

India has one of the biggest population growth rates in the world so an attempt to limit the growth rate here will help the rest of the world. One of the ways this is possible would be to teach them the importance of planned parenthood and the need for small families. Teaching them the need for smaller families for the overall good of the world will hopefully promote abstinence or birth control methods. This will also be teaching them about diseases and ways to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. By educating them and a receiving a positive response by the Indian people a policy similar to the one-child policy in China would not be necessary. This would be one of the cheapest methods but perhaps not the most effective.  

                 Another possibility that would coincide with the education part of the solution would be to provide a form of birth control available to the population of India. Birth control for a year for one woman in India would be about $60 US dollars. This would be fairly expensive for poorer people in India but if this could be built into people’s taxes in India it would lower the burden on the poorer people. Also a welfare birth control system could be used as well. The United Nations could also help support the cause since they are also aware of the growth rate of the human population and they are a world power. We could also appeal to Americans to help the cause financially.

                In 2006 a poll was taken and it was determined 27% of Indian women were using contraceptives so it would not be a new unwanted problem because it is already accepted by India. Many of the leaders of their religion (Hinduism) support contraceptives. One of their religions main moral codes Dharma emphasizes the need to act in the best interest of the world and limiting the population would be a great way to help the world as a whole.

                One of the biggest reasons why overpopulation is such a problem is because of the lack of resources in the world. If we had unlimited resources then our population would not be a major problem but many people do not have access to resources and soon even more people will have no access to resources they need to live. A way to prevent this would be to make our resources more efficient. Research is already underway with genetically modified organisms. These organisms can be manipulated so that they can produce a bigger yield and can produce more nutrients per organism. This could mean that each person could potentially need less of the organism then originally needed thus saving leftover organisms for other people to consume for nutrients. For yield example corn can be manipulated to resist pests and therefore have greater crop yield. Another example which would increase nutrients per organism would be the faster maturation of salmon. They grow much bigger when injected with hormones and could feed more people because of that.

                With all of these ways combined maybe we can limit the population of earth as well as maximize the resources we have available.


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