THE ISSUE OF UNCHECKED POPULATION GROWTH AND ITS EFFECT ON ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION

Abstract

As the world population continues to grow, humankind is expected to experience more social, economic and environmental problems. The global population keeps growing at a very rapid pace. According to the statistical data in 2030 the global population will reach 8.4 billion and in 2050 the total size of the population will be 9.6 billion. As a result of this phenomenal growth of population, the consumption of resources such as land, food, water, air, fossil fuels and minerals has grown rapidly over the last decades. More consumption means more waste, more water pollutants, toxic materials and greenhouse gasses. Unregulated population growth will cause the environmental degradation and ecological disaster in the future. The research question of this paper is: is there a causal link between the population growth and environmental degradation? The main goal of this article is to find out if the unchecked population growth causes damage to our environment.