How the human population contributes to Climate Change

Before defining the terms population and climate, we must understand their relationship; for example, when we fill a room with more people exceeding its capacity, it is filled with carbon dioxide, which can be dangerous to present in the room. This is the result of the growing population in the world. But what is referred to as exhalation here is not just human exhalation. It is also the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere for every human activity. Why take carbon dioxide as an example? Because it is used as the reference gas to measure the global warming potential of other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The world population increased from 1 billion in 1800 to around 8 billion today. On November 15^th, 2022, the number of people in the world topped 8 billion for the first time, according to the United Nations. Also, the World population is expected to reach 9 billion in the year 2037. Click the Link here to stay updated

The science behind population overgrowth

The main contributors to our rapid population growth are advances in medicine which, along with the improvement in hygiene, means that mothers and children have a much greater chance of surviving childbirth, and most infants survive through childhood. And then, two great inventions have lowered the incidence of disease, particularly infectious diseases: antibiotics and vaccination. Vaccination, for instance, has made smallpox, which used to kill millions of people, extinct. And whereas people once died from simple bacterial infections – you get scratched by a rose thorn while you’re gardening and dead in a week – with antibiotics, we can now control those infections. The highest population growth rate happened between 1955 and 1975. It’s known as The Great Acceleration, corresponding to the greatest increase in welfare for most people. Ever since, reproduction rates, particularly in developed countries, have been dropping, so the growth rate is starting to slow as people have fewer children. But we’re still going to be somewhere between 8 plus and 11 billion by the year 2050. lifespans are increasing around the world. Those of us who are alive today will likely live much longer than most of our ancestors. Global average life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900. Find out more by clicking the Link.  

Normally in biology, when an organism reaches high densities like humans, the disease takes hold or resources run out, and the organism is wiped out. Humans have increased in population so rapidly and successfully because we’ve sidestepped the two problems of food shortage and being knocked over by disease. That started in the industrial revolution when there were about a billion of us, and we tapped into using fossil fuels to do large-scale agriculture. Also, Increasing and encouraging education among women and girls can have a number of positive ripple effects, including delayed childbearing, healthier children, and an increase in workforce participation. Plenty of evidence suggests a negative correlation between female education and fertility rates.

Sri Lankan Population growth rate

The population growth rate and the unfavorable spatial distribution of the population have contributed to the degradation of the environment and the depletion of natural resources in Sri Lanka. One of today’s most important tasks is meeting the increasing population’s demands in the context of continuing depletion of resources, land degradation, and environmental pollution.

Widespread poverty in Sri Lanka has forced low-income receiving families to overuse and misuse the resource base for survival. The size of the population, growth rates, spatial distribution, and trends in urbanization have a direct impact on environmental degradation and pollution. It is apparent that population dynamics, resource utilization, and environmental issues should be viewed together through a more meaningful perspective in the 21st century. Sri Lanka has the fastest-growing aging population in South Asia, and it is projected that by 2030, one in five Sri Lankans will be over the age of 60, with the majority being women.

Aging is a triumph of development. People are living longer because of better nutrition, sanitation, health care, education, and economic well-being. In order to reap the benefits of this demographic dividend, Sri Lanka must invest in forward-thinking, rights-based, and gender-sensitive policies that focus on the needs of people at every stage of their life.

Find more information here, Archived.

Environmental pollution is a huge issue in Sri Lanka with the developing economic background and the increasing population. Most of the water resources are getting polluted by sewage which directly impacts humans and animals. Air pollution is also a major health hazard in Sri Lanka, especially in main cities such as Colombo, Kandy, Gampaha, and Maharagama. Ozone gases and fine particles are the most hazardous air pollutants nowadays, parallel to population growth. Click here to find out more.

How can the increasing population contribute to Climate Change?

Some rumors spread that the exhalation of carbon dioxide from all 8 million+ people in the population contributes significantly to global warming. That’s not true, according to the evaluations. Human beings do exhale almost three billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. Still, the carbon we exhale is the same carbon that the plants “inhale” from the atmosphere. The only way to add to the carbon in the atmosphere is to take it from a sequestered source like fossil fuels. Where it has been stored away from the atmosphere for millions of years. The average human exhales about 2.3 pounds of carbon dioxide on an average day. Take this number and multiply it by a population of 7 billion people (this analysis was done before the population reached 8 billion), breathing away for 365.25 days per year. You get an annual CO2 output of 2.94 billion tons. International carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion for 2008 topped 34.7 billion tons. So the human race breathes out about 8.5 percent as much carbon as we burn. Click here, to find out more. 

So it is important here that we know what factor of population growth actually leads to climate change.

The need for basic necessities of human life, such as food and shelter, is increasing due to the increase in population. To get all these, man depends on the earth itself. So overuse of Earth is causing climate change. And fossil fuel is the raw material to meet all the needs of today’s generation. The gases produced by burning these fuels are a major contributor to climate change. In short, due to the increase in population, the demands of mankind have increased. Actions taken to meet these demands lead to climate change.

Let’s take a deeper look at these demands,

The effects of climate change, including sea level rise, droughts, floods, and extreme weather, will be more severe if actions are not taken to dramatically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Population growth is important because it affects the Earth’s ability to withstand climate change and absorb emissions, such as through deforestation, as land is converted for agricultural use to feed a growing human population. Climate change is already shrinking glaciers and ice caps, altering the availability of fresh water. It contributes to ocean acidification, destroying coral reefs and other aquatic ecosystems. It makes places uninhabitable for some plants and animals, leading to extinctions and redistribution of species, threatening food production with alien pests and diseases.

The increase in population is one of the major causes of Global Warming. This increase in population also leads to increased air pollution. Automobiles emit much CO2, which remains in the atmosphere. This increase in population is also causing deforestation, which contributes to global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities, particularly greenhouse gas emissions from high-income countries, and has identified population growth as an immediate driver of emissions. Because population pressure increases emissions through burning fossil fuels, increased material extraction, deforestation, industrial agriculture, and other manufacturing processes, it’s important to advocate for policies that rapidly reduce those emissions and build resilience in a changing climate. More information can be reached here, Archived.

Increase in cars, power plants, airplanes, industries, buildings, and other parts of our fossil fuel-dependent economy and lifestyles. Implicit in this faulty framing is the notion that all people contribute significantly to heat-trapping emissions. In fact, data show that the richest 10 percent of the world’s population contributes 50 percent of annual global warming emissions.

The sea level is increasing by 0.12 inches per year worldwide. This is happening because of the melting of polar ice caps because of global warming. This has increased the frequency of floods in many lowland areas and has caused damage to coral reefs. The Arctic is one of the worst-hit areas affected by global warming. Air quality has been adversely affected and the acidity of the seawater has also increased causing severe damage to marine life forms. Severe natural disasters are brought about by global warming which has had dire effects on life and property.

Population growth from now to the year 2100

The Earth’s population is expected to continue growing for the next 60-80 years. Improvements in healthcare technology, shared by developed countries with still developing and least-developed countries, have increased life expectancy and reduced infant mortality rates—which, in turn, have helped drive a boom in population growth. In fact, ten countries are expected to gain more in population by 2050 than the rest of the world combined. Although the world’s population is currently increasing, trends indicate that the rate of growth in many countries, especially developed countries and those with high populations, is slowing down. By the end of this century, even the world’s fastest-growing countries are expected to have reached peak population size and begun to display declining (or negative) growth rates.

Whether population growth is good or bad depends heavily upon several factors, most notably the rate of growth, the country in which it is taking place, and that country’s level of development. Countries with mature economies and well-developed infrastructure are more likely to absorb an increase in population. Conversely, developing countries are more likely to lack adequate jobs, health care, or other infrastructure to support a larger population.

Similarly, a gentle increase in population is typically considered healthy, but a high rate of growth can be undesirable. High growth can often overwhelm a country’s infrastructure, strain systems ranging from the job market to the food supply, and constrain available resources. Technological advances may offer opportunities to overcome production shortages and/or environmental damage when this happens.

“Our mother earth can’t feed so many people. Control the global population for our nature’s sake”

-With Inputs from Dinesh Balasri –