I have been looking at a very interesting website called Optimum Population Trust. The website is full of very interesting facts about the UK’s and the World’s population and in particular about what they feel is an over populated planet Earth.
Lets look at the UK facts. In 2008 the population of the UK reached 61 million people. That’s a six fold increase since 1800. The projected population of the UK is expected to be over 69 million people by the year 2050. In 2007 the UK population increased by an amazing 434,700 people, and that is the equivalent of a city the size of Cardiff in just one year ! If this trend continues then the UK population will reach a staggering 100 million people by the end of the century.
The amount of land available to each inhabitant of the UK – to provide for our ecological needs and to absorb the waste products of our consumption – has shrunk to nearly a tenth of that available in 1750. The UK is slightly smaller than Oregon, a single state of the USA. We have a surface area of 24 million hectares of land and inland water to absorb the environmental impacts of all our consumption – that’s less than half a hectare (one acre) each – and this environmental space is shrinking every year.
Clearly, we need enough land and resources to sustain a population of this size but the UK doesn’t have the resources, which means that we have to take resources from other parts of the world. Very soon the UK will have an environmentally unsustainable population.
What’s causing the population explosion?
The Uk’s rise in population is caused by two main factors. Firstly, there are more births than deaths and secondly net migration (more immigrants than emigrants). As medical science advances at a rapid rate we are all going to live longer and also in 2007 there were 237,000 more people entering this country than leaving, and this is just one year as an example.
On the face of things the UK has a lot of open spaces, but it’s not spare land that is the problem it’s our needs for additional housing, energy and power supplies, reservoirs, schools, hospitals, transport, shops, waste disposal, prisons – and all its impacts in the form of waste and emissions.
What is the government’s attitude to over population ?
Up until very recently no government has tried to tackle the problem, but a government minister did say, in 2008, that the UK population would not be allowed to rise above 70 million.
After reading about the facts of over population I am firmly of the opinion that something needs to be done to limit the number of people in the country. It needs to be done in such a way that the population decreases over a period of time. I don’t know what the solution to the problem is but it must involve limiting the number of people who come into this country in one way or another.
If you want to read more information about this very interesting subject take a look at this website Optimum Population Trust
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