At present, the population of the earth stands at over seven-point eight thousand million and increasing every day. Just about every country in the world today faces huge problems caused by overpopulation.
Human beings need houses to stay in. So as the population increases, more houses need to be built. Thus, and forests are cleared for building houses. Vegetation and animals are deprived of their natural homes. Their very survival is threatened. The eco-system and thus the environment is changed, often for the worse.
Towns and cities become larger and larger as people converge into them. The roads are jammed with cars and other vehicles. Road accidents occur more frequently. It is difficult even to find a place to park one’s car, or it cost a tidy sum to park in a car park.
Increased population means increased demand for goods. Consequently, everything costs more. The price for things has multiplied over the years. My father laments the fact that his $485 per month salary is hardly enough to cater to the needs of our family which consists of only four persons — my parents. my sister and me. He said that twenty-five years ago, his father worked for only $485 per month and still managed to bring up his family of five children. It just shows how overpopulation has contributed to the increased cost of living.
The house we live in now has low water pressure. It was not like this just five years ago. The pressure is low because the old water pipes that supplied water to us has to supply water to all the new houses built near us: With so many people drawing water from the same source, no wonder the water pressure is so low. We actually have to store water in tanks and buckets during the night when the pressure is slightly higher so that we have enough water to use during the day when the water literally drips from the taps. This is another problem resulting from overpopulation.
It can be seen then that an increasing population requires more and more things to meet their needs. More people means more food, fuel and other necessities are required. This in turn put more strain on the earth to produce the things needed. Again more land needs to be converted for agriculture and factories to produce these things. There is no escape from this if the population keeps increasing. More and more problems will be created.
The is only one way out of this predicament. and that is not to allow the population of the world to increase anymore. In that way, we can avoid more problems being added to the already existing ones.