UHAP 6013: SEMINAR ON GLOBAL AND

DEVELOPMENT, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL

ISSUES

TOPIC:

POPULATION GROWTH

NAME

: NAWAL BINTI ABD GHAFAR

MATRIC ID

: MKK152013

PROGRAM

: MASTER OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING (MKK)

CLASS INSTRUCTOR : ASSOC. PROF. DR. NORHANI BAKRI

Human Population Growth

What is population growth? Population growth or population growth rate (PGR) is the
increment of population in a certain country over a period of time (one year). This population
growth depends on the births and deaths rate, people migrating to and from the country at that
period of time. What is the current world human population? To this day, the current world
human population has reached over 7 billion people. It was estimated by an analyst that the
world population will reach 9.7 billion and 11.2 billion by 2050 and 2100 respectively.
(Carrington, 2014).The world human population generally has been on a rise and the amount
of people in the world will keep increasing.
In the year of 1789, Thomas Malthus who studied population growth in Europe had
first mentioned that the human population is experiencing an exponential growth which
means that the population increased geometrically instead arithmetically. The population is
increasing faster and faster until it reached a massive quantity. It is shown in the graph of
human population in Figure 1 that the human population has been experiencing an
exponential growth since year of 1600. The amount of human in the world was around 500
millions during that time and had doubled up to 1 billion in 1800, and further increased to 4
billions in 1974 until it had reached 7 billions in 2011.

Figure 1 : The Trend in Human Population Growth (UN Population Division,2012)

One of the reasons for the sudden population growth explosion is because of the
commencement of Agricultural Revolution. This happens around 17th century in Europe
when the agriculture productivity were maximized with the introduction of new farming
practices that domesticate animal and crops. The agricultural practices have actually spread
from Europe to the rest of the world in mid 19th century, thus increasing food production
causing the rapid increase of human population. The Agricultural Revolution was the cause
of Industrial Revolution, in which there were scientific advances and technological
innovations in contributing to rise in agricultural and industrial productions, thus improving
the living conditions. (Landes & David, 1969)
Other reason for the spike in population growth is because medical advancement. This
is all started with Anton van Leeuwenhoek, known as the father of microbiology who
proposed germ theory of disease in 1700. Apparently, this theory had revolutionalized human
health which leads to vaccinations being created. (Gillen & Oliver, 2009) Prior to the medical
advancement, people were dying at early age because of unavoidable unknown disease that
engulfed them. However, after the medical advancement, people could actually live longer as
child mortality rate had been reduced. There was also an improvement in the sanitary
condition, which helps improved the standards of living. For instance, there was a sewer
system that people benefitted around the year of 1800. (Globalchange,2006)
The Effects of Population Growth
Due to the development in numerous aspects, the living condition had vastly improved till
now. The world nowadays is a much more comfortable and hospitable place than the past
centuries. Thus, because of that, the human habitat has pretty much expanded to everywhere
around the world. However, the growing human population is becoming a growing concern
as it is unknown whether the human population is going to reach the Earths carrying
capacity. What does it mean by Earths carrying capacity? Earths carrying capacity means
the maximum amount of people that the Earth can support. There is no exact number to the
carrying capacity of Earth as it is a quite complex prediction. The first estimation was made
by Leeuwenhoek in 1679 in which he publicly guessed the Earths carrying capacity to be
around 13.4 billion people. There were also many further estimations made in which the
estimation range of the Earths carrying capacity is around 8 to 16 billions.( Cohen, 2003).
This shows that the current human population of over 7 billion are moving towards the
Earths carrying capacity, which is a troubling issue.

There are multiple reasons that the growing human population is an issue that need to
be attended. The reason is mainly due to the resource availability and the environmental
impacts that can be imposed. Human obviously requires many things to survive such as food,
clean water and fossil fuels for energy. These survival things or known as resources that
human consumed actually needs space. What is meant by space? It could be the space to
grow the resources, to produce the resources or space to discard the resulting waste from the
resources. The ecologists made an estimation of how many lands it takes to support the
human population based on the ecological footprint.
What is ecological footprint? The ecological footprint is a measuring tool to measure
the natures capacity against the demand in this planet. This includes by comparing the rate of
the natural resources is consumed and waste generated to the ability of the planet to replenish
the resources and absorbs waste. The rate of the resources consumed depends on the human
activity or also known as the lifestyle of an individual. Thus, the way a person consumes the
resources differs for each individual. One of the estimates made from the ecological footprint
was it would take 5 planets to support the human population if everyone lived a lifestyle like
the average American. (Footprintbasics,2016) A person that lives in a developed country like
America obviously uses more resources and therefore more spaces than people in a poorer
country. Despite the facts that the space used differs for each individual, space is a limiting
factor. Therefore, there will probably be more conflict in the future on how the space is
utilized due to the population growth.

Figure 2: The ecological footprint (Footprintbasics,2016)

Along with affecting the resource availability, the population growth also contributes
to the environmental impacts. To study the populations relationship to the environmental
impact, a simple equation was first developed by Paul Ehrlich which is the IPAT equation.
He had proposed that population (P) as well as affluence (A) and technology(T) are the
causes of environmental impacts. Even though he had mentioned that population size is the
main drive of the environmental issue, other factors which are the affluence of the people and
the technology also contributes to it. Besides that, economy also plays a huge role in
determining the impact. If the economy growth is too much in a particular country with a
huge population, there will be a phenomenon of over resource consumption and destruction
of habitat. Whereas, if the economy of a country is not sufficient enough to sustained its
population, that will lead to disease and hunger. (The Conversation, 2011)
I = P x A x T ---------------- equation (1)
In evaluating the impact of a certain country according to equation (1), the variables
are population, affluence and technology. From the aspect of population, bigger population
will leads to larger impact. For affluence, it means the consumption per person. For instance,
a certain individual will have a bigger affluence if he/she has a house and several cars and
TVs, compared to someone who lives at a village in Africa. For someone who has a bigger
affluence, it means they will contribute to a larger environmental impact as they consumed
more. In terms of technology, it means the destructive technology deployed that could
directly or indirectly caused environmental impacts. If there are more of the destructive
technologies in a certain country, there will be larger environmental impact imposed.
Therefore, the stated three variables above which include the human population are the
determining factor of the environmental impact. The ecological footprint is actually directly
correlated to the environmental impact. The country with a higher Human Development
Index (HDI) like America usually has a larger ecological footprint and thus gives a larger
impact on the planet.
What are the resources that could be affected from the population growth? One of the
resources is food supply. Apparently, this situation usually occurs in a poorer region and
country, where there is a lack of access to food supply. For instance, Haiti is at the top of the
list with the lowest food availability in the world. In Haiti, it was estimated that 100,000
children below five years of age suffers from malnutrition and one in three children is
stunted. It was also found that one-third of women and children in Haiti are anemic. (Ayre,

2013) This shows how catastrophic the situation is when there is a lack of food resource.
Along with economy, natural disaster and climate change from global warming, population
growth is one the major factor of the food insecurity and unavailability that is happening in
this planet. The crop yield for food production could not keep up with the growing
population. It was estimated that from previous works, there need to be an increase in around
60-110% of global agricultural production by 2050 to keep up with the estimates of
population growth. However, currently, the yields of the worlds four most important crops
(maize, rice, wheat and soybean) are only increasing about 0.9-1.6% a year. This means that
by 2050, it will only increase by 38-67% instead of the required increase of 60-110%. (World
Atlas, 2016) This shows that the food production is not keeping pace with the growing
population. Thus, there will be a potential increase in conflict of food security when the
population keeps rising.
Another resource that is affected by the growing population is the fresh and clean
water supply. Water is a finite resource and cannot be substituted. It plays a pertinent part in
the health, environment and the food production. Fresh and clean water is important for safe
water drinking as there are many diseases that are related to water and sanitation in the
developing countries. For instance, half of the population in developing countries are
suffering from water-borne diseases and thus contributes to the death of approximately 15
million children annually. (UNEP, 2008) This shows how important it is for the human in this
planet to have access to clean and fresh water. The importance of water supply has made it an
even more upsetting issue as the population in this planet is increasing. Currently, some areas
are already experiencing water scarcity and are being water-stressed. For example, in Haiti,
less that 50 percent of the households are provided with access to safe water, and only 25%
are benefitted from sufficient sanitation. (World Atlas, 2016)
According to UN Water Statistics, most of the freshwater resources that are available
to the humans are less than 1% of the worlds freshwater as the rest are either too polluted or
unreachable. The accessible freshwater are used 70% for irrigation, 22% for industry and 8%
for domestic use. The growing world population will have a huge implication on the water
supply as the global water consumption rate are two times the rate of population growth.
(Population Institute, 2010) Due to more fresh water being consumed through human
activities than it is restored by nature, it becomes a limited and finite natural resource. It is
mentioned that fresh water is consumed at least 10 times faster than it is being replenished in

regions of northern Africa, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, China, and the US. (Everything
Connects, 2013)
If the rate of consumption and population remains like it is now, 1.8 billion people
will be experiencing absolute water scarcity in their respective countries or regions, and twothirds of the world's population will be in a water stressed conditions by 2025, according to
the United Nations and International Decade for Action Water for Life 2005-2015. World
Resource Institute conducted a research and ranked the future waster-stress country by 2040.
The countries that topped the list are Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, San Marino, Singapore, United
Arab Emirates, Palestine and Israel. (Maddocks, Young, & Reig, 2015) To add to the
growing concern, the water scarcity could also lead to food scarcity as there will be an
agricultural cutback from the lack of water resource. Therefore, water scarcity is a critical
concern for the world especially with the growing population.

Figure 3: The map of water stress by country in 2040 (Source: World Resource
Institute)

Moreover, another resource that is affected by the population growth is the energy
source. Energy is very important in the daily lives of human as it widely consumed for our
daily activities. The utilization of energy includes the electricity usage to power up the
machineries and devices and acts as a fuel for vehicles and transportation. This shows that in
order to meet the needs of one self, people are becoming more energy dependent. It is
universally known that the world main energy source is fossil fuel. According to the Key
World Energy Statistics 2015, fossil fuel constitutes 81% of the world energy supplier.
Coal, petroleum and natural are the fossil fuels that are widely used. These fossil
fuels are transformed from the remains of dead prehistoric organisms by intense heat and
pressure of Earth layers. Because the fossil fuel is from the dead prehistoric living organisms,
the supply of the fossil fuel are limited, which means it is a non-renewable energy source. As
the population are growing, the energy demand will keep increasing. The fossil fuel demand
that is continuously increasing is a concern as it is uncertain whether the supply will meet its
demand for the future. This is because the fossil fuels will keep on depleting and the limit of
the fossil fuel usage will be reached later in the future. One of the estimates by researchers
was that the oil, coal and petroleum reserves will soon run out in the year of 2042, 2114, and
2045 respectively. (Shafiee & Topal, 2009) Whether the estimation is correct or not, it still
means that the fossil fuels is going to be unavailable in the future as long as there are
continuous demand of the fossil fuels. Therefore, the growing population that can contribute
to the heavy energy demand will cause the depletion of fossil fuel resource.

Figure 4: Pie chart representing the world energy fraction from different sources
(IEA,2015)

The last type of resource that is affected by the growing population are metals and
minerals. Mineral ores are mixture of minerals in which some of them are the source where
useful metals are extracted. These natural resources are extracted from the earth by mining.
Multiple of these resources are presented in the products that are used by humans such as in
electronics, automotives, urban development, farming and military. As the population
increases along with the economic growth, there will be an increment in the demand of these
resources. The depletion of these resources will occur as they are non-renewable resources.
One of the mineral resources that is affected by population growth is phosphate which is
commonly used in the fertilizer. The source of this phosphate apparently happened to be
found in certain countries only such as China, Morocco and America. As the population
increase, the food demands will also increase, and thus the demand of phosphate. According
to the scientist from the Global Phosphorus Research Initiative, it was estimated that
phosphorus will run out in 50 to 100 years with the current reserves that they have. (Ruz,
2011)
Another example is the rare earth metals that are usually used in electric and
electronic products like MP3 player, mobile phone, batteries and flat screen TVs. As these
kind of products are getting more popular, it cannot be argued that the demand for rare earth
metals are escalating. It was reported that the Chinas rare earth metal reserves which are
accounted to 90% of the worlds Earth supply are only left with 23% of the global reserves in
2012. (CNN, 2012) Currently, China had even curbed their export of rare earth metal
resources. (Yan, 2015)This shows that there is an issue with rare earth metal resources as its
supply are also depleting. Even though most of these resources are not experiencing an
immediate problem of scarcity, it is still an issue that cannot be overlooked. The population is
increasing, thus demand of these resources will increase. Even now, the global productions of
the metals have been in a constant increase as can be seen from Figure 5. The scarcity of
these resources might not happen now, but it will eventually happen in the future as long as
there are demands for these resources.

Figure 5: Graph showing escalating global production of metals (British Geological Survey,
2012)
Along with affecting the resource availability, the heavy resource consumption by the
growing population also contribute to various environmental impacts to the Earth. One of the
huge environmental issues caused by the human population growth is global warming. Global
warming is the cause of climate change. These environmental issues originate from the
increased human activity, especially regarding the activities from consumption of fossil fuels.
It is known that fossil fuels are widely used for energy suppliers. To generate electricity and
power up automotives, the fossil fuel combustion process is executed. This combustion
process emits greenhouse gases which includes carbon dioxide gas.
Deforestation also causes an increase in carbon dioxide gas as trees and plants are
supposed to be responsible in absorbing the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The
greenhouse gases can cause greenhouse effects in which the gases will trap some of the
sunlight radiation that is responsible to keep the Earth warm. However, an excessive amount
of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide will lead to global warming. This means there will
an increase in global average temperature. The consequences of global warming include
rising global sea level, an increased heat wave, increased thermal stratification, migration of
animals and climate change. The climate change happens when there is an unpredictable
weather occurring across the world where there are places that are hotter, wetter and drier.
Global warming and climate change is becoming more apparent due to the increase in carbon
dioxide. The increment in human activity by the growing population will lead to an increase
in carbon dioxide emission as shown in Figure 6. This shows that population growth and its
significant resource consumption can lead to the huge environmental impact which is global
warming and climate change.

Figure 6: Graph representing world carbon dioxide emission by country (Source: EIA)
Besides global warming and climate change, another major negative impact from the
population growth is the loss of habitat. Habitat loss occurred when there is destruction,
fragmentation, degradation of the natural land and aquatic cover, which are mainly due to
human activity. ( Everythingconnects, 2013 )The increase in human consumption leads to
the loss of forests, swamps, plains, lakes and other habitats which are exploited for
agriculture, housing, roads, pipelines and other industrial developments. The wildlife that are
experiencing loss of habitat due to the human activities could no longer possess the
fundamental need to survive, which are the food, water, and shelter. This means they no
longer have a place that they could call home. One of the examples of the current habitat loss
phenomenon is the large scale destruction of rainforest in tropical regions of Africa, Asia and
Latin America. This destruction operation is to make way for the palm oil plantation. Wildlife
species that used to live in the existed rainforest such as orang-utans, tigers, elephants and
rhinos have been increasingly isolated due to the decrease in food source and shelter.
Malaysia and Indonesia are actually the countries that own the largest palm oil plantations
and therefore, being a big contributor to many wildlife species habitat loss. (WWF Global,
2016 )
When there are a fewer spaces or places left for the wildlife to call home, the
extinction of wildlife species could be the unwanted result from it. Other factors of species
extinction along with habitat loss are climate change, pollution, invasive species, acidifying
oceans, overfishing, poaching and overexploitation of natural resources. (Everythingconnects,
2013 ) From these factors, it is undeniable that the root source is the human itself which are

the reckless activity that human carried out to fulfil their needs. The direct correlation
between the human population and the species extinction could be observed from Figure 7.
From the graph, it is inferred that as human population increased, the animal species also
increased. The conservationists have estimated the extinction rate to be around 100 to 1000
per million per year, and these mostly occurred because of the human-cause habitat
destruction and climate change.( Dell'Amore, 2014) Because of the human activities, a
Stanford researcher has mentioned that disappearances of the current species are occurring
faster than any time since the extinction of dinosaurs. To add to that, Science Advance has
also reported that disappearance rate of species nowadays are faster than the normal rate.
(Jordan, 2015 )Therefore, it clearly shows that as human population increase with their
thoughtless activity and resource consumption, extinction of wildlife species are also rising.

Figure 7 : A graph showing the relationship between human population and species
extinction

The Efforts Needed to Overcome This Issue

The population growth issue is a crucial issue that cannot be ignored as this could contributes
to various conflicts of resource availability and environmental concerns. Even though the
current world population growth rate of 1.13% (2016) is a decline from the previous growth
rate which stands at 1.18%, (2015), it is still a significant positive growth rate. This means
the populations are increasing around 80 million per year which is considered as a huge
numbers. (worldometers, 2016)It is just a matter of time the world human population will
reach the Earth carrying capacity. In order to overcome this issue, there need to be actions
taken to further reducing the population growth rate. There are no easy solutions to curb this
population growth issue, but with appropriate incentive and measures taken, there is a hope in
overcoming this issue.
In order to decrease the population growth, the most obvious solution would be to
reduce the birth rate. One of the ways to decrease the birth rate is the government action on
controlling the population. This includes the governments action to set up an effective
population policy that could alleviate the population growth. Most countries have already
implemented their own population policy to control their own population growth rate. For
instance, China is renowned for its former policy of setting the quota of one child per couple.
This controversial rule was enforced in 1980 when the Politburo of the Communist Party
issued an open letter to recommend having one child per family due to its large size of
population. Although China still remains as the largest population in the world, the 30 years
of implementing this policy had helped China reduce its birth rate in which 400 million
fewer births were achieved. This one-child policy however had already ended in October
2015 and currently two-child per family policy is implemented instead.(Connett, 2015)
Another example of a country that had great success in their population policy in the
early years is South Korea. South Korea was one of the countries that initiated the population
policy to reduce the birth rate in 1960s and 1970s because of the concern of alarming
population growth rate. The citizen had actually positively responded to the idea of small
and prosperous family. Similar to China, there was also a family planning promotion of one
and two child per family in South Korea. Due to the population policy implemented, birth
rate of South Korea had actually reached to world record low level. Even now, because of the
declining birth rate, South Korea have been trying to increase back its birth and fertility rate.
(Haub C, 2010)

Figure 8: Posters promoting one-child policy in China

From the examples discussed, it shows that population policy is a necessary effort by
the government to overcome population growth issue. The most important aspect in the
family planning policy is to reduce the birth rate and fertility rate, so that the population
growth could be controlled. The efforts that could be taken is by introducing family planning
programme and services. It was reported that in 2012, 40% of the 85 million pregnancies
worldwide are intended. This means the pregnancies are either mistimed or unwanted.
(Sedgh, Singh, & Hussain, 2014)Therefore, a good family planning program can actually
prevent these unintended pregnancy to ensure the baby is welcomed and wanted in advance
by their parents. This program is especially targeted to women in their reproductive years.
Throughout this program, the woman would learn that they have the right in
determination of the timing and spacing to have children. The implementation of these
programmes should not only be implemented in the urban area, but also in the rural area. This
is because the women in rural area actually have a larger tendency to reproduce than the
urban area. The family planning programme that conducted by the government should
provides informative knowledge regarding the various contraceptive methods to promote
birth control. Besides that, a universal access to the safe and effective contraceptive option
should also be provided by the government. America had actually implemented an Obama
birth control in which some of the contraception is covered for free. (Obamacare Facts,
2016). To ensure the implementation family planning programmes are known, it is equally
important that there is a media coverage on these family planning initiatives.

Besides the family planning programme and services, the awareness and
education that has to be instilled in early education regarding the population growth
and its negative impacts are also necessary. By incorporating these type of lessons
in school curriculum, the student would definitely be educated in the population
growth issues. They will also be informed on the type of impacts their potential
actions can cause on the resources availability and the environment. Moreover,
another type of education that should be implement ed is sex-related education. This
type of education should be carried out for teenagers or adolescent that already
reached their puberty. United States is known to be one of the country that provides
the comprehensive education programme that covers the details on the puberty,
intercourse, birth control options and respecting s exual rights.(Worldwatch
Institute, 2016) These education aims to prevent teen pregnancy and unwanted
pregnancy which is a direct influence to reducing the birth rates. It is proven that
these sex-related education programme is a great approach to overcome population
growth issue, as the teen birth in United States are declining each year.
Another pertinent strategy that can help to reduce population growth is by
providing better education to female individual. This strategy is aimed at the
developing and poorer country that has a limited access to education. By providing
better education to these women, the woman will learn to become more ambitious
and has the option in creating opportunity for them selves in the career world.
Instead of only getting married early and expanding their family, these woman are
presented with another option of life improvement and career advancement. As a
result from this, there will be an increase of late marriage and family planning.
Besides that, an equal gender opportunity for women in every aspect such as law,
economic, health and culture should also be implemented. This will also reduce
early marriage as women are becoming more independent and competitive in order
to improve their living standard. These strategies might not have a immediate
impact on the population growth, but it can indirectly influence the birth rate
reduction in the future.
As previously stated, the issue that must be overcome is the population
growth on the resources availability. Therefore, besides the efforts in reducing the
world population, there must be an effort regarding resou rces conservation, so that

the ecological footprint and the environmental impact could be reduced. The current
ecological footprint is 1.6 which means the current human population are consuming 1.6
planets worth of resources that can be sustainably supported.

This also shows that human

population are already consuming resources faster that Earth can replenish them. Thus,
effective and sustainable approaches in resource management and consumption are required
to ensure resource security in a long run especially with the growing human population.
One of the main strategies is to curtail natural resource consumption by using or
substituting with an alternative resource. This strategy applies to energy resources which are
consumed through human activities. Because of the depletion of the main energy source
which is the fossil fuels, there needs to be an alternative solution that could replace the fossil
fuel as the main energy source. The alternative that could be used is renewable sources to
ensure that there are no limitation in their supply. Clean energy resources are also preferred to
reduce the emission of pollutants. Some of these renewable resources are already being
utilized in certain countries, but their uses are still limited. Solar, wind, geothermal, hydro,
and some forms of biofuels are common sources of renewable energy. More opportunities
should be created for the renewable energy as these renewable should be more subsidized so
that larger scale deployment could be commenced.
It is widely known and understood that the current food production is not keeping
pace with the growing population demand, especially as the populations will reach around the
estimated 9.7 billions in 2050. Therefore, there is an urgent need of an effective strategy to
ensure food security in a long run. Boongarts (1996) have previously proposed that the
demand in 20150 could be met only if new economic and technological policies are enacted
to support sustainable agriculture. In 2011, United Nations have also stressed that it is
imperative that rapid diffusion of sustainable agricultural technology are practiced in both
developed and developing countries. (Bodouroglou & Alarcn, 2012) Sustainable agricultural
practice is known as a strategy that could improve the global supply chain, reduce food lost
and waste ensure nutritious are fed to the community that are suffering from hunger and
malnutrition. One of the effort in sustainable agriculture that could ensure food security is by
boosting yields on existing agricultural land through restoration of degraded land. This would
also decrease the tendency to clear forests for agricultural production.

Moreover, another

example of sustainable agricultural practice is the wise management of scarce water by

improving irrigation and storage technologies along with development of new drought-

resistant crop varieties. This effort would contribute to sustaining drylands productivity.
(Sustainabledevelopment.un, 2015) From this, it can be inferred that sustainable agriculture
should be widely practiced in every region and country to ensure sufficient foods are fed to
the demand of growing population.
As an individual who is part of the society that lives on Earths planet, it is important
that responsibility of an individual role is played to help in preserving the Earths resource,
especially with the rising population concern. That individual effort is to live in a sustainable
way which includes recycling practice. It is mentioned in an article online that one of the
reason China is building a lot of power plants and burn so much fossil fuels is due to the
increased production of the product we used in daily lives. (Alter, 2013) What is the source of
this increased production? The source of it is obviously the consumer which is the growing
consumer consumption and demand. Therefore, by reducing the consumer consumption and
therefore the demand by recycling, the production will also be reduced. As a result, less
industrial plants are built and less fossil fuel are burnt. This effort can potentially reduce the
consumption of the natural resource. As with products that contained another of Earths
resources which are metals, these can also be recycled to reduce the consumption of it.
Besides helping to curtail consumption of resource, recycling can also reduce waste that will
be discarded to the landfill. Therefore, it is important this sustainable way of living is
practiced to ensure resource security in the midst of growing population. This practice all
comes down through own initiation and effort.
Conclusion
The population growth issue is a critical issue as the world population is estimated to reach
9.7 billion and 11.2 billion by 2050 and 2100 respectively. The world human population
generally has been on a rise and the amount of people in the world will keep increasing. It is
just a matter of time the world human population will reach the Earth carrying. This issue
cannot be ignored as this could contribute to various conflicts of resource availability and
environmental concerns. Therefore, there will probably be more conflict in the future on how
the resources and spaces are utilized due to the population growth. In order to overcome this
issue, there need to be actions taken to further reducing the population growth rate. One of
the solutions required to decrease the population growth are strategies to reduce the birth rate
such as population control policy, family planning programme and service, awareness and
education in school curricular, better education for woman and gender equality. There must

also be an effort regarding effective resources management and consumption such

as recycling, renewable alternative and sustainable agriculture. Through this,
ecological footprint and the environmental impact could be reduced. In conclusion,
there are no easy solutions to curb this alarming population growth issue, but with
appropriate and effective actions and measures taken, there is a hope in overcoming this
issue.

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