Name: Nguyễn Minh Trí

Class: TATM12A

Subject: Comment on this quote: “Population growth is the primary

source of environmental damage” – Jacques Cousteau.
Jacques Cousteau – the famous explorer said it best: “Population growth is the
primary source of environmental damage”. It’s not really a warning of natural
catastrophes, but rather it is a statement about the challenges that human can’t help
encountering.

Eventually, the human population has occurred only recently. For example: In
1900, the world’s human population numbered two billion people. Today, this number
has grown three times as large and is now over six billion people. What a terrible
number!

The more human populates, the more environment is destroyed. Is this possible?
Let’s look at why.

Long time ago, mankind’s society was such a natural life. Everyone lived and
worked with nature, the Earth looked like a green ball. We used natural energies such
as: pure fire, wind and water, we only travelled on foot instead of transporting by
vehicles. So there were no gasoline, oil and many other polluted things. And then,
year by year, the world’s technology has developing rapidly. Modern machines are
produced more and more, so many vehicles work all over the world and release so
many polluted things to the atmosphere. This leads to ruin the ozone day by day, and
then let the ultra-violet ray penetrate through the air.

Moreover, our atmospheric state is being polluted seriously, deforestation is on the

increase but the afforestation is being made inactively. The green of the Earth is no
more remaining. We’re now lacking of pure air to breathe. Thus, more and more
people don’t care about keeping hygiene in public. Almost we throw rubbish into
environment, even at “shoot no rubbish” place while a few do the same thing with
recycles. Truly, we mostly live together with garbage. That’s obvious because this has
been caused by human.

Besides, many kinds of animals are being damaged. Not only have they been
hunted down, but also human pushes them to extinction. Today, in the world, there are
about 50 thousand to 100 thousand kinds of animals which are disappeared every year.
It’s approximate to the speed of catastrophe which happened 65 million years ago,
killed the dinosaur specied. Phocoena sinus, the smallest porpoise and highest danger
of extinction kind, lives in California bay. They’re being threatened by narrow living
space and being able to catch to be burdened with fishing nets. The quantity of them is
now only from 200 to 300 individuals…
 All of these have been caused by human and we ourselves must be responsible for
it. It’s a pity that a large number of people who doesn’t pay attention to protect our
environment makes up the great part throughout the world. The more the world
develops, the more human forgets the nature which has existed with them century
after century.

In the other hand, the rate of population growth has gone up rapidly in the past two
centuries, from 0.015% before 1800 to 1.2% today. At this rate, the Earth adds one
billion more people every 14 years. If this continues, the world's population will
double in the next century, nearing 12 billion in the year 2100. Our planet is truly
becoming a more crowded place to live. That environment is damaged is not able to
avoid. It’s the reason why Jacques Cousteau’s statement really makes mankind think
about.