Biology Summative Task

Since the 1960s, the earth's population has increased from 3 to 7 billion people, this situation of
overpopulation is an issue that can seriously limit the available resources that earth provides us.
Aside from affecting those resources, it also affects ecosystems, animals, and different abiotic
factors. I got motivated about discussing about this problem considering that if in future years, if
humans have already consumed all resources and destroyed earth, then, there will not be any
sustainable future where to live.

Recent surveys show that around 360,000 babies are born each day and around 150,000 people
die, this according to scientists means that there is a clear overpopulation all over the world, also a
factor that increases the number of humans is how people nowadays live up to 80 years in
average, this is due to the advance development of medicine, technology, and knowledge. As a
consequence of this issue earth resources start reducing and human activity rate increases and the
environment gets even more destroyed. Getting into which ecosystems are affected by this
problematic, the two principal ones are tundra’s which are affected by climate change produced
by humans, and the other ecosystem which I consider is the forests. The higher number of people
the larger requirement of food to feed everybody. When there is a high demand of food usually
the best way to increase crops and livestock is by expanding land territory, as there is not that
much empty land, farm owners are required to burn or cut down forests. During the last two
decades agricultural expansion caused deforestation of 120,000 square kilometers each year.
According to some investigation two thirds of that space deforested are taken from Amazon forest
which is know for being the principal provider and oxygen cleaner in earth.

Then as result of deforestation different biotic factors are affected. The animal I consider and
should be protected are monkeys. The main habitat of the monkeys are trees, this animal usually
does not come down from the trees since its main predator is on the ground, because of
deforestation the monkeys would be left without a place to live, because they have adapted to live
in the heights and their skills would not be enough to survive on land since the snake which is their
predator would end the species of monkeys in a short time. Due to human overpopulation the
atmosphere is being affected by climate change in different ways. The first one is by direct
contamination, during the last 10 years at least 80 billion metrics of CO2 have been produced by
human action. First, as there are too many people on earth as it results to be a high demand of oil
and manufactured goods, which its extraction and production produces a 40 % of all the CO2, also
more people mean more cars which produces other 40 % of CO2, finally 50 % of deforestation is
done by setting fire on some space in the forests, that causes a huge smoked cloud which is made
of CO2 which enriches climate change.

Concluding, overpopulation is an issue that we have been living with since a couple decades that
we must solve, if we do not get aware of what this problem can cause in an earlier future there
will not be any clean air as there will not be enough trees, as there is not any control about
factories CO2 production and as world population is still increasing and it is expected to be about
11 billion people for 2030. To add, if we don’t take action about this situation in future there won’t
be any ozone layer, any atmosphere because it would be completely destroy due to climate
change.
References:

1. Does Population Growth Impact Climate Change? (2009, July 29). Retrieved
November 27, 2020, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-
growth-climate-change/

2. Population Growth and Deforestation: A Critical and Complex Relationship. (2020,

November 16). Retrieved November 27, 2020, from
https://www.prb.org/populationgrowthanddeforestationacriticalandcomplexrelations
hip/

3. Society, N. (n.d.). Limiting Factors. Retrieved November 27, 2020, from

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/topics/limiting-factors/?q=

4. Learning, L. (n.d.). Earth Science. Retrieved November 27, 2020, from

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sanjac-earthscience/chapter/human-populations/

5. Steiner, H., & Lan, L. (2019, October 16). How does Overpopulation Impact on Our
environment? Retrieved November 27, 2020, from
https://www.tiredearth.com/articles/how-does-overpopulation-impact-our-
environment

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348

1. Human population increase is related to deforestation. More people mean we need

more food, more wood products, and more firewood. Deforestation in turn leads to
a reduced ability to capture CO2, thus exasperating the greenhouse gas problem.
Tropical rainforests in South America are responsible for producing 20 percent of
 the Earth's oxygen. Deforestation is also strongly associated with loss of habitat
and extinctions. Agriculture, as mentioned above, is responsible for about 80% of
global deforestation. Another 14 percent is attributed to logging, 5 percent to
firewood collection, and the balance resulting from other causes.
2. Climatic changes are irregular due to greenhouse gases. With the overuse of coal,
oil and natural gas, it has started producing some serious effects on our
environment. Rise in the number of vehicles and industries have badly affected the
quality of air. Rise in amount of CO2 emissions leads to global warming. Melting of
polar ice caps, changing climate patterns, rise in sea level are few of the
consequences that we might have to face due to environment pollution.
3.