What are the evil effects of population explosion?

Human population is increasing at an alarming rate. A brief survey of world population shows that human population is ever increasing.

Year Population:

1 A.D. – 0.25 billions

1000 A.D. – 0.50 billions

1750 A.D. – 1.00 billions

1965 A.D. – 3.30 billions

2000 A.D. – 7.00 billions estimated.

Above table indicates that after 1750 A.D. Population increase is taking less time to become double. Recent periods have seen the population explosion.

Factors for Growth of Population:

In the early periods the human population was checked by environmental hazards and diseases. In later period’s invention of tools for hunting, agricul­ture revolution, industrial revolution, modern medicine form the primary factors for growth of population. Advancement of scientific technology, in 1950’s resulted in better conditions, more food, and less death rate, caused increase in population.

Population Growth in different countries:

Growth of human population varies in different countries. Nations are di­vided into 2 categories.

Developed countries:

These are industrialised or advanced countries and included U.S. A, Canada, Japan and European countries. These countries have low population rate, more per capita income and better life facilities. The population growth is almost nil since 1950 but per capita income has increased almost- doubled or tripled.

Under developed countries:

There are under developed less advanced coun­tries. They include India, African countries, Egypt, Latin America etc. They have high rate of population growth, and worst life facilities. Developed countries constitute about 1/3 of the world population but still control the rest of the world. Problems of developing countries are linked with their high rate of population growth. All their national income is spent on food and shelter and less funds are available for other developmental activi­ties.

Developing countries, instead of looking for aid, must check their popula­tion growth, then only they will have funds for farm machinery, industry, education, medical care and other facilities.

Consequences of Population growth:

Increase in population creates many consequences or problems, which af­fects basic necessities of life like space, food etc.

Space:

Increase in population requires more accommodation. This results in conversion of agricultural land into urban land for habitation and clearing of forests. This has other effects like soil erosion, less rainfall etc.

Food:

Families with more children and less income, similarly & thickly popu­lated nations with less, per capita income face the problem of food. Their main-problem is food and hence cannot give interest in any other directions. People suffering from malnutrition develop into less fit members of the soci­ety.

Employment:

Population increase leads to large scale under employment. All schemes of Government are made useless by the over population.

Medical Aid:

Larger families cannot afford better medical aid because of their less income, similarly it is very difficult to provide better medical fa­cilities to ever increasing population in any country.

Sanitation:

Increase in population or urbanisation has caused the problem of sanitary disposal and resulted in pollution.