Overpopulation on climate change

From: Divya Chauhan

Sent: Friday, February 28th, 2020

To: [email protected]

Subject: The Debate of Overpopulation on Climate Change

Dear John,

I hope this email finds you well.

I’m working on a potential submission to Science Policy Forum regarding the impacts of overpopulation on climate change, specifically discussing whether population control is a reasonable solution to climate change. The paper is tentatively titled “To what extent is population control the answer to fixing climate change?” This question is highly controversial due to how multifaceted the concept of population control is. Scientists, experts, and policymakers always immediately discuss the ethics of this as a potential solution, as well as whether it should be addressed as the root cause of climate change. A lot of stakeholders studying climate change will agree that it is an essential topic to be addressed today, that will affect policymaking in the future.

Population is an issue in climate change that is underreported, underrated, and under-talked about as an issue in climate change. According to a scientific journal, it took 123 years for Earth to go from 1 billion to 2 billion people. Today, this gap has progressively narrowed, seeing as it only took a decade to reach the next billion. Even so, it is also important to understand that global birth rates are potentially on the decline. The United Nations previously projected that the global population would reach 11.2 billion by 2100. In June, that forecast dropped to 10.9 billion. This shows the importance of understanding how the population is impacting climate change now and, in the future, as well as potential measures that must be taken to address population in the realm of climate change.

Although fertility rates are collapsing around the world, the total fertility rate - the number of births it takes to keep a population from either increasing or decreasing - is not being met in many countries. Experts in the topic state that the population will peak at the middle of the century and then eventually begin to decline. The root point of discussion is whether the total fertility rate should be controlled, or if not, whether there should be policies in place to govern the growth of the population for the next few years so that it does not heavily impact the climate more than it has. Another big driver for this debate is urbanization. In the 1960s, roughly 33% of the population in the U.S. lived in a city. Now, it is 54%, with the UN projecting the number to be 68% in 2050. There are many implications of more people moving to a city that will be addressed throughout this paper in regard to climate change implications.

I am writing about the topic of overpopulation regarding to climate change because of the vast debate that experts and policymakers are having on whether this should be controlled or not, and even whether this should be a primary concern in the quest to tackle climate change. I fear that this topic is not explored enough, and it is very important to how society is being shaped.

Thank you for your consideration to potentially publish my article and I look forward to discussing further.

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Divya Chauhan

Climate Researcher

Florida State University