Why should we care
Why is population a problem?
The scale of recent population growth has been enormous. It took all of human history for the world to reach 1 billion people in 1900. By the year 2000, 6.2 billion people lived on earth, half of them under the age of 25.
By the year 2050 there could easily be 9 to 11 billion human beings on earth. As a result, we may well be headed for a humanitarian and environmental disaster of unprecedented levels. The land we grow food on, the sea we fish from, and the air we breathe, are all finite resources, already strained by human overuse and pollution. Adding so many more people will only increase the strain on those resources. These strains, in addition to the human suffering that they cause, will have a direct impact on America's well-being. The economies of all countries, including the United States, are more and more affected by the economic problems of other nations even half a world away. Our economy depends in large part on trade with stable, relatively prosperous countries. There will be fewer such countries as population increases.
