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Lucas B Russell

Ms. Yeaton

English 10 Honors Pre-AP

16 January 2018

Overpopulation Annotated Bibliography

“Effects of Human Overpopulation.” EverythingConnects.org, 20 Nov. 2013,

www.everythingconnects.org/overpopulation-effects.html.

This website, everythingconnects.org, displays many effects that overpopulation can have

on various subjects. The article is scientific, largely fact-based, and contains information on

many areas such as: loss of freshwater, species extinction, depletion of natural resources, and

more. The freshwater paragraphs talked of how little accessible or drinkable water there is on

Earth. In fact, only about .003% of all water is ready for drinking. The rest is either saltwater,

frozen, or unattainable in some way. Overpopulation becomes a problem because, of course, the

more people there are the more water is used. The percent of water available becomes smaller

and smaller as the human population increases. While this seems like a small concern now, in the

future the shortage of water may be deadly.

Another section explains the result in species extinction due to human population.

Species extinction has become worse and worse as population increases. Scientists predict that in

a few decades over half of the plants and animals on Earth will be extinct. Species extinction

correlates to overpopulation for many reasons. Some reasons are simple. Small things such as

space become an issue as humans intrude animal habitats for building and destruction of forests.

Without homes, animals go extinct very quickly. Another reason is human hunting. Many people

don’t understand the cost of hunting animals and as a result many animals are simply hunted off
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by humans. Species extinction becomes a major problem mainly because it disrupts the food

chain. For example if a species of rabbits went extinct then mice population might increase due

to not having a predator which would make fox population decrease because of no rabbits which

would make tiger population decrease because of no foxes. The list could go on and on of how

the food chain becomes disrupted.

Astyk, Sharon. “‘You Should Just Adopt’: Is Adoption a Solution to the

Population/Environmental Crisis?” Casaubon's Book, 17 May 2011,

scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2011/05/17/you-should-just-adopt-is-adopt/.

This opinion article goes more in depth at the perception that adoption is one of the

solutions to overpopulation. It gives many valid points and reasoning behind why adoption is

more beneficial to society than having your own child. Adoption allows for a child in need of a

home to receive one rather than living in a shelter and or going through foster care his whole life,

with almost no future ahead of them, while also allowing the adoptee to become a parent of their

own being able to transform the child into their own. This also limits the human population as no

extra child is being made, rather one that was already brought into this world is just given a

home.

Adoption does, however, have some cons. Adoption can be quite difficult sometimes

because of availability. It may be hard to find a child that you like, or the perfect child. Many

parents would like the child to start off as a baby but there are many children in the foster care

system that are older than 3 years old with no home or no place to go because parents are only

looking to adopt one year or younger. With limited options, many people decide that adopting

isn’t the right choice for them. Many parents also struggle with the cost of the adoption.
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Sometimes it can be thousands of dollars to adopt, while the parents are already struggling

financially to be able to afford food and supplies for the child.

Ellis, Erle C. “Overpopulation Is Not the Problem.” The New York Times, The New York Times,

13 Sept. 2013,

www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html.

In another opinion article, Erle Ellis explains that overpopulation is not the cause of all

these problems facing today’s society such as pollution, global warming, extinction, etc.

Overpopulation technically shouldn’t exist as all species on this planet have some sort of

carrying capacity at some point. If humans keep growing as a population, then it must be meant

to be. Survival of the fittest made it so that humans were able to have more developed brains

than other species that exist which means of course we dominate the Earth as a planet. The

problems that society faces and blames on overpopulation all correlates to just the existence of

humans. Basic necessities humans need to survive create problems in species extinction and

much more. Human error can account for some issues but that relates directly to the capacity of

the human brain that was given.

Overpopulation, Ellis illustrates, also is something that can’t be avoided in any way. It’s

nearly impossible to prevent it, which can be seen in different attempts such as China’s one-child

policy The human brain functions in such a way that one of the ultimate goals for most of the

population is to bring a child into the world, which is the main cause of overpopulation. With

more and more children, these problems continue to grow as we face bigger and bigger

consequences. However, overpopulation is nothing to be worrying about as there is no way to

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actually prevent it from happening. The problems that we face as a society can merely be related

directly to the simple existence of humans.

Kukreja, Rinkesh. “Overpopulation: Causes, Effects and Solutions.” Conserve Energy Future, 12

Apr. 2017, www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-overpopulation.

The outline of this article is both the causes of overpopulation, effects, and solutions. In

the causes section it explains how overpopulation is caused by our increasing technology which

allows for the increased lifespan. Increased medicine and cures creates a longer lifespan. Of

course overpopulation also occurs over time inevitably. Two people have four children, those

four children each have four children, etc. Overpopulation is almost impossible to avoid. Many

countries have tried implementing different policies and laws, such as China’s one-child policy.

However many of these fail or create other issues such as abandoning of children, lying, and

abortions. The effects of overpopulation are loss of resources such as food, coal, shelter, space,

material, and other necessary items. A major concern is clean water. With so little on this planet

that will definitely become a huge problem one day.

The article also goes into possible solutions of overpopulation. While overpopulation

can’t exactly be prevented, it can certainly be slowed or thwarted. Certain precautions can be

taken such as using cleaner energy sources instead of wasting many precious fossil fuels that are

very harmful for the environment. Policies may need to be implemented in the future to limit the

number of children someone may have in attempt to slow down population growth as it increases

too steeply to stop. One of the most practical and possible ways to prevent overpopulation is
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simply education and teaching. If as young adults people are taught the consequences of

overpopulation and what each individual can do to prevent it, such as trying to have fewer kids,

if any, would be a great solution as it would be simple but practical. It can also be taught that

adopting kids is a very practical and beneficial idea to look in to.