History of Argument: Are there too many people?

Are there too many people in the world?

This is one of the best arguments made by Chris Williams regarding the population, hunger and environment degradation. The goals related to environmental issues are concentrated in the seventh goal. However, the report recognizes that environmental degradation and natural resources affects, at least indirectly, the likelihood of achieving all the MDGs. Livelihoods and security of the poor, mainly in rural, dependent on environmental goods and services of nearby ecosystems, so that the eradication of poverty and hunger require non-degraded ecosystems. Women and children are often more time and energy spent in fetching water, firewood and food, so an improvement in the neighboring ecosystems (with available resources and water quality) would allow. In addition, environmental degradation affects mainly the sector of the poor who usually suffer the greatest consequences of water pollution and air and is more vulnerable to floods and droughts.

Who was making the argument?

Chris Williams is making the argument against the poor population who are facing the hunger and environmental degradation. Poverty and environmental degradation bear a complex relationship. For poor people, this is more important than the future, the priority is to obtain resources and income in the short term, so they prefer to intensive harvesting practices even in the medium term exhaustion of resources, and with this reduce their future expectations for improvement. Also, the poor suffer the problem of lack of capital and opportunities for appropriate and sustainable exploitation of their environment, thus maintaining and often inefficient practices and aggressive to the environment. The situation is further complicated for poor people because environmental degradation also leads to poverty. The poor are more vulnerable to environmental damage due to low economic capacity of defense: they cannot purchase pollution control systems, their homes have no proper foundation, they have water filters and also frequently their homes cannot keep basic hygiene to prevent disease transmission. The disease also limits their ability to work, thereby accentuating their poverty (Colins, 23-74).

Which people were identified as being too many?

As we discussed above, the argument focuses mainly on the poor population who are continuously being the victim of poverty and hunger. Despite the obvious progress in the world in terms of increasing food production, health and technological advances that improve the quality of life of the population, poverty levels remain unacceptably high in the world. Today we have an increasingly ...