Currently in the United States, the degradation of the environment has been an ongoing predicament that has yet to be fully solved by the United States. Several various dilemmas, including pollution, land usage, energy, food and overpopulation, have all combined to create this overall destruction of the environment. Each of these problems must be resolved, but the United States must make the critical decision of which policy of action is the most important and should be addressed before the others.
While it is necessary to form policies of action to curb each of these individual problems from producing future environmental destruction in the United States, the problem of overpopulation may just be the most crucial of them all. Since the 1950s, this major proliferation in the United States’ population has caused further problems for the environment, including land usage, energy, pollution and food and decreased the available amount of natural resources. In order for these other environmental issues to be resolved, the United States must initially handle the problem of overpopulation.
Ultimately, the United States should first and foremost create a policy of action to resolve the troubles of overpopulation because it intensifies other current environmental problems and leads to the overuse of natural resources. These aggravated environmental problems along with the indulgence of the United States’ natural resources cause greater damage upon the environment.
And while some Americans believe that other policies of action are more important to address and resolve because they cause greater detriment to the environment, the effects of overpopulation multiply the damage upon the environment. Overpopulation leads to further environmental problems due to the nature of supply and demand. With an increase in the United States’ population, other environmental problems will increase.
For example, due to the needs of this larger population, automobile and energy production will increase, leading to further pollution and environmental destruction. Thus, overpopulation influences other major environmental problems that exist today in the United States.
Furthermore, as more and more products are produced for this increase in population, the amount of these available natural resources is reduced. As this constant increase in the population continues over time, more and more people need to use the natural resources that are still available.
Therefore, there will not be a sufficient amount of natural resources for the needs of future generations to use. If the United States can solve the dilemma of overpopulation, then the development of other environmental problems can be minimized and the amount of available natural resources can last for a longer period of time.
Overpopulation amplifies the destruction that other environmental problems continue to create for the United States. According to Larger problems arise as the population grows:
“The U.S. is the world’s fast-growing industrialized country. We’ve grown 13 percent in the last ten years – and 83 percent since 1950! More people means more pollution, more sprawl, less green space, and even more demands on the earth’s already overburdened resources. You can see evidence of the problem all around you-traffic congestion, overcrowded schools, urban sprawl, vanishing open spaces, water and energy shortages, and air pollution.
The effects of overpopulation create a downward spiral; not only does the earth become smaller and more polluted, but resources are also overused to the maximum.
In Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There, he expounds that we must limit the use of natural resources in order to preserve them for future use: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.
However, with the population of the United States continuing to expand to greater amounts, the need for natural resources will leave the environment in an unsound condition.
The conservation of resources has still not been achieved due to this overpopulation problem: “We’ve lowered our per person use of fossil fuels in the last 25 years, but because of population growth, the overall use has remained the same. Every minute, we lose three acres of farmland to road construction to meet the needs of an expanding population.”
Thus, while the population increases, greater environmental harm forms as well as the loss of natural resources. Overpopulation’s large affect on other environmental dilemmas creates more harm than each of these individual dilemmas could.
Most importantly, the question must be raised of how to fix this vexing and harmful problem of overpopulation. There are several possible ways that would help stabilize the population of the United States and minimize future environmental problems. The United States’ government must set a stricter immigration policy to decrease the amount of immigrants coming to the United States.
Immigration has the greatest amount of influence on the rising population: “If current immigration policy is not changed, the population of our country will double within the lifetime of the average American child, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”
However, it would take many years for the United States’ population to finally stabilize through a decrease in immigration. Aside from decreasing immigration levels, the United States must also lower the birth rate.
The need for a greater use of contraceptives is imperative for this decrease in child birth. Similar to other foreign countries, Americans should be limited to the amount of children they may obtain in their households. Many large families are unable to support their children due to the rising American economy.
So in order to achieve a stabilized population in the United States, new policies formed to reduce immigration and child birth must work cohesively: “The fertility rate of U.S.-born women (1.97) is slightly below the replacement level. U.S. population growth therefore is driven by immigration.
In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2/3 of future population growth will result from immigrants arriving since 1994 and their U.S.-born descendants. Preventing unwanted pregnancies is desirable, but that policy alone will not stabilize U.S. population.”
The solutions to limit immigration and the birth rate in order to decrease population raise some important considerations. Due to the increase of consumption from overpopulation, the commons are exploited in order to sustain this required level; oceans, forests, and other natural environments lose their natural resources to the needs of the United States.
Thus, limiting immigration and the birth rate keep the commons safe for future use. If these solutions were successful, more Americans would be given the opportunity to live healthy and profitable lives, and problems with environmental justice would no longer exist.
More importantly, the ethical principles of these solutions raise a key controversial issue: the human right to have children and the right to live in a new country. By limiting these human rights, the United States is contradicting its constitutional rights. However, in order to decrease overpopulation and save the destruction of the environment, these policies must be put into action.
In summary, overpopulation in the United States is the most important policy of action that should be addressed and resolved because it exacerbates other environmental dilemmas and in the end, leads to the deterioration of the little natural resources still left. In order to put an end to overpopulation, policies must be established by the United States’ government to decrease immigration and birth rates.
