Overpopulation

Human overpopulation is the aggravating force behind all of these global threats. Our overpopulation is causing excessive environmental pollution, global warming, habitat loss, mass extinctions, intensive farming practices, and the consumption of finite natural resources at speeds faster than their rate of regeneration.

About 75% of the planet is covered in water. 97.5% of that is ocean and 2.5% is freshwater. 70% of freshwater is divided into glaciers and ice caps and the remaining 30% into land surface water, such as rivers, lakes, ponds and groundwater. Most of the freshwater resources are either unreachable or too polluted, leaving less than 1% of the world's freshwater, or about 0.003% of all water on Earth, readily accessible for direct human use. It is estimated that by 2025, more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability and human demand for water will account for 70% of all available freshwater. Furthermore, a reports suggest that by 2030 nearly half of the world's people will be living in areas of acute water shortage.

Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species at rates 1000 to 10,000 times faster than normal. Of 63,837 species examined worldwide, 19,817 are threatened with extinction - nearly a third of the total. If present trends continue, scientists warn that within a few decades, at least half of all plant and animal species on Earth will be extinct.

Human overpopulation is a major driving force behind the loss of ecosystems, such as rainforests, coral reefs, wetlands and Arctic ice. Rainforests once covered 14% of the Earth's land surface, now they cover a bare 6%. Experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years and certainly by the end of the century at the current rate of deforestation. Due to warming temperatures, acidifying oceans, and pollution, close to 30% of the ocean’s reefs have already vanished since 1980, including half of the reefs in the Caribbean and 90% of the Philippines’ coral reefs. Scientists forecast that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef may be dead by the year 2050 and all coral reefs could be gone by the end of the century. Furthermore, the area of permanent ice cover is now declining at a rate of 11.5% per decade, relative to the 1979 to 2000 average. If this trend continues, summers in the Arctic could become ice-free in as few as 4 years or in the next 30 years. Wetlands are increasingly under threat in the United States, but also all over the world. In the U.S., less than half of original wetlands remain with 53% being lost, which is about 104 million acres. In Europe, between 60% and 70% of wetlands have been completely destroyed.