Population and Growth
Over the last 100 years, the world's population has grown exponentially. The numbers continue to grow. It's been predicted that by 2050, Earth will have reached its carrying capacity. What this means, is that we will run out of space to live and grow food. We won't be able to provide for all of the people living in the world. The only way we'll be able to support our growing population is if we can find new, more efficient ways to produce food and energy. Best practices in agriculture can help.
Because of our increasing population, there is an increase in demand for products; products that use our resources. The United States is one of the most wasteful countries in the world because we depend on others for our resources, for our products. Most of our products are imported from other places. Not only does this waste resources, but it's also not energy efficient. All of the energy that goes into transporting things to other countries for manufacturing and sending them back to the U.S. for sale, is just wasted. All of this waste will have played a huge part when we do reach carrying our Earth's capacity. Take the quiz below to find out how many Earth's it would take to support everyone alive today, if we all lived the way you do. |