“The human overpopulation issue is the topic I see as the most vital to solve if our children and grandchildren are to have a good quality of life -Alexandra Paul.” Alexandra is right. If we don’t start raising awareness and start teaching about overpopulation, we are going to continue to grow and there won’t be enough resources for everyone. According to Katz in 1900, there were just under 2 billion people living on the earth and somehow, we as people managed to grow that number by more than 300% in just over 100 years. We need to provide easier access to birth control, especially  to developing countries and we need to educate everyone about overpopulation. State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity came up with nine strategies to stop overpopulation before 9 billion people. They bring up some very important points.

According to Overpopulation Solutions, 40% of pregnancies are unintended which equals 80 million unintended pregnancies each year. We need to educate everyone, especially the developing countries about  birth control and also provide easier access to it. United Nations Population Fund stated that an estimated 350 million woman in the poorest countries of the world either not wanting their last child, not wanting another child, or wanting to space their pregnancies. Lack of access to information and affordable means and services to determine the size and spacing of their families. Even in the United States, in 2011, almost half of the pregnancies were unintended.

The public doesn’t really have much information about overpopulation. They just think that people are having too many kids and that they can’t do anything about it. You can’t tell people how many kids they can and can’t have but you can give them easier access to birth control and give them education on overpopulation.  Telling them that eventually the world will reach 9 billion and they may not have access to food and water as easily as now that might get people thinking. Every year there are 131.4 million births each year compared to 55.3 million deaths each year. If we continue at this rate we will reach 9 billion by 2050.

 According to State of the World… they came up with  Nine Population Strategies to Stop Short of 9 Billion. Here are some that are important: provide universal access to safe and effective contraceptive options for both sexes, offer age appropriate sexuality education for all students, Integrate lessons on population,environment, and development into school curricula. In conclusion, overpopulation is a serious issue that needs to be dealt with before it’s too late. If we don’t change anything we will reach 8 billion by 2020 and 9 billion by 2050. There won’t be enough resources for 9 billion people on one planet earth. The problem with overpopulation seems to have a strong correlation to global warming with humans using more than what the Earth can provide for us. If we start doing something about it now then our children and grandchildren will have a good quality of life.