Overpopulation

 
Overpopulation

The human population doubled from 1 to 2 billion between the years 1800 and 1930 — an unparalleled event in the planet’s history. No large mammal had ever grown to such numbers or commandeered so many resources. The impact on North America’s native species was devastating:




•Driven extinct by hunters, the last eastern woodland bison was seen in West Virginia in 1825.

•Undulata delissea, a Hawaiian plant, was driven extinct in 1865 by domestic cattle.

•The beautiful Falls-of-the-Ohio scurfpea, which existed on a single island, was drowned by U.S. Dam No. 41 in Kentucky in 1881.

•The Whiteline topminnow was last seen Alabama in 1899, its spring habitat repeatedly pumped dry by the growing human population.

•The Culebra parrot was hunted and collected to extinction in Puerto Rico by 1899.

•The Rocky Mountain grasshopper was purposefully driven extinct — a bounty was even placed on its head — by 1903.

•Merriam’s elk was hunted to extinction in Arizona in 1906.

•The Tennessee riffleshell disappeared in 1930 due to pollution and dams.

The human population doubled again by 1975, this time taking just 45 years. The rate of extinction also increased. Today’s population stands at 6.8 billion and, if it continues on course, will reach 8 billion in 2020 before leveling off at about 9 billion in 2050. If it doesn’t level off, the worldwide population could theoretically reach 15 billion by 2050, but that is unlikely due to the insurmountable economic, political, and ecological crises that would likely ensue.

Read the whole article here.