Population
See also: World Population and overpopulationIn the I=PAT equation, the variable P represents the population of an area, such as the world. Since the rise of industrial societies, human population has been increasing exponentially. This has caused Thomas Malthus and many others to postulate that this growth would continue until checked by widespread hunger and famine (see Malthusian growth model).
The United Nations and the US Census Bureau project that world population will increase from 7.0 billion today to about 9.2 billion by 2050. These projections take into consideration that population growth has slowed in recent years as women are having fewer children. This phenomenon is believed to be a result of demographic transition in developed nations. As a result, the UN believes that human population might stabilize around 9 billion by 2100. However, since the world population is set to keep rising for the next few decades, this factor of the I=PAT equation will likely keep increasing human impact on the environment for the near future.
Read more about this topic: I = PAT
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“The population question is the real riddle of the sphinx, to which no political Oedipus has as yet found the answer. In view of the ravages of the terrible monster over-multiplication, all other riddle sink into insignificance.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most. The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Like other cities created overnight in the Outlet, Woodward acquired between noon and sunset of September 16, 1893, a population of five thousand; and that night a voluntary committee on law and order sent around the warning, “if you must shoot, shoot straight up!””
—State of Oklahoma, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)