Carrying Capacity and Birth Control

in #stemng6 years ago (edited)
Reproduction is perhaps one of the most important life processes that ensure continuity of life. Imagine if all the humans presently on earth decides to stop reproducing starting from today, very few or no humans would remain on the planet; let's say in a hundred years to come. Such is the indispensability of the process.


Hence, it usually amazes me when folks say they do not have any plan to have kids throughout their lives. Much as I respect their decisions as a layman, I see it as an unconscious attempt to promote discontinuity of human life and disrupt one of the processes that ensure equilibrium in the ecosystem; especially in terms of gene pool flux and genetic diversity. Though such people sometimes argue that a whole lot of other humans are giving birth to more kids than necessary and that the world actually has more than enough population already.


The current world population stands at a staggering figure of 7.6 billion individuals which represents a significant increase in the last 10 years. It is hypothesized that if the human population is allowed to continue without checks and balances, a time might come when the earth itself would no longer be able to support more individuals. At this point, we say the earth has reached its carrying capacity.

640px-Population_growth.png

By Unit 2 Reading: Growth and Dynamics of Populations by Kirsten Menking, Vassar Collegehttps://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/earth_modeling/student_materials/unit2_article1.htmlScience Education Resource Center at Carleton College., CC BY 4.0, Link


Carrying capacity is simply defined as the maximum number of individuals an environment can support, given its resources.


According to several scientists, the maximum figure the earth can support oscillates around 9 to 10 billion and if the current trend of population increase continues, the carrying capacity would be reached somewhere between the year 2050 and 2100. Should we be scared?


Often times, I get into argument with proponents of birth control. Most believe that humans should not be allowed to proliferate according to their capacities, citing limited resources as the main reason. China as a country happened to have criminalized excessive fecundity in the past, putting a cap of one or two kids per family as the case may be. I always like to play the devil in this kind of argument. In a world where we keep hammering on fundamental human rights, I am of the opinion that dictating to fellow humans when and how (and probably where) to have sex is a gross violation of it. I usually like to end the argument by telling my opponents that I am going to give birth to as many kids as my resources can cater for (and yea, I am serious about this). Thank goodness I do not live in China.


Some would probably consider my stands as grossly unscientific and counterproductive to the efforts being channeled towards saving the planet. I really do not believe so. My reasons are not far fetched. I can say it categorically that no matter how high the birth rate of the human population is, the earth cannot and would never get to its carrying capacity. It can only oscillate around it. Let's have a look at some concepts that fully explain this hypothesis of mine.



Population growth


Population has been defined in a variety of ways, perhaps depending on the field the definer operates. But for the purpose of today's discussion and to simplify it, a population can be viewed as an assemblage of individuals of the same species which possess the inherent ability to produce fertile progenies through breeding. Ipso facto, a human-animal hybrid would neither be considered a part of human population nor part of animal population.


The growth of a population depends on the resultant synergistic effects of a variety of components which include:

  • Birthrate
  • Death rate
  • Migration (immigration and emigration)


By CNX OpenStax - CC BY 4.0, Link

Since the discussion is about the global human population, migration does not have any resultant effect. Hence, birth and death rate are the main factors that determine whether a population would increase or otherwise. When the birthrate outweighs the death rate, population increases and when otherwise, it decreases. Therefore, the argument has always been that if the birthrate is left unchecked, the world population would shoot up rapidly and the carrying capacity of the earth would be reached soon enough.


Basically, there are two types of population growth. A population will continue to grow indefinitely as long as the birthrate keep outweighing the death rate with all other factors being constant. This is generally referred to as exponential population growth. More realistically, however, is the fact that even if birthrate outstretches death rate, populations cannot continue to increase indefinitely due to a host of biotic and abiotic environmental factors otherwise known as limiting factors of the population.

3203403730_30a7d2f6b3_z.jpg

source: flickr



The limiting factors


Just as machines cannot achieve 100% efficiency due to friction, no population of any species of organism can continue to grow indefinitely. A lot of factors operate naturally that tend to keep the population in checks and keep it oscillating just around its carrying capacity at best.


On one hand, some of these factors tend to have strong correlations with population size and are therefore referred to as density-dependent limiting factors. For example, epidemic disease outbreaks are quite common in heavily populated areas and less common in sparsely populated areas. Also, intra-species competition tends to increase with an increase in population density and vice versa. These two factors along with some others limit population by either by influencing the reproductive capacity of the population or the mortality rate.


On the other hand, some limiting factors are quite independent of population density. No matter how sparsely or heavily populated an area is, they randomly operate and work to limit population size. Inadequate food or nutrient, environmental pollutants, natural disasters and several other factors all operate and limit population size irrespective of the population density. Just like the density-dependent factors, they also influence the reproductive capacity and mortality to regulate population size. If local populations were to be considered, these factors also cause a flux in the immigration-emigration equilibrium. However, as I said earlier, migration has no resultant effect on the global population size, unless humans are migrating to another planet.



So what would happen if there is no birth control?


As I said earlier, I am really not an advocate of telling people the number of kids to have. Without being told, the socio-economic status quo of a lot of countries has actually enforced self-birth control on some couple without the intervention of government. No matter how hard some humans try, they cannot reproduce without being assisted technologically while some are irreversibly sterile.


However, if all the fertile human population decide to reproduce at their maximum capacity, competition for resources would increase, disease outbreak would increase, war and pestilence would increase among a host of other density-dependent and independent factors. This would definitely mean more death rate and if the theory of natural selection is anything to go by, only the weak would die off and the strong would survive at the end of the day. Hence, I personally do not see the carrying capacity as a disaster, rather a point of equilibrium between population and available resources.



Concluding thoughts


I am a respecter of fundamental human rights and of the opinion that no one should dictate to fellow humans how to use his/her body. I have seen folks given birth to several kids and effectively took care of them all while someone with a single kid did not give a hoot about the kid. I also feel some of these policies or ideologies promoting birth controls are often targeted at the proletariat in the society all because the bourgeoisie feels somehow threatened by the limiting factors that could come into play in the population.


By Asiamcclearygaddy - CC BY-SA 3.0, Link


The earth as a planet is blessed with huge resources which are kind of skewed in distribution. A large percentage of the world's wealth is in the hands of few. Hence, it is probable that the carrying capacity of the planet has been underestimated.


Thank you for reading.



References


nature

wikipedia

britannica

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It is quite refreshing to have an author like you in this community. The manners in which you disect scientific issues that directly affect everyone is quite brilliant. Sincere gratitude to you.

The issue of carrying capacity is better explained using the deer experiment. In the year 1944, 29 deer were introduced to an island that had no presence of the animal before. By the summer of year 1963, the deer had thrived and proliferated to 6,000. However, a rather unusual (but natural) event happened the following winter which led to the population of the animal decreasing rapidly from 6000 to less than 50.

The experiment clearly demonstrated that even though carrying capacity may be theoretical in the case of the earth and its human populace, it does exist in reality. Hence, an unchecked human population growth might not just lead to the limiting factors keeping the population size around the carrying capacity, but far below it. A natural but genocidal event could actually happen and might spell doom for a large portion of the human population.

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Interesting reading. I believe that if we want to get more numerous here, we need to change something if we don't want the planet to kick us out :D

lol...the planet really can't do Jack. I think our problem is not overpopulation nor inadequate resources but wastage, excesses and greed. The resources the world currently have is more than enough for the current world population but the few that have the major will not allow it to trickle down. Asking for lower world population in order to save the planet is like taking paracetamol for cancer.

I am 100% in line with you. Waste is a pain. Also, reducing the population may hit us hard in the face when we will not have enough young people to cope with the old ones that will be left...

First thing first;
New word - Ipso Facto.

Secondly;

@gentleshaid Don't think of overcrowding Nigeria with your kids.

To wrap it up;

You really nailed it, but from "my own perspective", I really think one should view his home before planning on having kids. It really pains me when I see up to 7 kids in a family that can't even really afford to take care of one, I get angry when I see how unkept they look.

I really loved reading through your post. Good piece of work.

The issue has always been about those that cannot take care of the kids. Can anyone tell Dangote not to have more than a particular number of kids? I guess no. I think it is better to criminalize those that abandon their kids without care. With that, people would naturally cease from giving birth to kids they can't take care of. Much as I love 'em kids, I would rather not have any than to have ones I won't be able to afford to take care.

Thanks a lot for the love of my article. You are one of the reasons I get motivated to write.

Dangote can feed a whole village or even a state 😃

True.

You're welcome

I see it as an unconscious attempt to promote discontinuity of human life and disrupt one of the processes that ensure equilibrium in the ecosystem; especially in terms of gene pool flux and genetic diversity.

I doubt that. It's more likely they just don't like children and the loss of material resources as well as autonomy, which usually follows after children arrive.

Another reason can also be, that one just realizes he's too fucked up to ever be able to take care of children properly.

Personally, I don't judge people for having kids - as long as they keep them away from me and teach them how to behave in public. Otherwise I'm always going to be the grumpy guy who tells a child to shut the fuck up, if its parents are not able to do so.

You know what amazes me regularly?
You need to pass a test to drive a car or you are not allowed to do it - but creating a kid (and possibly fuck up a whole life) requires only some genitals.
Seems not very reasonable to me.

That is why I used the word 'unconscious'. They might totally be oblivious to that fact. As an ecologist, I prefer to look at things on a larger scale and sexual reproduction together with accompanying genetic recombination is one of the reasons all of us are alive. If we all have the same mindset. we can as well discontinue life. Perhaps there is a particular gene in you that might save humanity from a particular disease in future but due to your mindset, you refused to pass this gene to the subsequent generation? You have totally erased your gene from the gene pool without you thinking of it.

Perhaps there is a particular gene in you that might save humanity from a particular disease in future but due to your mindset, you refused to pass this gene to the subsequent generation? You have totally erased your gene from the gene pool without you thinking of it.

Why do you say I never thought of it?
Maybe I thought about that, but I just don't care about future generations? I don't feel any responsibility for the people who are alive while I'm dead. Why should I?

In addition to that: it's probably one of the worst reasons to get children at all. In my case it would be like "Look, I don't like you and I don't want you - but since I got told you might be humanities last hope, I'm stuck with you. And now stop whining and finish breakfast."

I would be such a loving father. Not.

@egotheist, you just echoed the sentiments of one my late uncle. He always says he won't be bothered by things that happen after his death :)

A wise man indeed :)

Hello @gentleshaid.

What a well written article full of objective thoughts and logical arguments!

I personally do not see the carrying capacity as a disaster, rather a point of equilibrium between population and available resources.

That's exactly what it is, my brother. I definitely could not agree more. Ordinarily, I used to be a supporter of birth control practices but you have won me over with your intelligent argument.

Regards.

@eurogee of @euronation and @steemstem communities

I am not totally against birth control tbh. Enforcing it or looking down on people with multiple kids is what I am against. As long as people have the capacities to take of their kids, allow them to exercise their fundamental human rights. If I have the means to take care of 10 kids and I chose to have just two, fine! Those that neglect their kids are the ones we should focus on and probably criminalize their acts.

I also feel some of these policies or ideologies promoting birth controls are often targeted at the proletariat in the society all because the bourgeoisie feels somehow threatened by the limiting factors that could come into play in the population.

This is so spot on.

In the end, this whole thing boils down to the paranoial mentality of the latter class of society to protect their wealth. They are more concerned about how an increase in world's populations would affect how much more they can acquire to satisfy their greed, instead of actually seeing the increasing rate as an opportunity for more resources to be stemmed up.

Affirmative! Thanks for the lovely contribution

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Hence, it usually amazes me when folks say they do not have any plan to have kids throughout their lives. Much as I respect their decisions as a layman, I see it as an unconscious attempt to promote discontinuity of human life and disrupt one of the processes that ensure equilibrium in the ecosystem; especially in terms of gene pool flux and genetic diversity.

It never amazes me that some people may want not to give birth as some has already seen that parenting may not be something they can handle. Also, some may not give birth but opt for adoption. Do I think the world is overpopulated? No, there is still enough room for another couple of billion.

Also, some may not give birth but opt for adoption.

Adoption does not add to the gene pool of the population in any way.

Do I think the world is overpopulated? No, there is still enough room for another couple of billion.

Some scientists actually believe that the world is overpopulated and that the earth has reached it's carrying capacity a while back.

Yeah, true it does not add to the gene pool. Some can't just handle being a parent and decided not to be one which I think is ok. Imagine what will happen to a child born to a parent who does not want to be one.

About my thoughts on population, that is just my opinion which I think may soon come to pass as we are approaching an era where mortality will be less.

Like I said, I am not berating those that do not want to have kids, I just pointed out the latent consequence of their action/inaction. About approaching the era of less mortality, I would not totally agree with that. Mortality keep increasing every day with the emergence of new diseases and development of resistance by pathogens, wars keep springing up here and there, terrorists and ritualists are killing people like chicken. Do you know the number of people that have been killed by lone gunmen in the US in the past one year or so?

All these are the direct/indirect result of an increase in population and I do not see the trend reversing overnight.

Yeah, I get where you are coming from. The thing is the number of births far outnumber the mortality rate. There have always been deaths from conflicts/wars and diseases even when the world is less than a billion. The trend as you rightly said isn't going to be something that reverses overnight.

If I must say, I am more concerned with the greater dangerous impact that an increased population would have on the environment. Lets look around us and see what we have done to planet earth. Even if we do not reach the carrying capacity of the planet, what about the impacts that a larger population would have?

Like I said, the battle is only for the strong. Humans have been impacting the earth since inception and it is only normal for the impact to increase with increase in population. If a resolution is made today that some humans need to be eliminated in other to reduce human population, will you volunteer yourself because of the impact we humans have on the environment? I guess no. What we need is sustainable use of resources....

I quite agree with you on that note, howbeit, preaching "sustainable use of resources" to an increased population is less likely to yield positive results, especially in developing countries.