Nicholas Murray

Overpopulation has long been a concern of environmentalists and social advocates, and as the United States passes 300 million people, these concerns will soon become a reality if left unchecked. Overpopulation affects every aspect of life, from air pollution to what foods a person can buy. When too many people inhabit a country, the quality of life for the citizens begins to suffer. With an excessively large population, jobs would be hard to find and basic necessities of life such as food, water and shelter would be in short supply. While this is currently not the case in the United States, it is not unreasonable to extrapolate that from our current population, such conditions could exist if our population continues to grow.

A population of 200 to 250 million people would be ultimately suitable for the United States. With this lowered population, demand for food, oil, and other resources would be eased, causing prices to drop. Jobs would be plentiful and the economy would be efficient and productive. Another major benefit of a significantly reduced population would be the reduced environmental impact. Less people in the United States would reduce our energy and resource consumption. There is a limited amount of fossil fuels available for our use and when those reserves are exhausted society will have to use alternative energy sources to meet its power needs. Every person in the United States produces pollution, directly and indirectly, and the amount of pollution is related to the amount of people living in the country.

Three main factors are causing our population to rise: increased birth rates, longer life spans and increased immigration. Since we can't ethically reduce people's life spans, we must adjust the other two factors to control our population.

The total fertility rate in the United States is currently 2.09, meaning that an average of 2.09 children is born to a woman over her lifetime. If this number could be reduced to 1.5, over the next 50 years, the population of the United States would decrease drastically. Improved education, family planning, and other incentives can help reduce the fertility rate.

Immigration is another cause of a higher population in America. Over one million people immigrate to the United States every year, many of them illegally. When people illegally live in America they do not pay taxes nor do they contribute to the local economy because a majority of their income is sent back to their relatives in their home country. If we can reduce immigration rates greatly, we can hinder this massive addition to our population. Legal immigration rates could be capped at a certain level allowing only a certain number of new immigrants every year. Illegal immigration could be more strongly monitored and the laws strictly imposed to accomplish these reduced immigration rates.

Without firm action in the coming decades our country, and the world, will suffer the backlash from gross overpopulation. Steps need to be taken to reduce our country's population to a more stable and sustainable level. All of the world's efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and cut emissions will be completely negated if we cannot find a feasible method to lower our population. Overpopulation is the most critical threat facing our world in the coming century and needs to be dealt with accordingly and quickly if we wish to dodge this potential crisis.