Environment And Sustainable Development — Economics STD 12 Humanities & Commerce — Question

Effects of population explosion on environment:

1. The adverse effects of a growing population include environmental degradation, air and land traffic congestion, pollution of all kinds, water shortages, soaring urban housing costs, increased crowding, loss of prime agricultural land and social stress.
2. Our land area is quickly consumed as more people require more space to live, work, and play, scenic countryside shrink, parks become more crowded.
3. As population grows, taxes increase in order to maintain social services and education, and to continually add costly infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, prisons, roads, and systems for the disposal of sewage and other waste.
4. Population with relatively high standards of living in industrialised countries use large amounts of energy and generate disproportionately large per capita quantities of "greenhouse gases" (which cause global warming) and toxic pollutants, so even small population increase in such countries can have disproportionate adverse impacts.

The quality of our daily lives deteriorates as population grows; overpopulation both worsens, and frustrates attempts to solve social maladies such as crime, psychological stress, and homelessness.