Effects of Overpopulation
Imagine you are lying in your bed, watching the stars. You live in an apartment, because that’s the best shelter your family can afford. You don’t feel like getting up, because you don’t feel like going to school today. But of course, you have to, so you get up and go to your kitchen. You find your mom cooking at the stove, and you are greeted with a half-plate of bread and mystery meat, covered with traces of ash from the burning wood it was cooked over. As usual, your mom tells you that there isn’t enough water to drink today. Trying to ignore the bad taste, you quickly gobble it down, and head to the door. You walk for a couple minutes to your bus stop, ignoring everybody you see on the way. As you see the school bus pulling up about a half block away, you try to make a desperate run toward it, but an asthma attack slows you down. You quietly curse the air pollution while the bus turns away. You quickly forget about it though, because you get to school 30 minutes before the bus, due to the heavy traffic. And, once again, the school’s electricity has shut down, leaving you having to take your classes in the dark, 40 °F classrooms.
This scenario might seem a little strange, but believe it or not, it could become a reality sometime soon. As of 2015, the world population is approximately 7.3 billion. For every single person that dies, about 2.5 babies are born. (“Current World Population”) 140 babies are born every minute, 200,000 babies are born every day, and 80 million babies are born every year. (“How fast is the world’s population growing?”) This extraordinary amount of new people that are born in the world allows the population to grow by about 75 million people each year, or 1.1% of the total population. The world population first hit 1 billion in 1800, and in 2012, the world population became 7 million. Estimates have put the world population at about 8.4 billion by 2030, and 9.6 billion by 2050. (“Population growth”) All of these factors point to an ever-growing population.
In Ready Player One, Wade and all the other people on the planet are struggling to survive. Many people need to steal in order to feed themselves, and others struggle to find work in this dystopian world. There is an ongoing energy crisis, and people are forced to live in trailer parks with as many as 20 trailers stacked on top of each other. Planet Earth has turned into a world riddled with food shortages, pollution, energy shortages, overcrowding, and social problems.
When you look over the facts, the world in Ready Player One seems to become less sci-fi like, and more like reality. Just like in Ready Player One, overpopulation can impact the “real world” in many different ways. There could be food and water shortages across the globe. Also, the world is running out of oil and other forms of energy, and a growing population will only increase the lack of the fossil fuels. There are also many social problems that come into play when the population becomes too large. Finally, the excessive amount of people living in one place could cause environmental problems.
Every day, 1 out of 7 people go to bed hungry, amounting to about 1 billion people. Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases take the lives of about 25,000 people each day, and 18,000 of those people are under 5 years old. (“Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”) If this is what the world is like currently, imagine what it will be like in a couple of decades! If the population keeps growing, and food continues to be in short supply, we could have a serious problem on our hands! Water is also an issue that could arise when the population grows too fast. About 1 billion people don’t have access to enough water for consumption, agriculture, and/or sanitation. (“Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”) Only 0.003% of all water on earth is readily available for human use. By 2025, it is predicted that 50% of the world’s population will have water-based vulnerability, and that the amount of water that the massive number of humans will need in 2025 will account for 70% of all freshwater that is available on our planet. It is also predicted that by 2030, 50% of the world’s population will be dealing with severe water shortages. (“Effects of Human Overpopulation”) These facts show how scarce water is on the planet already, and how, if the population keeps rapidly growing, the extremely important natural resource could become a major issue in the coming years.
Another scary effect of overpopulation is the lack of energy. Estimates put the amount of proven oil left in the world at 1.3 trillion barrels. This amount of oil is only enough to last the world (at present rates of consumption) 40 years! “By 2040, production levels may be down to 15 million barrels per day – around 20% of what we currently consume” (“When will oil run out?”). Also by 2040, the world population could be twice as large, and more countries would be oil-dependent, because they are industrializing. (“When will oil run out?”) While the amount of oil left in the world is decreasing, the oil prices are increasing at the same time! A barrel of oil cost $10 in 1998, $64 in 2007, and in 2008, the price of a barrel of oil cost $147! (“When will oil run out?” and “Falling Oil Prices Don’t Make OPEC Irrelevant”) The world depends on oil, and if it runs out or becomes too expensive, the whole world could be in trouble. Things like cars, factories, buses, subways, trains, and planes all run oil, as well as many other things. Oil is sort of like the world’s life-blood, and without it, the world could “die” or become seriously hindered. “In 2009, oil wells around the world pumped an estimated 84 to 85 million barrels out of the Earth” (“When will we run out of oil, and what happens then?”). The world is steadily expanding, and the growing population will either need more oil, or new forms of energy.
When the world has too many people in it, there could be social problems that come into play. “For every 10 percent decrease in population density, the likelihood of residents talking to their neighbors at least once a week jumps by 10 percent. And involvement in hobby-oriented clubs increases even more significantly – by 15 percent for every 10 percent decline in density” (“Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”). “Some of the most brutal and persistent conflicts and full-out wars of the past decades include the stresses of overpopulation and conflict over resources” (“Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”). Throughout America, people think that democracy is a form of government that offers us more freedom and more say in important decisions than other forms of government. But in the past few decades, U.S. citizens have not had a very effective say in many political decisions that would affect our lives. Many of us have never even met the government officials that run our city, state, and/or country. (“Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”) At the same time, there are increasingly more limits on our personal freedom. Places like California have put limits on how much residents consume water. In London, citizens are charged for driving into downtown, and politicians in New York are thinking about doing something similar to this. In urban areas, there are also laws restricting what people can do on their own land. (Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”) As you can see, there are many social problems that could occur when there are too many people living in one place.
Finally, many people living in a small area can cause environmental problems like pollution and habitat loss. The many chemicals that we have released into the air over the past few years, like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), can and have destroyed part of the ozone layer. Every 10 years, 4% of the ozone layer is destroyed. “In many regions of the country, childhood asthma rates have risen dramatically in the past 20 years…” (Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”) In industrialized places, there are many automobiles and factories that release toxic chemicals into the air, and in undeveloped places, people burn wood and dung for heating and to cook. Also, many species have gone extinct because of human actions. One of the biggest extinctions that the Earth has ever seen is happening right now. The last time the world has seen so many species was go extinct was over 60 million years ago, when the great extinction of the dinosaurs happened. Humans are the main cause of this massive extinction, because we kill many animals, or just build over their habitats. Speaking of habitat destruction, human overpopulation can also cause the homes of animals to be destroyed. Each year in the U.S., 1.2 million acres of rural land are lost to the building of urban structures. Finally, habitat fragmentation caused by human building can lead to a species dying off, due to the species’ population not being big enough in the fragment. (“Overpopulation: Environmental and Social problems”) Human overpopulation is not only negative to our own well-being, but it is also harmful to other animal species that we live with.
In conclusion, Ready Player One represents a situation that could become true due to the rapidly growing world population. Food and water shortages, the energy crisis, the social problems, and the pollution in the sci-fi novel could all become reality if we are not careful. These factors in Wade’s “fake” life can already be seen in our everyday lives, from world hunger to species extinction to oil wars. The severe effects of overpopulation can lead to a world where bottled water is as valuable as gold, oil is as rare as diamonds, and the ozone layer is half the size it used to be. American fast-food restaurants would have to raise the already high prices on their food, many oil reserve workers would lose their jobs, and many animals’ homes would be destroyed. Ready Player One may be a sci-fi novel, but the effects of overpopulation in the book could become reality!
