INQ-300 | Human Population Growth

Full Title: The Human Footprint: A Study of Human Population Growth

Topic Description:

The world population is approximately 7.4 billion people, and it’s changing every second. Some researchers estimate that the world population will reach 8 billion people by the year 2025. How are these estimates calculated? Are they accurate and do they consider environmental factors that affect viability? Even more importantly, does the human population have a carrying capacity, influenced by availability of resources and physical space? The population growth affects our world economically, culturally, and socially in addition to changing the ecosystem. For instance, National Geographic claims we’ll need to double agricultural crops by the year 2050 to feed the world population. In this class we will focus on and discuss the ethical dilemmas that arise in controlling the population size, the different factors that influence growth rate changes, and what our role should be in maintaining world resources.

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: November 2016