So we know that overpopulation is one of the biggest contributors to the current and projected environmental problems we face. We have discussed many of the roadblocks that stand in the way of curbing our current rate of population increase. In addition we have touched on some possible solutions to population issues as well.
One of the areas we touched on was education. Is education the answer needed to create long-term stability and a stabilization of the global population? If so, what kinds of education are absolute necessities? If not, what do you believe the answer is?
Answer completely, but I do not need a novel. State specifics, and make sure you support your opinion.
You must submit your answer via the comment tab, no later than 12:00 a.m. Wednesday November 26, 2008. Have a great Holiday!
19 comments:
I think that education plays somewhat of a role in curbing the problem of overpopulation, however, it is definitely not the only answer needed. On the one hand, education is necessary to inform people of the big issue. Most people try to attack this by throwing condoms at people and yelling about abstinence. But what the education needs to be about is the effects of overpopulation on that particular person's life and what it could do to them personally if not corrected. Still this is not the most important factor. Honestly, what needs to happen is to have the majority of the larger overpopulated countries ban together and find an effective way to curb the population growth. Whether it be by making laws to limit children, or by providing incentives to lessen the amount of births. Either way, it must be effective, and it needs to happen soon.
I think education is an essential component in the solution to overpopulation, but as far as other countries and cultures are concerned, we can't do much more than that. We can talk all we want about birth control and limiting children, we can give them an opportunity to help themselves- but for that to be worth anything, they have to listen and actually understand how their lives will be affected by the changes we are suggesting that they make. So, I think that we need to make opportunities available to educate people about what they (as individuals) can do to lessen their impact on overpopulation, and the priority should be to make people see how much their personal choices effect the rest of the world, and how much better and easier life could be in the long run if they made some changes.
I think that education is the key to curbing overpopulation. For all I care we could run with that contraceptive bomb idea, but without education it is useless. Everyone needs to know what to do with the contraceptives in order for them to be effective. In addition, people need to know why they should even use contraceptives. I guarantee some people don't even know that there is an overpopulation concern, and how would they react to someone telling them about it anyway? "yah hi, there are too many babies in the world. So.... slow down". No, there needs to be organized programs and proof... something tangible for people to understand that there is an issue. I seriously believe that if everyone in the world took this Environmental Science Class ... then overpopulation would be done with. So, I think the closer we can get to that the better.
while education about our current overpopulation problem and about contraceptives is a way to convince people to have less children, we still have to remember that children are very, very useful to many people in underdeveloped countries. they help early by working and getting money for their family to survive, but they also have work to do later in the parents' lives by supporting them after they cant work anymore. so education would have to be paired with some sort of incentive that would outweigh having more children. but we have to remember that these families live in underdeveloped countries, so realistically, the governmental agencies in these countries need a lot of help from the rest of the world as well. not only in educating the people, but providing an incentive as well.
Education is a necessity, toward contributing to a much more aware population, in a developing country. But there should be a better system to help make education a valueable asset in that culture. I mean if you get educated in an underveloped country, what does that mean? There arn't those hierarchy of jobs and degrees developed in that country, such as in America where we have a more complexity and diverse arrangement of occupations, because are culture creates them. However, we have resources and luxary to create tons of jobs, but in undereveloped countries like Africa they don't have resources to build those jobs. Who's going to pay them? in a corrupt government they could get cheated. They don't have those jobs or resources to aquire those jobs, they work off the land. I think we should focus education on social patterns, and global trends so we can teach them about how the more kids they have, the bigger strains they put on resources. I agree with Pmccarthy that there should be incentives to help people choose not to have kids, but they need better systems to help them work the land. I think Developed countries need to be apart of helping underdeveloped countries, because there harvests are just going to get smaller and smaller, and developed countries need to provide food. Providing resources to build buildings and create hospitals and jobs are good steps with an educated population, so i think others have to provide tools so educated underdevoloped countries can build from those resources. Hopefully into a more stable society.
Education plays a role in the decreasing of population, but I also think that it may not be the most important. While we discussed population issues in class there is the idea that the areas that are causing the most overpopulation problems may not want the education, their culture is to have children. they use their children to support themselves, have hopes for retirement and it is just a part of their lifestyle and religious beliefs. This si what makes it so hard to trim down on the population and the rate it is growing at. I still believe that education would help, but i also believe that by empowering women and giving other outs for retirement besides tons of children could help people feel more secure. Everyone needs that sense of security... Though I dont know how to create these retirement programs, I think getting it done IS a possibility.
Education is a major upper hand that developed countries have over developing countries, and it shows in our reduced (relatively) populations. While I think that there are many other factors which can help to limit overpopulation, I find that education is a key ingredient. Not only does it curb individuals from having unsafe sex and inform them of the consequences of overpopulation on their environment, but a decent education can also spark new interests and hopes, promote entrepreneurialism, and ultimately better their economy and stance in the world.
Although there are many factors that affect our current overpopulation problems, I believe they all in some way stem back to education. Many people do not even know about the current issues. Even if those people are just educated about what is going on, I believe there would be a change in our overpopulation problems. These people should be educated on how the problem will affect them if not solved and how their daily practices are adding to the problem. If someone knows their life is going to be dramatically changed they are likely to do everything in their power to stop that change. While it is important to educated people about contraceptives, this would be very difficult because of different cultures and religions. It is important for people to know about contraceptives but we cannot rely on their use alone to curb the overpopulation problems.
I think that yes education is a factor in lowering our problem of overpopulation, but it is certainly not the only thing we have to do. It is completely irrational for us to believe that just telling people what they should do is going to fix the problem but it is better then not telling them anything. If we don't at least try to inform people of ways to prevent an even greater overpopulation problem, how can we expect the problem to diminish. People can't make a change without the proper tools and knowledge and understanding are two relatively large tools. I think that if we want this to work however we need to make information redly available, and this is going to be a challenge. While this is a great option that with a lot of work could be achieved, I still feel however that this is not the only option, not at all. I think that we and other larger nations should look into prevention here in our own population increases. I don't know exactly how we would do this, i mean we could be like China and put a limit on how many kids you can have and then fine people per kid after they surpassed the allotted number, but i'm not completely sure. Whatever happens though kind of really needs to happen soon, we're running out of time, space and everything, soon we just bluntly won't be able to support the rapidly growing population and everything is going to end badly then.
I think that education is pretty important in helping stop population growth. Education is a great way to inform people of what's going on in the world and teach them more about sex education but education does only go so far. Most countries have strong religious beliefs and they aren't going to want to listen to someone telling them stuff that they think is crap and against their beliefs. Some education is good but if we just throw information at people and expect them to take it in and change they way they live their lives then we won't see anything change. I think the governemnt needs to take more drastic measures then just educating people. They need to make laws like limiting the number of children a family can have or have a tax where if you exceed the amount of two kids your tax rates would go up. There are all kinds of ways that you can go about it and education is a good start but you can't change the world by just telling people what to do, you have to make rules and set boundaries if you want to see drastic change.
For me education doesn't play that much of a part in solving our issues in overpopulation, it would help but it wouldn't get the job done, i feel like force and taking action must be applied, for example the child policy they use in China, that if a couple had more than one kid they would have to pay taxes, the cons to this is that most countries with over population are poor and undeveloped and for this to be applied people would need money, i think this is where education would play its role in peoples lives, except we would need some support to create stability in their society, before taking action. it sounds confusing but its like a chain reaction, and perhaps this might help the situation.
Education is definitely a good first step to take towards finding a solution for the current over- population issue that seems to be fueling even more issues. Also I think that the first step, in these types of situations, is the most important step because it is what starts everything. Once people are educated about the issues and are aware of the consequences if we do not act quickly, then it'll be much easier to fix the problem(s). As much as I think education is a very important factor in searching for the remedy for many of todays biggest world issues, I also think that much more will have to go into the overall effort. Fixing the issue of over-population is an obnoxious, and almost appears to be an impossible, feat but I think that if enough people care about fixing it then it can be done.
Education is definitely the answer to create long-term stability in the global population. Education can clue in people in developing nations to the population crisis that is gripping the earth. Education of many kinds is available. I think that there are two kinds of education that are absolutely necessary. I believe that, obviously, education about safe sex and contraceptives is necessary. Teaching individuals about the benefits of safe sex and contraceptives will (ideally) help control the population in developing nations with a population that has been previously unable to learn this information. Also, education about basic agriculture and farming will help these nations become more sustainable. In addition to helping these people stay alive and possibly create a bit of income for themselves, being able to support yourself off of home-grown produce would lessen the value of children as back-up caregivers. These are the two most necessary forms of education that need to be delivered, and they are both conceivably not that expensive to implement, as far as big government ventures go
I think that yes education plays a very important role in creating long-term stabilityand stabilization of the global population. Without education overpopulation will continue to get worse and worse. So i believe that educating these people is where we need to start. There are specific ideas and concepts that we must teach to make a difference. It's not like what we learn in math or literature. We need to adress sex education, the causes of overpopulation and what the results of overpopulation will do to our environment and future generations. These things are what really matter and will make a difference but as i said this is just where we should start there are so many other things that need to be factored in to make the difference.
Better late than never-
Like most everyone else has said, education could play a part in helping calm our population, but it isn't going to completely revolutionize how our population is growing. Most children in America know about sex - how it's done, how to use birth control, what could happen if you have sex, etc, etc. Sex education needs to spread farther than the United States at this point. Every little thing can make a difference. If people started adopting more than making little clones of themselves then our population would be helped. Would it be completely fixed? Definitely not. But with a solid amount of little things that people can do (like educating), we could make a huge difference.
Education is absolutely essential, but not for the mere facts but the critical thinking skills that it gives. I believe the best way to teach critical thinking skills is through early age education (<14 years old). It seems to me like those
Education is the most important element to creating long term sustainablilty and stabilization of global population. However, it is also not the only factor. There are several factors that need to be faced in order to stablize things such as sanitation, economy, government, religion, culture, ect, but education is the key. Without education, people will not know about the consequences of their impact on the environment. They weould not know about the affects of an exponentially growing population and what could happen if it does not stop. With education, people can make educated decisions, which could in turn be helpful to for the environment. However, before this can happen everyone needs to agree that overpopulation is occuring, sustainablilty needs to be set in motion, and any mean to aquire them must be taken. The most important people to educate are women and children. Women becuase they are more family orriented than the average male and they also provide early education to thir children. Children because they are the future and will be the next generation to decide what is to be done in the future. Everyone needs to be eduated on the environment, politics, reading and writing. This way they know whats happening in the world and how to make themselves heard.
I think that education plays a vital roll in curbing the problem of overpopulation. With a lack of education people do not know of what they are missing out on in life and how far they could go. They also do not understand how them having a whole litter of kids is harmful or can even impact the earth as a whole. Although i do not think education alone will solve the global population crisis or create long term population stability it is most definitely a key component in the matter. Sex education is simple but important education for population control. Another type of education that i think could make a big impact is economic education. because impoverished people generally do not tend to understand how the world works together as a whole. By economically educating people they then have an opportunity to create their own solutions.
Macdicken. I was absent when this blog was assigned, and learned of it's existance a week ago.
I believe education is the main key through which over population will be solved. Education that relates directly to Earth's over population could greatly influence even those who are born into a cultural that believes it is their duty to have man kids.
Education about life/family planning, as well as contraseptive necessity can also greatly effect the rate at which children are produced.
-Ian Fox, Period 7
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