Gabby

=Gabby= **Intro:** The global population is going to hit 8 billion. There is no disputing this fact, it is going to happen and it is going to happen in our lifetime. The problems we need to solve are how do we use our world’s resources efficiently and how do we keep our population from reaching 10 billion (the number experts have determined is unsustainable). Population growth is mostly occurring in undeveloped nations. This is due to two main reasons. Not having access to birth control and lowering infant mortality rates but families still feeling the need to have multiple children to make sure they will be taken care of in old age. Increasing population in undeveloped nations is creating a huge increase in poverty. A larger workforce is leading to less jobs with much lower wages. In countries with high fertility rates about 40 million new jobs much be created each year. This just isn’t possible. Also countries with higher population tend to spend less on education which is adding to the problem of poverty. When the population reaches 8 billion there will be even more stress on the environment. Because of population growth, we need more room and 75% of deforestation has occurred in the 20th century. As we use up more land and resources more species become extinct. Green house gases and are emitted into the atmosphere are up 30% from pre-industrialization times. Energy demands in Asia are expected to increase by 361%, 340% in Latin America and 326% in Africa as the population grows to 8 billion. Finally we must learn to use our resources efficiently. Population growth has exceeded grain production. Grain production is slowing because of less land. As more people eat more meat we need more grain to feed the animals. The supply of fresh water is dramatically decreasing while demand increases. Fish populations are decreasing and we lack the land or resources to support enough fish farming to keep up with demands. Simply put the more people on the earth the more stress on our resources. Again, our population is going to hit 8 billion. With 1/3 of the world not currently at reproducing yet we know that mass population growth is going to happen. Our main concern has to be keeping our population from hitting 10 billion and using our resources efficiently to put as little stress on the earth as possible. There are several ideas for what need to be done such as providing access to birth control to areas that don’t have it, making education more available especially to girls, and changing cultural views so women have less children. We must break the cycle and action needs to be on a global scale, it’s impossible to solve this problem without including the whole world. We need a solution and we need one immediately or the population will reach more than the earth can handle.

We know what need to happen, all the experts agree. The way to solve this is through providing birth control in areas where it’s unavailable and educating the youth, especially girls, as well as empowering women. The main issues with this are current policy that prevents countries to get involved with providing universal birth control. Whatever is done need to be done as a global effort and its next to impossible to an agreement on a controversial subject like birth control. American policy on this issue isn’t helping. Getting birth control to women would not be all that expensive it could be with educating and empowering women. Again we butt up against cultural views but providing education and empowerment to women would be slightly expensive, not unaffordable, most countries just don’t want to commit. § Goals: § Universal access to reproductive health services by 2015 § Universal primary education and closing the gender gap in education by 2015 § Reducing maternal mortality by 75 per cent by 2015 § Reducing infant mortality § Increasing life expectancy § HIV infection rates in persons 15-24 years of age should be reduced by 25 per cent in the most-affected countries by 2005 and by 25 per cent globally by 2010. Millennium villages: This project is an experiment to show how successful empowering villages in the most impoverish areas. This program finds that most of these villages have the determination to succeed they just do not have the resources. These villages are provided with access to higher yield seeds, fertilizers, basic medicine, access to clean water, materials to build schools, and sometimes the internet. With access to these basic resources the communities are able to make more money, improve health, educate their children, and generally improve their living conditions. To further the benefits the villages only cause about $110 per person per year. When you consider how much is spend on aid and how many problems this could solve this cost is minimal. This program is all about giving these villages a hand up and not a hand out. This programs gives the villages tools to succeed and allows their self determination to make a difference
 * Solutions**
 * à UNFPA** –