April 8th, 2025
Ella Weinstein, US Environmental Policy Student
The global human population has been rapidly increasing as modern medicine continues to improve, causing irreparable damage to the environment. Up until 1804, around the time of the Industrial Revolution, the human population had always stayed below one billion people for the entirety of human history. It only took 123 years for the population to grow by another billion, and the time difference between each billion milestone is quickly decreasing.[1] Currently, the population has grown to 8.2 billion people[2], and if this trend continues this way, scientists expect the Earth to reach a population of nine billion by 2037.[3] With this population growth rate, scientists expect the Earth to suffer from natural resource depletion, biodiversity loss, a rise in zoonotic diseases, and an increase in pollutants and greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere. In order to dampen these deleterious effects, policy solutions in the U.S. targeted at slowing population growth worldwide and conserving Earth’s natural resources are crucial.[4]
A rise in healthcare innovations and increased average life spans are major factors of population growth. However, there are various other drivers, such as a lack of family planning programs, limited access to proper healthcare, an increase in gender violence and inequality, and insufficient education.[5] Studies show that the population is increasing most rapidly in poorer countries, partially due to these drivers as well as cultural differences.6 In underprivileged countries, women tend to have more children and marry significantly younger. This is in part due to the need for more familial or workplace support, along with its connection to education. When women receive an education, they typically marry and have fewer children over the course of their lifetime.6 Population growth is also an issue of access to healthcare. Out of all pregnancies, almost half are unintended, and more than 200 million women are not using contraceptives who want to avoid pregnancy.[6] These drivers lead to an increased global population, which exacerbates challenges related to environmental destruction.
As more people populate the Earth, there is an increasing rate of natural resource depletion due to the ways humans overuse resources such as water, land, and natural gas at a rate where the resources can no longer replenish themselves to keep up with demand. “Over 80% of the global population lives in countries that use more resources than what their ecosystems can renew.”[7] This problem is only further exacerbated as the population continues to grow. Similarly, as humans take up more land, there is an increased rate of deforestation for agriculture and development, which in turn reduces biodiversity.[8] As the lands become deforested, we see a feedback loop where increased human-animal interactions will lead to a wider spread of zoonotic diseases, and forest conditions will become more ideal for mosquitos.[9] Aside from the ways humans overuse the land, an increased population will lead to higher amounts of greenhouse gas production and pollution. The average person emits 4 tons of carbon globally, and that number skyrocketed to an average of 16 tons in the United States.[10] Knowing this, it makes sense that a larger population would lead to more emissions. The same goes for pollution, where each person is responsible for a certain amount of contaminants and waste during their lifetime that pollutes the atmosphere, waterways, and ecosystems. Aside from plastics, it is important to consider the pollution coming from agriculture, sewage, heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and noise and light pollution.
Turning to the question of policy solutions, U.S. governmental agencies can slow the rapidly growing population by increasing family planning initiatives, increasing education efforts, distributing resources through international aid, and improving healthcare. Investing in family planning initiatives will allow women to make more informed decisions and have access to the proper means to remain autonomous over their reproductive health. These initiatives have been effective in Thailand, where after launching family planning initiatives, the average number of children per woman decreased by 75%.5 Similarly, increasing education efforts will in turn lead to delayed marriages and smaller family sizes. Some ways to do this would be to increase funding for education and lower tuition, making it more accessible. Additionally, having proper access to healthcare and contraceptives is vital to ensuring women are able to achieve their family planning goals. In Iran, contraceptives were made available after it was declared in line with Islamic belief, and in turn, the population growth rate slowed down.[11] Although there is relatively stable access to contraceptives across the U.S., ensuring access to safe and legal abortions as a fundamental component of reproductive healthcare is vital.[12] Additionally repealing the global gag rule, which prevents any foreign assistance to an organization that provides abortion services, would allow the U.S. to address population growth from a global standpoint.[13] Policy solutions regenerating the Earth and its resources must also be implemented in conjunction with policies slowing population growth. Although the population of the U.S. is not increasing at as fast of a rate as other countries, the U.S. disproportionately contributes to global warming and must therefore face the burden of maintaining Earth’s resources. One way to accommodate the growing population is by creating more sustainable cities that can hold large numbers but do not harm the land. Additionally, discovering new technologies to replace the need to use natural resources, such as improved farming techniques and innovations in renewable energy will allow humans to demand fewer resources from the Earth. Finally, practices regenerating already depleted resources, such as water and air cleanup are vital. With these solutions, paired with the initiatives to slow population growth, we can reasonably expect to see less anthro
[1] Population Connection. 2022. “Population Milestones.” Population Connection. 2022. https://populationconnection.org/learn/population-milestones/.
[2] Worldometer. 2025. “World Population Clock.” Worldometers. 2025. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.
[3] United Nations. 2022. “Global Issues: Population.” United Nations. 2022. https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population.
[4] “Homepage.” n.d. Population Connection. http://populationconnection.org.
[5] Population Matters. 2023. “Solutions.” Population Matters. 2023. https://populationmatters.org/solutions/.
[6] “Girls’ and Women’s Empowerment.” n.d. Population Connection. https://populationconnection.org/why-population/girls-and-womens-empowerment/
[7] “Natural Resources.” n.d. Population Connection. https://populationconnection.org/why-population/natural-resources/.
[8] Nater, Olivia. 2024. “Biodiversity Loss.” Population Connection. 2024. https://populationconnection.org/why-population/biodiversity-loss/.
[9] Laporta, Gabriel Z., Roberto C. Ilacqua, Eduardo S. Bergo, Leonardo S. M. Chaves, Sheila R. Rodovalho, Gilberto G. Moresco, Elder A. G. Figueira, et al. 2021. “Malaria Transmission in Landscapes with Varying Deforestation Levels and Timelines in the Amazon: A Longitudinal Spatiotemporal Study.” Scientific Reports 11, no. 1 (March). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-85890-3.
[10] The Nature Conservancy. 2019. “What Is Your Carbon Footprint?” The Nature Conservancy. 2019. https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/carbon-footprint-calculator/.
[11] Ramin Mostaghim. 2012. “As Iran Made Contraceptives Free, Iranian Women Made Strides.” Los Angeles Times. July 22, 2012. https://www.latimes.com/world/population/la-fg-population-iran-20120729-html-htmlstory.html.
[12] “The Right to Contraception in the United States.” 2024. Guttmacher Institute. August 22, 2024. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/right-to-contraception-in-us.
[13] Planned Parenthood. 2024. “What Is the Global Gag Rule?” Www.plannedparenthoodaction.org. 2024. https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/communities/planned-parenthood-global/end-global-gag-rule.
Thank you for this thoughtful blog, I particularly appreciated the explicit examples of countries where bettering reproductive health and promoting family planning initiatives affected the population growth rate and the detailed connection between the population growth rate and climate change. The timeline of the global population really demonstrates how exponentially our population has grown, which somewhat worries me for the future if we don’t take active action to slow it down. However, I think there is a fine balance between slowing down the population growth rate in countries and population decline. For example, Japan has been experiencing significant population decline for the past 14 years (1). Population decline also comes with its own set of issues, like a smaller number of people in the workforce which places pressure on the economy and social security programs. Japan has even pushed government initiatives to promote population growth, like increasing child allowances and childcare (2). These obviously directly oppose initiatives to slow population growth. I honestly don’t know what this balance is, and in the United States, we haven’t reached the point of population decline yet but the US’s population has been slowing. I think a key consideration for policy experts in coming years will be trying to understand how to slow population growth to decrease its negative effects on climate change but not enough to lead to a declining population.
Kaneko, Karin. “Japan’s Population Shrinks for the 14th Consecutive Year.” The Japan Times, The Japan Times, 14 Apr. 2025, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/04/14/japan/society/japan-population-further-decline/.
The Japan News. “Japan’s Population Declining Faster than Anticipated, Threatening National Pension Scheme.” Asia News Network, Asia News Network, 16 Apr. 2025, asianews.network/japans-population-declining-faster-than-anticipated-threatening-national-pension-scheme.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this issue, Ella. I think people often think of issues in reproductive health and the environment separately, but they are deeply intertwined in important ways most do not know about, so I appreciate you shedding light on the interconnectedness here. I particularly was drawn to your mention on the impact of the increasing global population on zoonotic diseases. Having explored a lot about One Health in the past, I find it shocking that this population issue was never brought up around the topic of zoonotic diseases, or at least not in the “reproductive health” context. With that, I am left wondering whether you think there is a reason for this disconnect and what possible solutions we can find to further highlight the interconnectedness of health and environmental science. Humans are increasingly becoming individualistic, so bringing awareness to personal health problems in the sphere of environmental issues would probably do a great deal in bringing about necessary change. I know that with the current U.S. political context it will be hard to shed light on reproductive health and come up with solutions, but I hope that other nations will spearhead this mindset change so others can follow suit.