How You Can Help Earth Cope with 7 Billion

Photo credit: SimplyCVR

The population of our planet reached the 7 billion mark at the end of October according to the U.N.’s calculations. Earth’s population has more than doubled in the last 50 years, from 3 billion in 1959, and will likely exceed 10 billion by 2100. These numbers represent big challenges—feeding and providing for additional people on a planet already stressed by environmental damage and climate change. What can ordinary individuals do in the face of such enormous issues?

Since the evolutionary goal of each species is to increase its numbers, we might claim that humans have triumphed. But we have achieved our “success” by devouring Earth’s resources and devastating other species and their ecosystems.

We are already on an unsustainable trajectory of deforestation, water pollution and scarcity, depletion of soils, and species loss, and yet we must find even more food, water, and energy to provide for our continually increasing numbers, 97 percent of whom live in developing countries.

Today, half the global population lives on $2 a day or less, and the gap between rich and poor is growing. In poor countries, undernourishment, discrimination against women, and high birth and death rates are inextricably linked. The poor will also suffer most from the effects of climate change—drought, heat waves, flooding, sea level rise, extreme weather—although they are the least responsible for producing the greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. Moreover, as the world population grows, the demand for resources will increase as people move out of poverty and seek a better life.

To focus only on the urgent global picture, however, makes the situation feel overwhelming and may prevent us from taking action. But there are things each of us can do to push for government action and to make a meaningful difference.

For example, we know that one of the most effective ways to break the cycle of poverty and slow population growth is to improve the reproductive and general health and education of women and girls.

School girls in the Central Africa Republic

Education gives women a way out of poverty, and when women feel confident that more of their children will survive, and understand family planning, they have fewer children.

And as residents of the United States, the world’s largest consumer, there are many steps we can take to restrain our use of natural resources and protect the environment.

Here is a list of ways you can help that will hopefully spur your imagination—please share your own ideas too in the Comment section. Saying you don’t have time is no excuse!

What you can do about POVERTY if you have:

5-10 minutes

Take the Oxfam pledge to end hunger

Send a CARE advocacy letter about global poverty to your elected official

1 hour

Invite your friends to loan $25 to Kiva to support a low-income global entrepreneur

1 afternoon

Volunteer at an Oxfam concert

Clean out your closet and donate clean unused clothes to a local shelter

1 day

Offer your skills (printing, computer assistance, transportation, cooking) to a homeless shelter