World Population Video Reflection

Over the past two days in Honors Environmental Science, we watched a PBS documentary on world population and the changes it currently undergoes. This documentary was nothing short of eye-opening; I was shocked to discover just how fast the world population is increasing. I was also amazed by the fact that birthrates in developed countries are dropping and population sizes are decreasing dramatically. It is projected that Europe’s population will drop by approximately sixty percent over the next fifty years and Russia’s population by twenty percent. In addition, Japan is experiencing a crisis; there are a large amount of elderly citizens and smaller amount of younger citizens. This is due in part by women not wanting to get married as early in life, to pursue their careers further, not wanting as many children, or not wanting children at all. One scene in the documentary was of a boy in the fifth grade who lived in a rural village; the video went on the explain how the boy was the only one in his class due to the decrease in younger populations and that this was becoming the norm across Japan. Another thing that surprised me was that the United States is the only developed country with a growing population, but this is only due to the million immigrants we take in annually.

To the contrary, developing countries are experiencing massive population growth. India, for example, is split demographically; the northern portion of the country is more impoverished and overcrowded while the southern portion is less crowded with a more educated population. In northern India, the increase of population size leading to water and food shortages. Something else I found interested is that half of the country is below the age of twenty-five. In addition, Kenya and other countries in sub-saharan Africa are also experiencing massive population growth and it is leading to the same types of issues as in India. What's Interesting about Kenya is that the HIV / AIDS epidemic is causing lots of younger people to die at an earlier age. Despite this tragic outcome, the population is still growing significantly. Overall, I really enjoyed this documentary. I found it to be very informative and it made me aware of issues I was previously unaware of.