Powerful Images Show The Terrible Effects Of Overpopulation
There are more than seven billion souls now alive on Earth – and the planet is suffering. An environmental NGO Global Population Speak Out has produced a photo book documenting the planets woes, called “Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot”. The somewhat unique angle of the book is that many of the problems are tied to the population boom.
To put it bluntly, more people means more consumption, more trash, and more pollution. Land has to be prepared for farming and resource extraction, clearing away forests and nature. Trash famously finds its way out of the overflowing garbage collection dumps and into nature. And, of course, the infrastructure supporting our lives can have it‘s own accidents, like oil rig fires and oil spills, and rivers polluted with factory run-off.
Global Population Speak Out strives to spread awareness about the issues arising from overpopulation and consumerism. Their leading suggestions include emancipation of women, as well as wider access to education – both measures that would lead to falling birthrates. General activism and awareness rising is important, too, to bring the message to those who do not know about the world‘s problems.
To see our post on environmental troubles plaguing China, press here. The see street artist speak out against the destruction of the environment, check out our post here.
More info: populationspeakout,org | Amazon | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest (h/t: boredpanda.es)
Surfing a wave of trash near Java (Indonesia), the most populous island in the world.
National Willamette forest, Oregon (USA), 99% deforested
Yellow river in Mongolia: so polluted, it’s almost impossible to breathe near it
Ken River oil field, California (USA), in exploitation since 1899
Fire at oil platform in Gulf of Mexico, April 2010
Landscape full of trash in Bangladesh
Indonesian forest, now transformed into palm plantation
Amazonian jungle (Brazil), burned down to be “repurposed”
Tagebau Hambach strip mine (Germany), where world’s biggest excavator Bagger 288 extracts coal
Landfill in Accra (Ghana): electronic trash ends up in Third-World countries.
Mexico City (Mexico), 20 million inhabitants
Midway Islands (North Pacific), albatross that died from consuming plastic trash
Almeria (Spain), a landscape of greenhouses
Zone rich in tar in Alberta (Canada), affected by mining and toxic waste
Maldives (Indian ocean), the rising water levels will engulf it by 2050
Mir mine (Russia), world’s biggest diamond mine.
Svalbard (Arctic Ocean), a giant glacier is melting
Got wisdom to pour?
“National Willamette forest, Oregon (USA), 99% deforested” I live in Oregon, never seen any deforested areas on any forest here. There are clear cuts but nothing like this photo. What that photo shows is a reservoir bottom, where the trees were removed before the dam was created. You see stumps at the bottoms of reservoirs all over forested in the USA. When the water level is down the stumps are exposed. This photo is highly misleading. Areas similar to this do exist in Canada.
Excellent photos, do you know where in Bangladesh that smoke stack photo was taken? That area, photos online of the smoke stakes, not sure where the trash pile is located. Also, just for the sake of accuracy, it’s “Kern River”, not “Ken River”, just a typo.