Head Count Paper

The Haber-Bosch Process has given humans the tool for their own demise.  With the development of the Haber-Bosch Process, it has given humans the ability to produce food much more quickly than ever before.  This ability to produce more food has given humanity the ability to reproduce much more.  This has lead to more rapid population growth, in a shorter time frame.  The Haber-Bosch Process is key to humanity’s overpopulation problem, as it gives humans the ability to reproduce at an exuberant rate, as farming can be done almost non-stop with the use of artificially produced nitrogen.  In poor undeveloped countries, people need to have a lot of children to produce enough food to feed themselves and to sell for some profit.  Not only that but, in undeveloped countries family planning, birth control, and sexual education are severely lacking or, nonexistent.  That, the need for labor (from their children), and religious/ social beliefs all contribute to the high T.F.R. (Total Fertility Rate), or high birth rates, in these undeveloped countries.  Countries mainly in Africa have the highest T.F.R.s, such as Niger, which has the highest T.F.R. is 7, Mali is 6.25, and Somalia which is 6.17.  With all of the undeveloped countries farming consistently, year-round, and developed countries (such as the U.S. or China) also farming, the food production is probably the highest it's ever been.  Yet, the food is not enough to feed everyone, we are currently having more babies then we can feed.  The population is expected to reach 8 billion people by 2025, and double by 2100.  This trend is ridiculous and needs to be stopped.  Two things need to happen: one, over and high consumption by developed first world nations needs to be reduced or at the very at least reduced.  Two, we all need to follow in suite of countries such China, or Japan, where our T.F.R.s are at 2.1 or below, so that our population will not grow.  Instead our population will cap off, and even start to decline, and then at that point will we be able to produce enough food so everyone will be able to eat, and not starve.  So that humanity won’t suffer a great cataclysmic event.