Chapter 5. Chapter 5: Human Populations

How and why has human population size and growth rate changed over time?

Interactive Study Guide

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Guiding Question 5.1

How and why has human population size and growth rate changed over time? What is the size and distribution of today's population?

Why You Should Care

There is an entire class of party games that all share a theme of degrees of separation: How many acquaintances are there between you and a celebrity, or how many links does it take to get from one unrelated topic to another on the Internet? Similar to those games is the fact that all major economic, political, and ecological problems in the world today can be related back to the rapid growth of the human population. There simply aren’t enough resources—natural, economic, or land—to be shared equitably by all of us. Although population growth seems to be slowing globally, time will tell if it is slowing enough to avoid catastrophe.

Infographic 5.1 Human Population Through History

Question Sequence

Question 5.1

Use the information from Infographic 5.1 to calculate the following time spans.

Rounding to the nearest thousand, about how many years after the Agricultural Revolution (roughly 9000 BCE) did it take for the human population to reach 1 billion people?	4zs2xcf8Rt49HPjjDYnHAHdkC5urPLHD0y2PLefn5tXl3K7bUfZRfwWKZF0vfUt5z8VsG2bfD0M= years
How long did it take for the human population to grow from 1 to 2 billion people?	DMbfwWV3u74= years
From 2 to 3 billion people?	udX0h74V+w0= years
From 3 to 4 billion people?	a+gNtjpaMI8= years
From 4 to 5 billion people?	+e5m8Wi5evA= years
From 5 to 6 billion people?	DDH6Tw1RFEk= years
From 6 to 7 billion people?	DDH6Tw1RFEk= years

999

Correct.

Try again. Tip: subtract the year at the beginning of the range from the year at the end: 1930-1800=130 years. For the first question, remember to round to the nearest thousand and to count dates BCE as negative numbers.

Incorrect.

Question 5.2

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999

Try again.

Correct.

Incorrect.

Question 5.3

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999

Correct.

Incorrect.

Question 5.4

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999

Try again.

Correct.

Incorrect.

Question 5.5

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999

Try again.

Correct.

Incorrect.

Question 5.6

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It has shortened from taking most of the existence of humankind to around a century to 30 years to about 12 years. It seems to be holding steady at a little over a decade now, and it is predicted to lengthen a bit now that growth appears to be leaving the exponential phase.

Question 5.7

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It should take about 12 years, but it may take longer if conditions like the global recession reduce fertility rates.

Question 5.8

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Not by much, there was a temporary setback, but the population rebounded quickly. There may have been a rebound effect: People may have been more inclined to have large families to replace lost farm labor, for example.

Question 5.9

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The Agricultural Revolution allowed people to form stable settlements and give up nomadic hunting and gathering. This also promoted epidemic diseases since people were in large stationary groups for the first time, so it may have impeded the growth of the global population a bit. The role of the Industrial Revolution is perhaps more complicated. The shift from an agricultural to urban society in the “Western” countries eventually lead those populations through the demographic transition. In other words, an increased standard of living slowly reduced the infant mortality and death rates, followed by a decrease in birth rate so that now industrialized countries have the lowest population growth rates. One complication is that the industrialization of agriculture has, in the past 60 years, allowed many nations to avoid famine. This may not be a completely positive thing since it has meant environmental degradation of land cleared for crops and grazing, plus the fact that those countries that avoided famine continued to experience population growth. It seems that avoiding famine may have only postponed it and made it a larger problem.

Question 5.10

How big are the populations of these countries in terms of the world's population or the population of the world's most populous countries?

1) The population of the United States is roughly ayesJxJCDbNI+t+Mh3wnbahMcjFWpGw5WXsxmg5BVPc= of the population of India.

2) The population of the United States is roughly UK0QoTOXT3ZRE8uV6/62b3G66Zr995fGwk9IGw== of the world population.

3) The population of Canada is roughly o37VxJJB8m03ivqu0IApzXcILYY7kk/vHuDP9w== of the population of China.

4) Together, China and India make up roughly 2Y5GOOOl32KGr8Vv9jRjXKQumkR/Ex1LRvyKzKkfYfk= of the world's population.

Rank the following countries from lowest (5) to highest (1) population size: China, India, Japan, Pakistan, United States:

teVQRmeRm40fzbD8fdZ0FA== China

SzSB4UzMTM9mJgwQ+JaIMw== India

4zI3Qx5YqPeN6bvAbniFfw== Japan

mA/3xuiJ0LwNkDtUVJS8cQ== Pakistan

996WFWgsPlxuibqM2jrVsA== United States

Using the information from the map, indicate which of the following continents has the smallest population? YmaCcloP8YMjJrKx3tpKlsNJXUe/ar8PKX5xHeb6o0s=

Try again.

999

Correct.

Incorrect.