Technology Is the Solution to Overpopulation Essay Example

Technology Is the Solution to Overpopulation Paper At some point the steadily rising population will move from being a problem that is geographically distant to one that is immediate and more salient than just an increasing value on a faceless counter. This problem of population growth leads to a number of solutions that could have significant implications on the quality of life. Taking no action and allowing population to grow unchecked could possibly risk the entire human species if food or clean water were to become unavailable worldwide. Aiming for zero population growth would in theory maintain the existing quality of fife since a stable population would not increase their use of resources. However not all resources are renewable, so scarcities could still occur with a fixed population size. In an extreme case permanent resource depletion under zero population growth could have the same extinction effect that unchecked growth can lead to. Despite the escalating risk of unchecked population growth, technological advances necessitated by the increase in population will at least maintain the quality of life and could possibly improve conditions. Southwest in Global Ecology in Human Perspective says that human population has increased geometrically over the past two millennia. With a high number of people in their reproductive age the potential for continued growth is likely. Southwest says that scientists think the world population has increased far beyond an optimal size of one to two billion. The optimal population comes from a standard of middle class quality of life. A more critical analysis of population growth relates it to a cancer in an organism. We will write a custom essay sample on Technology Is the Solution to Overpopulation specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Technology Is the Solution to Overpopulation specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Technology Is the Solution to Overpopulation specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Despite the level of pessimism on population growth, future research needs to be conducted with a more objective viewpoint to counteract cultural and emotional origins (Southwest, 1996). With the likelihood that population will continue to increase when considering Southwests observation that many people able to reproduce, the population will continue to move further from its optimal size. This deviation implies that the quality of life must be decreasing for many. In reality this decline has not happened. As discussed in class, increased agricultural yields have allowed for a larger population to be adequately supported. Even with the increased amount of food, Southwest says that 20 percent of the world population is malnourished (1996). More food may be available but it still is to being distributed to all of those who need it. The lack of rapid worldwide transport of all goods including food may appear to be a hindrance to well- being but this disconnection between locations may provide an important health safeguard. Diseases are another negative factor to human population growth and some highly contagious fatal diseases can risk human extinction. A virus can only spread if it can find someone else to infect before it kills the carrier. A fatal disease that leads to death after a long period of time increases the chance that the carrier can infect other people, in turn bringing population closer to extinction. In terms Of transportation, if people and goods in the world are too well connected, then a fatal disease that has the potential to lead to extinction would be able to infect many people over large area since the disease can spread quickly over trade routes. The World Health Organization has found that the current spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or CARS is facilitated by international travel and can quickly infect many people around the world. Originating in Southeast Asia, speedy transportation has turned CARS from a regional problem into an international issue (World Health Organization, 2003). To avoid the risk of mass deaths due to rapidly spreading diseases, international policymakers need to avoid the creation off level of world interconnectedness that is too quick. A slightly disconnected world may mean goods may not reach all places where in demand, but the risk of fatal diseases affecting large regions of population would be less. The ideal model of resource distribution is to have necessities be located near areas of population. Localized resources would reduce the need for goods to travel long distances over a lengthened period of time to avoid the spread of disease. Increased levels of population could live well off of added amounts of food that are nearby. This best case of locating populations near resources would be difficult to obtain in practice as resources and populations are already in fixed locations. If people were unwilling to move near where food is available it would be difficult, except in times Of war and famine, to force them to relocate. A compromise solution would accept the fact that not all people of the world will be able to have a high standard of living but the potential for improved quality exists. This potential cannot be reached immediately since resources ND population remain geographically separate and faster transportation would increase the spread of fatal diseases.

Presidents and Vice Presidents - How They Are Elected

Presidents and Vice Presidents - How They Are Elected The president and vice president of the United States campaign together and are elected as a team and not individually following the adoption of the 12th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was drafted to prevent the nations two highest elected officials from being from opposing political parties. The amendment made it more difficult, but not impossible, for voters to elect members of two political parties president and vice president. Candidates for president and vice president have appeared together on the same ticket since the election of 1804, the year the 12th Amendment was ratified. Prior to the adoption of the constitutional amendment, the office of vice president was awarded to the presidential candidate who won the second-largest number of votes, regardless of which political party he represented. In the presidential election of 1796, for example, voters chose John Adams, a Federalist, to be president. Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, was the runner-up in the vote count and thus became vice president to Adams. How a President and Vice President Could Be From Different Parties Still, theres nothing in the U.S. Constitution, particularly  the 12th Amendment, that prevents a  Republican from choosing a Democratic running mate or a Democrat from choosing a Green Party politician as her vice presidential candidate.  In fact, one of the nations modern-day presidential nominees came very close to selecting a running mate who wasnt from his own party. Still, it would be extremely difficult for a president to win an election in today’s hyperpartisan political climate with a running mate from an opposing party.   How could it happen? How could the United States end up with a Republican president and a Democratic vice president, or vice-versa?  Its  important to understand, first, that presidential and vice presidential candidates run together on the same ticket. Voters do not elect them separately but as a team. Voters choose presidents primarily based on their party affiliation, and their running mates typically are only minor factors in the decision-making process. So, in theory, the most obvious way for there to be a president and vice president from opposing political parties is for them to run on the same ticket.  What makes such a scenario unlikely, though, is the damage the candidate would sustain from members and voters of his party. Republican John McCain, for example, withered from the â€Å"outrage† of Christian conservatives when they found out he was leaning toward asking U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, a pro-abortion rights Democrat who left the party and became an independent. Theres one other way the U.S. could end up with a president and vice president could end up from opposing parties: in the case of an electoral tie where both presidential candidates receive fewer than the 270 electoral votes needed to win. In that case, the House of Representatives would choose the president and the Senate would choose the vice president. If the chambers are controlled by different parties, they would likely pick two people from opposing parties to serve in the White House. Why It's Unlikely thePresident and Vice President Would Be From Different Parties Sidney M. Milkis and Michael Nelson, the authors of The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776–2014, describe a â€Å"new emphasis on loyalty and competence and the new care invested in the selection process† as a reason presidential nominees choose a running mate with similar positions from the same party. â€Å"The modern era has been marked by an almost complete absence of ideologically opposed running mates, and those vice-presidential candidates who have differed on the issues with the head of the ticket have hastened to gloss over past disagreements and deny that any exist in the present.† What the Constitution Says Before the adoption of the 12th Amendment in 1804, voters chose presidents and vice presidents separately. When a president and vice  president were from opposing parties, as Vice President Thomas Jefferson and President John Adams were in the late 1700s, many thought the split provided a system of checks and balances just within the  executive branch.   According to the National Constitution Center, though: The presidential candidate who received the most electoral votes won the presidency; the runner-up became the vice president. In 1796, this meant that the president and the vice president were from different parties and had different political views, making governance more difficult. The adoption of Amendment XII solved this problem by allowing each party to nominate their team for president and vice president. Support for Electing Presidents and Vice Presidents Separately States could, in fact, allow separate votes for a president and vice president. But all of them now unify the two candidates on one ticket on their ballots. Vikram David Amar, a law professor at the University of California at Davis, wrote: â€Å"Why are voters denied the chance to vote for a president of one party and a vice president of the other? After all, voters often split their votes in other ways: between a president of one party and a House member or senator of the other; between federal representatives of one party and state representatives of the other.†