Greatest Environmental Problem

What do you think is the greatest environment problem today.

1. Overpopulation?

2. World environmental pollution ? (see 1 above)

3. World food production? (see 1 above)

4. Depletion of natural resources? (see 1 above)

5. Energy production and consumption? (see 1 above)

7. Destruction of habitat? (see 1 above)

8. Other? (see 1 above)

I would say 1. Overpopulation, because this is the general cause for the rest of the problems. If there weren't so many people, less food would have to be produced, fewer natural recources would have to be used, less energy, etc...

I believe it is over population. Malthus did some work on this a long time ago. It is still relevant.

I think so too

Is it? I'd say it's greed because no matter how big the population is there will always be people wanting to exploit the environment and the people for personal gain. It's human nature to be greedy and selfish - heck why do you think people breed? They want copies of themselves and they want to 'have what everyone else has' with regard to family and as many kids as they can (and in more and more cases can't) fit into their budget. People rarely think of the Earth's budget when they go to create more lives. In some places they even think they need to have kids in order to maintain the family in some way (and maybe they do) - but the biggest baby producers do it out of pure greed and selfishness, IMO. Greed - it's the greatest threat to the environment, and unfortunately one that isn't going to go away because it's in our base selves. IMO, our natural resources and ourselves are doomed to destruction by our own hands.

Ditto.

I was in India last year and overpopulation is certainly the biggest problem they have to contend with (though they have quite a few!). And for religious and cultural reasons it's hard to air topics such as contraception ...