As always, I suggest that you read the vocabulary list before watching the video. You can find a pdf version of this listening comprehension below.

VOCABULARY

• To skyrocket: to rise extremely quickly or make extremely quick progress towards success.
  Ex. Lipstick sales in South Korea have skyrocketed this year.
• Fourfold: four times as big or as much.
  Ex. According to recent figures, 34000 people are infected, and the most aggressive form of the virus, HIV 1, which was unknown in the country until the 1990s, has increased fourfold in the past 13 years. 
• Slums: a poor and crowded area of a city where the buildings are in bad condition.
• Pollution: the process of making air, water, soil etc dangerously dirty and not suitable for people to use, or the state of being dangerously dirty.
                         
  
• To sustain: to provide what is needed for (something or someone) in order to live, to exist, to continue, etc.
  Ex. She wasn’t capable of sustaining close relationships with men. 
• Ungrounded: not based on facts.
  Ex. The socioeconomic exclusion of women, based on ungrounded discriminatory social definitions of female and male roles, affects not only women and their human rights but also the development of sustainable economies and the protection of the natural environment. 
• Unprecedented: never having happened before, or never having happened so much.
  We are confronted by an unprecedented situation. 
• To overrun: to enter quickly and be present in (a place) in large numbers and unwanted.
  Ex. The enemies overran the city last night.

 

• Worse off: having less money or being in a more difficult situation.
  Ex. The rent increases will leave us worse off. 
• Sanitation: the systems for taking dirty water and other waste products away from buildings in order to protect people’s health.
  Ex. A lack of clean water and sanitation were the main problems. 
• Goods: things that are produced to be sold. 
• Widely: to a large degree; a lot; by a large number of people; in or to many places.
  Ex. Taking notes while listening to a lecture is an important strategy that students use widely for increasing attention and retaining content. 
• Flourished: to grow or develop well.
  Ex. The Etruscans had flourished from the seventh to the first century B.C. 
• Emancipation: the process of giving people social or political freedom and rights.
  Ex. Religious fundamentalisms have had a tremendous negative influence on the processes of women’s emancipation. 
• Supply: the amount of something that is available to be used.
  We have a good and lasting supply of fresh water. 
• To lead: to show someone where to go, usually by taking them to a place; to be in control of a group, country, or situation.
  Ex. Simplicity can lead to greatness and the concentration of one’s powers. 
• To drop: if a level or amount drops, it becomes less.
  Ex. Temperatures will drop tomorrow after another scorching day. 
• Spike: a sudden, rapid increase in something.
  Ex. Public Health officials in the region warned schools about a spike in flu viruses. 
• To overlook: to see something wrong or bad but decide to ignore it.
  Ex. I don’t want to overlook any opportunity. 
• To catch up: to do something that should have been done before.
  Ex. New Member States will have a unique possibility to catch up really fast and sometimes to avoid some of our previous mistakes. 
• From scratch: from a point at which nothing has been done yet.
  Ex. Actually, maybe we should start again from scratch.

Answer the following questions:

• How many people were living on Earth in 1940?
• When was the legend of overpopulation born? 
• What is the demographic transition? 
• When did the first stage of the demographic transition occur? What happened in this century? 
• What were the main features of the industrial revolution?
• What were the main features of the second stage of the demographic transitions? 
• What about the third stage? 
• What is the average of children per family today?
• How many years did it take developed countries to reduce fertility from more than 6 children to less than 3? What about Bangladesh?
  

PDF version with answers: overpopulation-the-human-explosion-explained-free-english-materials-for-you