Pollution The more resources our population consumes, the more pollution we're likely to create Pollution's effects can be obvious, such as an oil spill, or not so visually obvious, such as insecticides that can cause reproductive failure in fish, birds, and mammals(ike DDT) Population growth alone doesn't account Over-consumption for the increasing consumption of natural resources that is largely responsible for biodiversity's decline Patterns of affluence and poverty also have a huge impact industrialized For example, those of us living in affluent, nations, such as the US, consume a disproportuonate amount of the Earth's fossil fuels, forest, and other natural resources, People struggling to survive in less- nations often have little choice but to industrialized overuse the few resources available to them.