What are the causes and effect of rapid population growth?

Rapid population growth is the result of advances in human civilization which have enabled us to produce abundant food through agriculture, and to greatly reduce mortality rates, by curing lots of diseases which used to kill a large percentage of the population, often in infancy. The effect of rapid population growth is that the world is getting more crowded and there is increased consumption of resources of all types, which causes environmental and economic problems, and there is increased competition for these resources which is causing political stress.