The Neo-Malthusianism Case Study

901 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Urbanization china problem

In 1980, biologist Paul Ehrlich was sure that the earth was quickly on its way to a scarcity of resources. He was so sure of this occurring over the next decade that made a bet with Julian Simon, a sceptic of environmentalism, about it. The measure would be tracking the price of a bundle of five natural resources, if the prices went up over a ten year period, they would reflect scarcity. Samuels won, resources only got cheaper. and Samuels made a wager. Eilrich famously lost, but if the wager were to last from 1980-2008 he would have been the clear winner1. Eilrich was a Neo-Malthusian, he was worried about the quick population growth and the eventual consequences of food shortages2. The Neo-Malthusianism perspective and dilemma were first …show more content…

The Neo-Malthusian dilemma is the worry that our food stocks will not match the population growth leading to famine and disease. This is a growing concern since our population is quickly increasing, we are not bringing new land under cultivation, and we are damaging the environment that is producing our food and sustaining our people. Between 1999 and 2011, the world population increased by one billion, Middleton(2013) noted that it took until 1804 for the world to reach its first billion. The population growth we have exhibited is exponential, and it is only scheduled to peak some time between 2050 and 21003 . Many countries are still expected to go through major population growth. We constantly hear about China and India but Africa is expected to overtake them both by 2050 and make up 23% of the global population4.These large populaces depend on land to grow their food. Urbanization is transforming some farmland into urban areas, like in China for example5 .This land is no longer being used for farming. Until the 1950s, we were able to develop new land for cultivation and thus produce more food, but since then we’ve had no new land to

Show More
Related

  • Too Many People? by Vanessa Baird

    1435 Words  | 3 Pages

    The worldwide population is approaching 7 billion and is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 (Baird). This projected population number is down from a once predicted 16 billion (Baird) and while some are not concerned, others are worried about any increase in population. Population growth is discussed in the articles “Too Many People?” by Vanessa Baird; “Population Control: How Can There Possibly Be Too Many of Us?” by Frank Furedi; and “The Population Bomb Revisited,” by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. Baird and Furedi concur that a concern for population growth has been around since mathematician Thomas Malthus, in 1798, warned that overpopulation could lead to “the collapse of society” (Furedi). Furedi claims that too much human life is being used as an excuse, by population control supporters, for the world’s current and future problems. Baird tries to discover if “the current panic over population growth is reasonable.” For Ehrlich and Ehrlich the concern over population growth is very real, and they reinforce and support their book “calling attention to the demographic element in the human predicament” (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 63). While taking different approaches to their articles, the authors offer their perspectives on population growth, population control and the environmental impacts of a growing population.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast From Malthusian Stagnation To Modern Growth

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    Oded Galor and David N. Weil’s work, From Malthusian Stagnation to Modern Growth describes three different regimes on society including population, GDP per capita, family, and lifespan. They are the Malthusian model, the Post Malthusian model, and the Modern Growth Era model. The first of these three was the Malthusian model, developed by Malthus in the late 18th century, the Modern Growth is what we have today, and the post Malthusian model is the transition between the two ends of the spectrum.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Garret Hardin's Tragedy Of The Commons

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” is an article that identifies the nation’s current problems and predicaments that can’t be resolved through the use of technical solutions. Hardin’s work heavily focuses on overpopulation, a prominent and unceasing issue that significantly distorts and affects the stability of the Earth and the abundance of the planet’s resources. In his article, he mentioned some reasonable and important solutions to overpopulation, but he also explained its downside and how the said solutions may not be ideal and practical. “Tragedy of the Commons” revealed that the human population will continue to flourish and how it will be greatly detrimental to our society unless individuals get the education that they need and

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Garrett Hardin's The Tragedy Of The Commons

    983 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is a known fact that the world population is increasing without bound; however, there is a debate if this increase is a good thing or if it will prove catastrophic. The article “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garrett Hardin discusses how the ever-increasing world population will exhaust the world of its natural resources, and eliminate human’s capability of survival. On the other side of the argument is Julian L. Simon who wrote “More People, Greater Wealth, More Resources, Healthier Environment.” This article proposes the theory that with an increase in population, human’s quality of life is amplified. One particular issue that they both mention and have drastically different views on is the future of agriculture and human’s ability to sustain it.

    Read More

  • We Can End World Hunger

    1425 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the past ten years the world population exceeded six billion people with most of the growth occurring in the poorest, least developed countries in the world. The rapidly increasing population and the quickly declining amount of land are relative and the rate at which hunger is increasing rises with each passing year. We cannot afford to continue to expand our world population at such an alarming rate, for already we are suffering the consequences. Hunger has been a problem for our world for thousands of years. But now that we have the technology and knowledge to stamp it out, time is running short.

    Read More

  • The Coming Anarchy, by Robert D. Kaplan

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the major points that Kaplan makes and he focuses on heavily in the beginning of the article is how environmental scarcity plays an impact on people’s decisions. There is a finite amount of natural resources in the world for people to use, and we are fast approaching a point where the world can no longer support our growing population. All of this is spurred on by an increase in practices that cause deforestation, soil erosion, pollution and global warming. A great analogy within the article is that we are robbing from tomorrow’s future to support the present, which is shown in that “…man is challenging nature far beyond its limits, and nature is now beginning to take its revenge.” (Kaplan, 1994) The new major threat that every nation and person has to be aware of is how the immediate results of our mismanagement of the environment can have a tremendous backlash, not only within our lives but the lives of future generations. All of these environmental concerns are dots that connect with Kaplan’s other main arguments.

    Read More

  • Green Buildings: Sustainable Growth And Environment And The Environment

    1639 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We are consuming the Earth’s natural resources beyond its sustainable capacity of renewal” said by Herman Daly, Beyond Growth, Boston 1996, 61[1] .

    Read More

  • Trade Liberalization On The Environment Essay

    1270 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tietenberg, Thomas. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. Addison Wesley: New York, 2003. pp. 561. ISBN 0-201-77027-X, pp. 7-11.

    Read More

  • Population Growth, Industrialization, and the Environment

    1509 Words  | 4 Pages

    One of the major effects of the huge population increase has been the depletion of natural resources and the destruction of ecosystems. In the 1960's, theorist Paul Ehrlich predicted that, given the skyrocketing figures of human population, the amount of food produced would not grow at a fast enough rate for human survival (Professor Carr Everbach, personal communication). He predicted mass starvation and death by the year 2000 as the result of uncontrolled population growth. Clearly, this did not occur. Ehrlich did not foresee the advancements ma...

    Read More

  • Ecologism

    1879 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ogical answer to an Economical Crisis’ Debating the Earth: the Environmental Politics Reader. Oxford University Press, pp.459-468

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On Science And Agriculture

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    We aren’t only having problems worrying about feeding the next generation; we should be concerned now. Did you know, that in the last 11 years, six of those years the population has consumed more than what was produced? The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations website, just this year the cereal production has gone up eight percent. Imagine what will be expected in the 21st century. People are demanding more food now, than they ever have.

    Read More

  • The Benefits of Green Building

    1334 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kneidel, Sally, and Sadie Kneidel. Going Green: A Wise Consumer's Guide to a Shrinking Planet. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Pub., 2008. Print.

    Read More

  • Food Shortages

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the most complex issues in the world today concerns human population. The number of people living off the earth’s resources and stressing its ecosystem has doubled in just forty years. In 1960 there were 3 billion of us; today there are 6 billion. We have no idea what maximum number of people the earth will support. Therefore, the very first question that comes into people’s mind is that are there enough food for all of us in the future? There is no answer for that. Food shortage has become a serious problem among many countries around the world. There are many different reasons why people are starving all over the world. The lack of economic justice and water shortages are just merely two examples out of them all.

    Read More

  • The Problems that Our World Faces Today

    804 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...

    Read More

  • Food Security: A Global Issue

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are those that believe our planet has reached its maximum capacity to sustain humanity and we need to reduce our population to rectify it. It is also said that our planet is well capable of providing both the nutrition and caloric needs for humanity, both now and into the future as well. Regardless of where one’s opinion of the facts fall between these two arguments, global food security is not where it should be. Uneven development could be argued to be a cause of this. But it is not the only issue affecting the planet.

    Read More

More about The Neo-Malthusianism Case Study

Open Document