14.1: A Planet with No Space for Enjoying Life?

 14.1: A Planet with No Space for Enjoying Life? 

Population in Global Perspective Celia’s story takes us to the heart of demography, the study of the size, composition, growth (or shrinkage), and distribution of human populations. It brings us face to face with the question of whether we are doomed to live in a world so filled with people that there will be little space for anybody. Will our planet be able to support its growing population? Or are chronic famine and mass starvation the sorry fate of most earthlings? Let’s look at how concern about population growth began. A Planet with No Space for Enjoying Life? 14.1 Contrast the views of the New Malthusians and Anti-Malthusians on population growth and the food supply; explain why people are starving. The story begins with the lowly potato. When the Spanish conquistadores found that people in the Andes Mountains ate this tuber that was unknown in Europe, they brought some home with them. At first, Europeans viewed the potato with suspicion, but gradually it became the main food of the lower classes. With a greater abundance of food, fertility increased, and the death rate dropped. Europe’s population soared, almost doubling during the 1700s (McKeown 1977; McNeill 1999). This surging growth alarmed Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), an English economist, who saw it as a sign of doom. In 1798, he wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798/1926). In this book, which became world famous, Malthus proposed what became known as the Malthus theorem. He argued that although population grows geometrically (from 2 to 4 to 8 to 16 and so forth), the food supply increases only arithmetically (from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 and so on). This meant, he claimed, that if births go unchecked, the population will outstrip its food supply.

SOURCE: Roser, Max, Hannah Ritchie, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. “World Population Growth,” 2019. ourworldindata.org. The horizontal axis represents “Thousands” ranging from 0 to 450 in increments of 50. The data presented in the graph for a single day is as follows: Add (Births): 403,000 Minus (Deaths): 157,000 Equals (Population increase): 246,000 The cumulative increase is as follows: Each second: 2.85 Each minute: 171 Each hour: 10,250 Each day: 246,000 Each week: 1,722,000 Each month: 7,482,000 Each year: 89,790,000 The New Malthusians point out that the world’s population is following an exponential growth curve. This means that if growth doubles during approximately equal intervals of time, it suddenly accelerates. To illustrate the far-reaching implications of exponential growth, sociologist William Faunce (1981) retold an old parable about a poor man who saved a rich man’s life. The rich man was grateful and said that he wanted to reward the man for his heroic deed. The man replied that he would like his reward to be spread out over a four-week period, with each day’s amount being twice what he received on the preceding day. He also said he would be happy to receive only one penny on the first day. The rich man immediately handed over the penny and congratulated himself on how cheaply he had gotten by. 454 At the end of the first week, the rich man checked to see how much he owed and was pleased to find that the total was only $1.27. By the end of the second week he owed only $163.83. On the twenty-first day, however, the rich man was surprised to find that the total had grown to $20,971.51. When the twenty-eighth day arrived the rich man was shocked to discover that he owed $1,342,177.28 for that day alone and that the total reward had jumped to $2,684,354.56! This is precisely what alarms the New Malthusians. They claim that humanity has entered the “fourth week” of an exponential growth curve. To see why they think the day of reckoning is just around the corner, look at Figure 14.2. It took from the beginning of time until 1800 for the world’s population to reach its first billion. To add the second billion, it took only 130 years (1930). Just 30 years later (1960), the world population hit 3 billion. The time it took to reach the fourth billion was cut in half, to only 15 years (1975). Then just 12 years later (in 1987) the total reached 5 billion, in another 12 years it hit 6 billion (in 1999), and in yet another 12 years it hit 7 billion (in 2011). World population will reach 8 billion about the year 2024. Hearing from the Author: World Population Growth Listen to the Audio Figure 14.2 World Population Growth SOURCES: Modified from McFalls 2007; Roser 2019. The vertical axis represents “Billions of people” ranging from 0 to 18 in increments of 1, while the horizontal axis represents “Year” ranging from 200 to 2200 in increments of 200, with origin labelled as “The birth of Christ.” The curve remains nearly constant at 0 between origin and 400. The population remains between 0 to 1 billion till 1800. Further, the increase and projected increase are shown as follows: 1930: 2 1960: 3 1975: 4 1987: 5 1999: 6 2011: 7 2024: 8 2050: 9.5 2100: 13 2150: 16 2200: 18 455 The world’s population growth is astounding. Consider this: At each sunset, the world has 230,000 more people than it did the day before. Each year, the world’s population increases by about 84 million people. During the next 4 years, the world will add more people than there are in the entire United States. In the next dozen years, the world will add as many people as it did during the entire time from when the first humans began to walk the earth until the year 1800. These totals terrify the New Malthusians. They are convinced that we are headed toward a showdown between population and food. It is obvious that we will run out of food if we don’t curtail population growth. Soon our television screens will be filled with images of pitiful, starving children.