In An Essay on the Principle of Population, written in 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that the demand for food would inevitably surpass its supply. This prediction was based on the idea that population increases at a geometric rate while the food supply grows at the slower arithmetic rate. The difference between the two would eventually lead to what is now known as the Malthusian catastrophe in which population growth exceeded the capacity of the world to sustain that population.
Although Malthus' arguments are at first sight convincing, they did not take into account the continued development of science and technology over the last two centuries, nor the effect of the combined ingenuity and resourcefullness of mankind. Historical improvements in life expectancy, and continued reductions in the price of almost every major commodity, continue to confound Malthus' predictions. (See "The Skeptical Enviromentalist" for references to primary material).
Other who are skeptical about the Malthusian catastrophe claim that food shortages are not due to global overpopulation, but instead are due to local cases of "overpopulation" that result when large populations are forced to subsist with minimal access to land so that others can enjoy the benefits of extensive natural resource exploitation and the dominance that their control of natural resources gives them over those without adequate land.
In spite of this, Neo-Malthusians continue to assert the inevitability of Malthus' conclusions, and that developments in technology have only postponed, not eliminated, Malthus' catastrophe.
The term population explosion has been given to the apparent continuing exponentional increase in the population of the world. Neo-Malthusians argue that more people cause more environmental destruction which further reduces resources, for example desert growth due to intensive cattle breeding, slash and burn and deforestation caused by the need for firewood and non-sustainable logging.
Most non-Malthusians predict that life on Earth will settle down to a steady state in the long run, perhaps with space exploration offering an outlet for continued economic growth and expansion. Other futurists predict that mankind is progressing towards a technological singularity, where increasing technological change will transform the nature of life on earth.
See also:
Further reading:
- The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich - puts forward a neo-Malthusian position ISBN 0891908617
- The Skeptical Enviromentalist by Bjørn Lomborg - a counter-argument to Malthus and his followers ISBN 0521010683