Perspectives on Population Growth

Question 1

What did Thomas Malthus say?

Answer 1

‘The power of population is infinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man’

Question 2

Thomas Malthus was one of the first writers to make an obseration abou the relationship between what?

Answer 2

Humans and resources.

Question 3

What did Malthus use his observations for?

Answer 3

To predict the future.

Question 4

What was Malthus’ theory?

Answer 4

Food production cannot increase as rapidly as human reproduction.

Question 5

What is the principle behind Malthus’ theory?

Answer 5

Food production can increase arithmetically (10-20-30-40…) so there is at any one time a carrying capacity which can support a given population.
Population growth will increase geometrically (1-2-4-8-16…) and so eventually the population will exceed the carrying capacity and there will be a population crash as a result.

Question 6

What is carrying capacity?

Answer 6

The maximum population size which can be sustained by a given amount of food.

Question 7

Are Malthus’ views on population/resource balance pessimistic or optimistic?

Answer 7

Pessimistic - seeing the worst in a situation.

Question 8

What did Malthus believe about the extent of population growth?

Answer 8

He believed there is a limit to population growth of which is determined by the environment and its ability to produce food/ sustain the population.

Question 9

How many checks did Malthus believe the population/resource balance is maintained by?

Answer 9

2.

Question 10

What are positive checks?

Answer 10

Increase in deaths through war, famine and disease; increased incidence of abortion, infanticide etc.

Question 11

What are negative checks?

Answer 11

He advocated moral restraint for example celibacy and later marriages.

Question 12

What is the Malthusian Catastrophe?

Answer 12

The prediction that unless population growth was controlled then life would end up in misery.

Question 13

What are the neo-malthusians?

Answer 13

Supporters of the Malthusian theory.

Question 14

What evidence is there of neo-malthusian ideas?

Answer 14

Regular famines which occur in countries such as Sudan or Ethiopia.
Wars which ofthen happen over food, water and energy.
Water scarcity - particularly in the Middle East.

Question 15

Which group examined Malthusian predicitions?

Answer 15

The Club of Rome.

Question 16

What was The Club of Rome?

Answer 16

A global think tank formed in 1968 which used a computerised model to investigate the state of a range of resources as well as population growth.

Question 17

What did the The Club of Rome’s ‘Limits to Growth’ model show?

Answer 17

It predicted that economic growth could not continue indefinetly because of the limited availability of natural resources.

Question 18

What did the ‘Limits to Growth’ model predict?

Answer 18

Population would continue to rise until 2050 to which it begins to decline.
Rapid resource depletion in the first half of the twenty-first century.
Food per head starts to decline in the early twenty-first century.
Industrial output per head begins to decline,.
Pollution increases before falling in 2030.

Question 19

What possiblistic philosophy did Ester Boserup suggest?

Answer 19

Human integrity could alter the carrying capacity and enable it to extend upwards in line with population growth.

Question 20

What did Ester Boserup suggest in 1965?

Answer 20

Population growth stimulates innovation and limits can be increased by improvements in technology.

Question 21

What did Ester Boserup suggest an improvement in technology would do?

Answer 21

Increase resource availabilityso that carrying capacity could sustain a larger population than Malthus had suggested.

Question 22

What did Ester Boserup say?

Answer 22

‘Necessity is the mother of invention’

Question 23

How is Ester Boserup’s quote shown in agricultural innovations?

Answer 23

The intensification of farming in Europe as a response to the EU Common Agricultural Policy.
The Green Revolution in Mexico, South and South East Asia.
Recent developments in biotechnologies including genetic modification.

Question 24

What did Julian Simon argue?

Answer 24

That every important long-term meaure of human material welfare shows improvement in all parts of the world, demonstrating that despite rapid population growth humans are measurably better off.

Question 25

Which facts does Simon use to support his argument?

Answer 25

Raw materials have become less scarce.
The relative cost of accessing raw materials has reduced.
The air in rich countries is safer to breathe.
Water cleanliness has improved.
The condition of cropland is improving rather than worsening.
Food production increases have always been at least as fast as population increases.

Question 26

What is the underlying premise of Simon’s claims?

Answer 26

As population has grown, resources have increased.