Malthusian CatastropheWhat Is It?What is a Malthusian Catastrophe? We are talking about global overpopulation and the overpopulation issue in general. Overpopulation problems are becoming more important daily. Thomas Robert Malthus was a British scholar famous for his prediction that societal improvements would result in population growth which, sooner or later, would be checked by famine and widespread mortality. A Malthusian catastrophe is normally viewed as a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth had outpaced agricultural production. Later formulations consider economic growth limits as well. The term is also commonly used in discussions of oil depletion. Malthus had what we may consider today to be a simplistic view of the population issue. He stated two postulates:
Passion between the sexes will not go away. With these two postulates he then went on to state that:
A geometric progression is one in which the ratio of any two successive members of the sequence is a constant. For example, a population with an average annual growth rate of, say, 2% will grow by a ratio of 1.02 per year. A population that is increasing in geometric progression is said to be experiencing exponential growth. At the time Malthus wrote, and for 150 years thereafter, most societies had populations at or beyond their agricultural limits. After World War I, the so-called Green Revolution produced a dramatic increase in productivity of agriculture, and, consequently, growth of the world's food supply. In response, the growth rate of the world's population accelerated rapidly, resulting in predictions by Paul R. Ehrlich and many others of an imminent Malthusian catastrophe. However, populations of most developed countries grew slowly enough to be outpaced by gains in productivity. By the 1990, agricultural production appeared to begin peaking in several world regions. By the early 21st century, many technologically developed countries had passed through the demographic transition, a complex social development encompassing a drop in total fertility rates drop in response to lower infant mortality, more education of women, increased urbanization, and a wider availability of effective birth control, causing the demographic-economic paradox. Developed and developing countries follow two distinct paths. Most developed countries have sufficient food supply, low fertility rates, and stable (in some cases even declining) populations. In some cases, population growth occurs due to increasing life expectancies, even though fertility rates are below replacement. For example, As of 2008, Spain has approximately 4.6 km2 of arable land or permanent crops per 1,000 residents, and its average fertility rate is well below replacement level (1.3 children/woman). Its population has grown less than 50% in the last 40 years. The corresponding ratio for Nigeria is only 2.1 km2 of arable land or crops per 1,000 residents; Nigerian total fertility rate is 5.0 children/woman, and its population has more than tripled during the same 40 years. The Malthusian catastrophe appears to have been temporarily averted in Spain, although the Neo-Malthusian theory argues that the situation is only temporary; on the other hand, a significant part of population of Nigeria lives near subsistence levels. David Pimentel and Ron Nielsen, working independently, determined that the human population as a whole has passed the numerical point where all can live in comfort, and that we have entered a stage where many of the world's citizens and future generations are trapped in misery. By the year 2000, children in developing countries were dying at the rate of approximately 11,000,000 per annum from strictly preventable diseases. This data suggests that by the standard of misery, the catastrophe is underway. The term 'misery' can generally be construed as: high infant mortality, low standards of sanitation, malnutrition, inadequate drinking water, widespread diseases, war, and political unrest. Regarding famines, data demonstrates the world's food production has peaked in some of the very regions where food is needed the most. For example in South Asia, approximately half of the land has been degraded such that it no longer has the capacity for food production. In China there has been a 27% irreversible loss of land for agriculture, and continues to lose arable land at the rate of 2,500 square kilometres per year. In Madagascar, at least 30% of the land previously regarded as arable is irreversibly barren. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that human population may peak in the late 21st century rather than continue to grow until it exhausted available resources. None of the projections show the population growth beginning to decline before 2050. Indeed, the UN "high" estimate does not decline at all, even out to 2300, indicating the potential for a Malthusian catastrophe. Another way of considering Malthusian catastrophe and Malthusian theory is to substitute other resources, such as sources of energy for food, and energy consumption for population. (Since modern food production is energy and resource intensive, this is not a big jump. Most of the criteria for applying the theory are still satisfied.) Since energy consumption is increasing much faster than population and most energy comes from non-renewable sources, the catastrophe appears more imminent, though perhaps not as certain, than when considering food and population continue to behave in a manner contradicting Malthus's assumptions. How peak oil impacts Malthusian catastrophe is of course a major premise of this website. You can read more about that here and here. Retired physics professor Albert Bartlett, a modern-day Malthusian, has lectured on "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" over 1,500 times. He published an article entitled Thoughts on Long-Term Energy Supplies: Scientists and the Silent Lie in Physics Today (July 2004). We discuss Dr. Bartlett's marvelous lecture here. LinksMalthusian Catastrophe Ecology Overpopulation The Peak Oil Technology Blog Peak Oil Technology Home Page Contact Us
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