Why might the World Face an Overpopulation Problem?

1. Why might the World Face an Overpopulation Problem? Key Issue #4

2. Malthus • Malthus • Who is Malthus?- published An Essay on the Principle of Population, in 1798 • Hypothesized: population was growing much more rapidly than the Earth’s food supply because the population increased geometrically, where as food supply increased arithmetically • Population would grow until: “morale restraint” produced lower CBRs or unless disease, famine , war or other disasters produced lower CBRs

3. Neo-Malthus • Neo-Malthus • What did Malthus fail to realize? • Failed to anticipate that relatively poor countries would have the most rapid population growth because of transfer of medical technology, but not wealth from MDCs • Result: gap between population growth and resources is wider in some countries than even Malthus anticipated • Believe that overpopulation is outstripping resources as well as food • People will be engaged in a desperate search for food and energy • Wars and civil violence will increase in the coming years because the scarcities of food as well as such resources as clean air, suitable farmland, and fuel

4. Anti-Malthus • Anti-Malthus • What are dome arguments against Malthus? • Possibilism: our well being is influenced by conditions in the physical environment, but humans have some ability to choose courses of action that can expand supply of food and resources • Steady flow of technology can offset scarcity of minerals and arable land • Boserupand Kuznets: larger population growth could stimulate economic growth and therefore production of more food, could generate more customers and more ideas for improving technology

5. Anti-Malthus • Simon: population growth stimulated economic growth • More people means more brains to invent good ideas for improving life • Marxists: maintain that no cause and effect relationships exists between population growth and economic development • Poverty and hunger and other social welfare problems associated with lack of economic development are a result of unjust social and economic institutions

6. Politicians in Africa: high population growth is good for a country because more people will result in greater power • More young men= more soldiers in the armies • Reality • Population growth and food production have been able to keep up because world food production has grown at a faster ate than the NIR since 1950 • Better growing techniques, higher-yielding seeds, and cultivation of more land contributed to the expansion in the food supply • Many people in the world cannot afford to buy food or do not have access to food , problem is with a distribution of wealth rather insufficient global production of food

7. Declining Birth Rates • Declining Birth Rates- How does it slow down the NIR? • Economic Development • Improving local economic conditions; wealthier communities can spend more money on education and health-care programs that would promote lower birth rates • Women are able to attend more school and remain in school longer, they are more likely to learn employment skills and gain more economic control over their lives • Better education: understand their reproductive rights • Make more informed reproductive choices • Select more effective forms of contraceptives

8. Declining Birth Rates • Contraceptive Distribution • World cannot wait around for economic developments to happen; contraception is quick and immediate, and cheap • Bangladesh, Colombia, Morocco, and Thailand are good of examples of the use of contraception • Rapid growth in the acceptance of family planning is occurring more frequent around the world • Obstacles in contraceptive Distribution: economics, religion, and education • Women with high birth rates show their high status and men regard it as a sign of their virility in some societies

9. Epidemiologic Transition • Epidemiologic Transition • Focuses on distinctive causes of death in each stage of the DTM • Stages • Stage 1: Black Plague- transmitted to humans by fleas from infected rats; 25 million Europeans died (1/2 of the continents population); • Stage 2: receding pandemics: Cholera; improved sanitation during the IR reduced the spread; Cholera in urban areas became an epidemic

10. Epidemiologic Transition • Epidemiologic Transition Stage 3 : • Stage 3: degenerative and human-created diseases, decrease in deaths from infectious diseases and increase in chronic disorders associated with aging • Cardiovascular disease and various forms of cancer • Cases of polio declined in US-vaccines • Measles declined-vaccines • Stage 4: delayed degenerative diseases • Deaths from cardiovascular disease and cancers linger, but medical advances still prolong life • Bypass surgeries • Better diets • Reduce use of tobacco and alcohol • exercise

11. Epidemiologic Transition • Possible Stage 5: stage reemergence of infectious and parasitic diseases • Infectious diseases thought to have been eradicated or controlled have returned, and new ones have emerged • Malaria, thought to have eradicated in mid 20th century by spraying DDT; new cases have shown up in Sri Lanka; evolution of DDT-resistance mosquitoes • Poverty: TB has been controlled in MDCs but is still a major problem in LDCs, airborne disease contracted through coughing, sneezing, damages the lungs; principal cause of death in 19th century; still prevalent in LDCs because treatment is long and expensive

12. Epidemiologic Transition • Improved travel: people carry and are exposed to new diseases; “Bird Flu” infected 258 people as of 2006 and killed 154 • AIDS: most lethal epidemic in years; 20 million people have died, 40 million living with HIV; 99% of new cases are in LDCs