The overpopulation concerns mentioned in Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb” in 1959(?) (and by Malthus, to be fair) were repackaged in interesting popular forms in “The Mote in God’s Eye” by Niven and Pournell in 1974 and in “Tuf Voyaging” by George R R Martin in 1986, by which time Ehrlich’s predictions had been proven drastically wrong in timing if not in substance. Interestingly, the Green Revolution, which Ehrlich explicitly dismissed, and which has succeeded in feeding the growing population of the planet, may be represented, discussed and discredited in both these books. In both books, technology is seen as being in a race with the nature of the overbreeding populations: the amazingly technologically advanced aliens which developed independently from humanity in “The Mote in God’s Eye” and a particular planet’s human derived colonist population with a devout belief system that adheres centrally to their own right to breed in “Tuf Voyaging”. In neither case is technology ultimately sufficient to the task, even though both societies are presented as extremely technologically advanced. Thus reiterating the point from “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Hardin, a technological solution is insufficient to the problem of overpopulation.
One wonders if these novels extract the points purely for entertainment value, or if they are attempting to spread the beliefs to a different audience.
so what about social phenomena of negative population growth?
IE with western europe and most of the first world.
most of todays population explosion come from developing world, third world, and disadvantaged segments of population.
russia, japan, and germany are three that come to mind. Though one can say that the argument of russia is one of economic flight similar to a brain drain the other two countries cannot say the same. With germany the issue is furher made muddy with their immigrant population.
-DS
Pretty much everything I’m going to say here will be taken from in class discussion, so I don’t have sources on most of it. Therefore, salt to taste.
Economic development and declining population growth seem to go hand in hand. Chicken & egg, or co-dependent processes it’s hard to say. Female education and employment outside the home seems a more obvious cause, and definitely slows down the birth rate.
Alternatively, as the developing world builds a higher ‘carrying capacity’, its population is booming, not unlike the developed world at the time of the industrial revolution. For several decades the population distribution has favored North America and Europe more than it had in the hundreds of years preceding those decades. Evidence suggests that those distributions are returning to their centuries-ago layout.
I love the way you use the phrase, “salt to taste”!
And you seem to repeating optimistic arguments about third-world capacity. Though we certainly can’t point any fingers in the recent disaster-cum-deathwave, Pakistan the neighboring regions really seem to have skimped on the infrastructure necessary to “carry” their populations thru good times and bad. And don’t even get me started on the People’s Republic of “Thousands-of-miners-killed-annually!” China.
…which is not to argue coherently at all about your topic. Just to add some salt (or ketchup, perhaps?) to those arguments in favor of an adapting third-world.
p.s. Is that “carrying capacity” talk a refutation of Malthus?
I think you just made a synopsis for the movie Serenity.
That reminds me, I should fart my positive review up so that everyone can know I like it, and really not care. =)