With the rising concerns about climate change, there is often an accompanying moral panic about the threat of overpopulation. The arguments for this concern usually center on the idea that if the population grows too quickly, the world will not be able to produce enough food and shelter for its inhabitants. Rates of poverty and disease in underdeveloped nations are frequently used as examples that this phenomenon is already taking place. Although Western societies might associate these problems with the 20th and 21st century phenomenon of globalization and the resulting interconnectedness of nations, these fears are not new. In the 18th Century, Thomas Robert Malthus wrote what is now a frequently cited book: An Essay on the Principle of Population. In it, Malthus posited that populations could expand only until they outgrow their natural resources at which point, they would naturally level out due to diseases and scarcity of food; thus, limited resources serve as a check on the growth of population. Malthus did not think that improving health outcomes or making institutional changes would be able to reduce birth rates; he believed that environmental checks would come into play, not fully taking into account preventative measures such as birth control [2]. Since the 18th Century however, improvements in childhood mortality rates led to families having fewer children [1]. The families did not need to have as many children when health outcomes improved, and more children lived into adulthood.

Worldwide, there are lower birth rates compared with 40 years ago and this is correlated with the increase in women’s education and autonomy [1]. These trends hold for most of the world from the United States to Kenya, where an additional year of education was linked to “increased female educational attainment, and delayed marriage and fertility” [4]. Continued improvements in women’s access to education and contraceptives would improve not only the societies in which they occur but may also allay fears about hunger caused by overpopulation. Even if these trends do not continue at the same rate, there is hope that technological advancements could improve food production and distribution.

Technological advancements in agriculture led to a tripling of agricultural production in the second half of the 20th Century [1]. This suggests that the problem may have more to do with the uneven distribution of food globally than the inability to produce enough food for everyone on the globe. The UN’s Report on the Environmental Food Crisis (2009) highlights major problems that exist with the production and consumption of food worldwide: food waste, impacts of climate change on food production, and the inefficiency of meat production, to name a few [3]. The short to long-term ideas they include for improving the situation range from changing the way food prices are regulated to creating and utilizing more sustainable agricultural practices. Their assessment of the situation and subsequent recommendations do not sound easy by any means but there have been major shifts in the past in how humans produce and consume food. The Industrial Revolution led to growth in GDP around the world and changed our agricultural processes [1].

If we can spend more of our energy and resources on creating sustainable and equitable food production and consumption globally, it might be possible to adapt to the rising population. Danish economist Ester Boserup turned Malthusian theory upside down by arguing that the amount and type of food produced is determined by a population’s growth and not the other way around [2]. Developing new technology is one way humans have been able to produce more and Boserup thought that it was possible to achieve a better food supply even without creating new technology by innovating current processes [2]. It may feel like there is not a lot we can do on the individual level about such a grand problem, but there are little habits we can improve upon in our own lives while pushing for policy changes and climate change awareness.

1.  Eat locally. In the United States especially, much of our produce is imported. It might not be plausible for most people to subsist on an entirely locally grown diet unless they live on a farm, but it is a possibility for many of us to frequent farmer’s markets or support local businesses.

2.  Reduce or eliminate meat consumption. According to the UN’s Report on the Environmental Food Crisis, “reducing meat consumption in the industrialized world and restraining it worldwide…would free [an] estimated 400 million tons of cereal per year for human consumption” (2009).

3.  Learn about your own carbon footprint and ways to reduce it. This is one of many tools that exist but is a good place to start. https://www.footprintcalculator.org/

Written by Naomi Attaway

References:

1. Kenny, Charles. (2010). Is Anywhere Stuck in a Malthusian Trap? KYKLOS, Vol. 63 – May 2010 – No. 2, 192–205. 

2. Kristinsson, A., Juliusson, A. (2016). Adapting to Population Growth: The Evolutionary Alternative to Malthus. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution. 7 (1).

3. Nellemann, C., MacDevette, M., Manders, T., Eickhout, B., Svihus, B., Prins, A. G., Kaltenborn, B. P. (2009). The environmental food crisis – The environment’s role in averting future food crises. https://www.gwp.org/globalassets/global/toolbox/references/the-environmental-crisis.-the-environments-role-in-averting-future-food-crises-unep-2009.pdf

4. Pradham, Elina. (2015). Female Education and Childbearing: A Closer Look at the Data.  https://blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-childbearing-closer-look-data