Too many people

Chances are you've never heard of the Reverend Thomas Malthus. He was a British scholar, born in 1766, who wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population, a piece that is said to have influenced Charles Darwin's Origin of Species.

Why am I telling you this? Well, what he had to say some 200 years ago, is a warning to all of us today:

Malthus' basic message was that the human population cannot continue increasing forever. It will always be limited by resources like food and land. To go beyond these limits, would reduce the population to 'subsistance' living and often bring about famine, epidemics, or war.

That Humanity cannot increase it's numbers indefinately seems fairly obvious really.... or is it? There have always been outspoken critics of Malthus' ideas. A recent BBC (Horizon?) documentary highlighted a good example of the modern view. In it, the critics said that the population had increased massively since Malthus' time (true), food production had kept pace with that increase throughout due to constant innovation (also true), and would always continue to do so (....really?).

Certainly, the way we're acting as a species, it looks like we'd agree with those critics. The reality is, most of us are unaware of the problems that are building up....

Back in Malthus' day, the world population stood at just 1 billion. It took until the mid 1920s, around 125 years later, for that to double. It took just 50 more years (mid 1970s) for us to clock up 4 billion, another 2 billion were added by 2000, and we're set for around 9 to 10 billion by 2050.

In other words, the population is growing at an exponential rate. That's going to cause us all sorts of problems in the coming decades:

• Our sheer numbers, will cause even greater food and water shortages.

• Raw materials like oil and metals will start running out, threatening economic growth.

• There will be mass extinctions for animals and plants (Did you know we've already lost 30% of all vertebrates [i.e. Backboned animals like birds, amphibians, mammals and reprtiles] since the 1970s?).

• The worldwide ecosystem we depend on will be seriously compromised.

• And, of course, we're already changing the climate for the worse.

Make no mistake about it, we're on the verge of proving Malthus right. However, we are not screwed yet. We just need to grow up, curb our excesses, live sustainably, and put long term survival ahead of short term self interest.