Is anyone aware of Thomas Mathus and what he did?

Question

He was an economist back in the early 19th century who warned of problems of finite resources vs. population growth.

For example,he warned of increasing food supply,but even more increasing population. Do U believe he was right in believing the world is headed for disaster during to the said above,especially with petroleum being the most obvious manifestation of the phenomenon going on?

Answer 1

Malthus has been thoroughly debunked.  The problems of resource depletion due to population increase only occur in the absence of a free market; in capitalist economies, shortages lead to higher prices which spur a reductions in demand, increases in supply and the development of alternatives.

Answer 2

Yes, I am aware of Thomas Malthus (there's an "L" in his last name).

Ironic that by modern standards he was from a very large family, isn't it?

I personally don't see how humans as a whole are generally so myopic and fail to see how our over population of earth is going to come to a head at some point.

Then I think about the people (for the most part) who are having oodles of children.  People from third world countries with little, to zero education.  People in first world countries who tend to be on the bottom levels socially, employment wise, and education wise.

If people do not have a view of how the ENTIRE world is, then their world is tiny.  It may be no bigger than their family, or their village.  How can they possibly know that it's a problem if they have 8-10 children, and 4-5 of them survive to adult hood?  In their mind, it's great!  Someone to take care of them when they get old.

I currently live in Idaho, near a little town of ten thousand people.  I'm constantly amazed at how little some of them know about the "outside" world....meaning more than 200 miles from town.  For them, their entire world is relationships, squabbles, employment, ect right here within about a 50 mile zone.  They don't THINK further afield than that.  To them it doesn't matter that they produce seven children....there's always food at WalMart.

I have done polls and such on the internet before.  One would assume internet users to be a much more "worldly" crowd.

I've asked before what people would do if there was a famine (people actually starving to death) here in the United States.  Over and over again, I am simply flabbergasted by the number of people who state something like, "It wouldn't affect me, I get my food at the grocery store."  Or (this is priceless) "I'd just eat out if the stores didn't have any food."

So people in third world countries have a serrious disconect over the fact that there are simply too many humans, and we are running out of resources.  People in first world countries have a SERRIOUS disconect over where their resources come from.

Yes, without question I believe the world is headed for a global meltdown.  The earth will still be here...and the earth has proven wonderfully able to recover.  However at some point humans themselves are going to be pitted against a true peril, which will kill millions.

Unfortunatly, there are so many humans now, and we breed so well, AND are able to stand on the shoulders of humans before us, that I don't believe the earth will ever be rid of all humans.  What I mean by "stand on the shoulders of humans before us," is that we have the abbility to pass knowledge on.  A baby born today does not have to "discover" fire.  It can grab a book, and know how to mine coal, or built an oil drilling platform.  As we build our knowledge each generation, we also build the damage we do to the earth.

I believe the begining of the end (for current human civilization) will happen with both a famine, and a pandemic.

Famine first, to weaken the population, pandemic next as a disease gains a foothold in a weakend population.

It's possible, it could happen as soon as 2013, when Ug99 hits China, and all of India and Africa.  What will the U.S. do when over 1/2 of the worlds population is facing starvation?  What will the 1/2 of the world that is starving do to the U.S.?  Remember "stand on the shoulders of humans before us"....we are not the only country who learns.....we are not the only country which is Nuclear capable.

So what exactly would the Chineese Government do if their people were dying of famine and disease?  Hint: The Chineese military still teaches their soldiers that "war with the United States is inevitable."

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Want more info on Ug99, then click on this question:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 3

The earth is finite. We live on a bounded sphere.

How can we possibly increase population, use resources and dispose of waste indefinitely in a finite world?

Doesn’t matter how efficient we get. Eventually resources will get used up, the biosphere will collapse under our waste and our population will crash.

There are countless examples of this in the natural world and examples of man himself outstripping his local environment.

Now we are doing it on a global scale.

It's just simple logic that the Malthus prediction hasn’t come true - because we haven’t reached the limit - yet.

E.O. Wilson calculated the theoretical absolute limit - and it’s 14 billion.

The strain is showing at 6 billion.

At 9 or 10, I believe we will wish we had listened.

Answer 4

never heard of the guy so sorry i carnt answeyour question

Answer 5

It's Malthus, not Mathus.  Many of his ideas were supposedly disproven, but only on the short term.  In time, people will see we cannot continue to increase the population so rapidly.

Unfortunately, birth rate is directly tied to poverty and education level.  Many developed countries are producing fewer babies than people are dieing.  Some of these countries continue to grow due to immigration.

In order to solve the population problem, we need to solve the poverty and education problems.

Jeblanc- Higher prices reduce demand for many things, but when it comes to food that reduction comes through starvation.  People need to eat, regardless of the state of the market.