ABSTRACT
The effect of human beings’ activities on the environment has been the subject of much debate and controversy over the past three hundred years. In 1798, Thomas Malthus argued in An Essay on the Principle of Population that food production increases in arithmetic progression whereas the human population increases in geometric progression. Therefore, over time, population growth would outstrip food supply leading to famine, starvation, disease and death (Malthus 1872). All of these factors would serve as a ‘natural’ check on population, resulting in a drastic reduction in population growth (Figure 10.1). To avoid this calamity, he proposed solutions such as drastic reduction in the reproductive rate, delay in marriages and sexual abstinence. Malthus’ predictions earned the economics profession tags such as the ‘profession of doom’ and ‘dismal science’.
