1. Thomas Malthus and Overpopulation
AP Human geography
Population and migration unit

2. For today, 10/02 (1.) Get out your Chapter 2, Key Issue 3 outlines.
(2.) View and takes notes over the ppt for today - “Overpopulation and Malthus”

3. What is Overpopulation?
Overpopulation occurs when the number of people exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living – that is, the population exceeds the carrying capacity. In other words, overpopulation is when there are too many people and not enough resources.

4. Growing, Growing, Growing?

5. Mali (left) is threatened by overpopulation despite have few people
Mali (left) is threatened by overpopulation despite have few people. Manhattan (right) is not threatened by overpopulation despite a large population.

6. World’s NIR has been decreasing…

7. The world’s highest-growth countries and developing countries (LDCs).

8. Thomas Malthus (aka Tommy Malt)
English economist
Essay on the Principle
of Population, 1798
Population
Exponential growth
Food supply
Arithmetic growth
Population Growth
Food
Growth
Today
1 person
1 unit
T + 25
2 persons
2 units
T + 50
4 persons
3 units
T + 75
8 persons
4 units
T + 100
16 persons
5 units

10. Thomas Malthus: Actions
Encouraged “checks” on population growth
War
Moral restraint
Disease
Famine

11. Malthus on population:
“Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases: and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. If by these and similar means the annual mortality were increased ... we might probably every one of us marry at the age of puberty and yet few be absolutely starved.”

12. How was Malthus right? Population has been rising quickly
Limited use of contraceptives (DTM stages 2 and early 3)
Population has outgrown food
Farm land to urban land, environmental degradation, life-supporting crops to cash crops, climate changes decrease food production
Neo-Malthusians
Supporters of Malthusian theory today. Concern today is not just food but air, energy, water, and space.

13. How was Malthus wrong? Population hasn’t grown exponentially
Expanded use of contraceptives
Demographic Transition Model stages 4 and 5
Political, economic, cultural decisions that limit growth
Food supply grew faster than predicted
New technologies made farmers far more efficient (mechanization, chemicals, irrigation, etc.)
Green Revolution (genetically modified, improved seeds
Food preservation and distribution
Highways, refrigeration, containerization

14. Malthus wrong – Food and India
FIGURE 2-27 POPULATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION IN INDIA Production of wheat and rice has increased more rapidly than has population.