Population 9 - Intro To Population And Resources

1. Population and Resources

2. Contrasting Places
Bangladesh population density
= 981 people/km
2
Sudan population density
= 15.6 people/km2
Which one is over populated?

3. Contrasting Places
Amsterdam (the Netherlands,
population density = 397 people/km2)
Calcutta (India, population
density = 330 people/km2)
Which one is over populated?

4. What does this clip tell us about the
relationship (conflict) between
people and resources?

5. Definitions
•Over-population – when there are too many people and
not enough resources to provide a high standard of living
at a given level of technology.
•Under-population – when there are not enough people to
fully exploit the available resources.
•Optimum population – when the population of a country
is fully utilizing its available resources and technology to
provide the highest standard of living possible.
•Carrying capacity – the number of people that can be
supported by the available resources within a particular
area without the long-term depletion of those resources.

6. Resources - Key Concepts
•Natural (environmental) vs. human
(cultural, economic, technological and
political) resources
•Non-renewable resources (finite, capital,
stocks)
•Renewable resources (non-finite; stock vs.
flow vs. continuous)
•Reserves

7. Population and
Resources

8. Theories on the
relationship between
population and
resources

9. Thomas Malthus
•1766-1834. Born near Guildford,
UK
•Wrote ‘An essay in the First
Principle of population’ first
published in 1798
•The world population in 1798 was
at nine million people. We have
now passed the six billion mark.

10. and therefore he said….
War,
famine,
disease.
Malthusian Catastrophe
TIME
food population

11. Malthus recognised that population if
unchecked, grows at a geometric rate:
1 2 4 8 16 32

However, food only increases at an
arithmetic rate, as land is finite.
1 2 3 4 5 6

12. Malthus in Detail
•Population increases exponentially whilst
resources (specifically food supply) only
increase arithmetically.
•Eventually the number of people exceeds
the available resources (food) and checks
set in.

13. Negative checks
(decreased birth rate)….
•Negative Checks were used to limit the
population growth. It included abstinence/
postponement of marriage which lowered the
fertility rate.
•Malthus favoured moral restraint (including late
marriage and sexual abstinence) as a check on
population growth. However, it is worth noting
that Malthus proposed this only for the working
and poor classes!

15. Positive checks
(increased death rate)
•Positive Checks were ways to reduce
population size by events such as famine,
disease, war - increasing the mortality rate
and reducing life expectancy.

16. 'J' Curve - Population Crash
Model
Where do famine
etc. fit?

17. The Club of Rome
•Group of industrialists, scientists,
economists and statesmen from 10
countries
•Published ‘The Limits to Growth’ in 1972

18. The Club of Rome

19. The Club of Rome – basic
conclusion….
•If present growth trends in world population
continue and if associated industrialisation,
pollution, food production and resource depletion
continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this
planet will be reached sometime in the next 100
years.
•The most probable result will be sudden and
uncontrollable decline in both population and
industrial capacity

20. Malthus and the Club of
Rome – are they right?
What evidence is there to
support their ideas?

21. Esther Boserup 1965
•Boserup believed that people have
resources of knowledge and technology
and that “necessity is the mother of
invention”, thus as populations grow
towards the carrying capacity they develop
new ways to use resources (food) more
productively.
•Can you think of real life examples?

22. Thus…….
•Demographic pressure (population
density) promotes innovation and higher
productivity in use of land (irrigation,
weeding, crop intensification, better
seeds) and labour (tools, better
techniques).

23. Population and
resource
relationship after
Boserup

24. Was Boserup Right?
What about resource degradation and
pollution? Can we continue to innovate
to overcome these issues?

25. The debate goes on…….

26. Ehrlich
•Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist,
wrote his book The Population Bomb in 1968.
•In it he warned of doom and gloom - resource
depletion, species extinction and a human
population so large that as a species we would
face mass poverty, famine, starvation and death.
•According to Ehrlich, the Earth had reached its
carrying capacity long ago and we were living on
borrowed time.

27. Simon
•Julian Simon, a University of Maryland economist, has
written several books on population most famously The
Ultimate Resource.
•Simon thought that all of the doom and gloom of Ehrlich
was nothing but nonsense. He claimed that resources are
infinite in the sense that human beings will never run out
of them for whatever purpose they decide to use them for.
•Essentially, Simon considered humans to be the “ultimate
resource”

28. The Bet
Ehrlich predicted that the prices of resources
should increase. Why?
Simon countered Ehrlich's saying that in fact
the price of resources would decrease over
time. Why?

29. In 1980, Simon offered Ehrlich a bet. Ehrlich
could choose any five raw materials he
wanted. Simon sold Ehrlich an option to buy an
amount of each raw material worth $200 in
1980 dollars.
If the prices increased over the next ten years,
Simon would pay Ehrlich; however, if the
prices decreased over the same time period,
Ehrlich would have to pay Simon.

30. Ehrlich chose five metals:
copper, chrome, nickel, tin
and tungsten.

31. The bet was on…..

32. Ten years later, after
adjusting for inflation, the
prices of all five metals…
….

33. went down

34. Ehrlich had lost.
He sent Simon a check and
nothing else.
Simon offered to bet again
and up the ante to $20,000;
Ehrlich declined.

35. Let's apply Simon's logic to another
commodity, petroleum. In 1980 the price
of a barrel of sweet crude oil was
approximately $32. By 1990, the price
had fallen to $20 per barrel. According to
Simon’s logic this would mean that we
have more oil than we had before and
that we weren't running out of oil.
Is this the case?

36. A Continuum
How would population management strategies between
these two extreme perspectives vary?
What type of compromise perspective might exist?
Eco-centric Deep Ecologists
(Doomsters) believe that rapid
population growth and increased
levels of development have led to
a situation where there are
insufficient resources and too
much waste and pollution.
Techno-centric Cornucopians
(Boomsters) champion the ability of
humans to innovate, develop and
adapt, as the solution to the issues
associated with population growth,
resource consumption and waste?

37. POPULATION
DEVELOPMENT
RESOURCES ?
Sustainability

38. Further Reading
•Population, Resources and Development
pp 78-81
•Planet Geography pp 47-53
•Nagle pp 239-241

39. Examine the validity of each
of the four views particularly
in terms of the relationship
between population and
resources