Complexities of Population Control

3522 Words15 Pages
Understanding the Complexities of Population Control In the modern world, the issue of population has slowly bloomed in the field of global awareness. The question of how many human beings the world can support is constantly being contemplated. Theorists like Thomas Malthus and Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich have helped to lay the foundation for a school thought that argues that the world is overburdened with too many people and too little natural resources. This perspective climaxes with the inability of the earth to produce enough resources for mass overpopulation combined with the inability for humans to stave reproduction unless necessary. The conflict in this argument arises when individuals appear to have no regard for the environment and keep reproducing even though the earth is becoming severely crowded. The perception of this argument is founded in alarmism and not on the issue as a whole in a globalized world. This paper will refute the theory of overpopulation in favor of proving that the world is indeed under populated and that the idea of overpopulation concentrates, in a biased manner, on lesser developed countries. The intricacies of population cannot be blamed on a sole factor. Instead, the issues of governmental regulations, individual rights, immigration, the cost of children and the burden of a large aging population contribute to the population’s growth or stagnation. In order to understand the difference between the old view of overpopulation and the new view of the complexities of society, Thomas Malthus and Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich’s theories must be explained. The origin of the population argument is rooted in The First Essay on Population by Thomas Malthus (Chamberlain 1970). The objective of this essay is to arouse consciousness to the plight of the earth’s diminishing natural resources. Malthus first acknowledges the necessity of food for
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