Nowadays a group has been established who follow concepts of Malthus' theory, called the Neo-Malthusians. They are following his ideas of the carrying capacity, which was brought by Malthus, and that means that there is a maximum population which is sustained by resources. He was the one, who supposed that there is a carrying capacity in the world which is bounded.
Food supply (y)
Population Growth (x)
The graph above is a model of Malthus' theory on which he based his work on. It shows two lines one stands for the population growth and the other one for the food supply. At the point where they are crossing, it means that the population exceeded the food supply and that was what Malthus was worry about.
In 2005 the total population was 6.5 billion and it is estimated that in 2050 the number of the total world population will increase to 9.1 billion.
But in contrast to this increase, in 2100 the number will decrease which would give the impression that Malthus could have been right with his theory. It is not possible to anticipate a war for such a long time before, so that means this decreasing must be due to a decrease of resources.
In the year 2100 the resources will not be utilised. But for example the oil and other resources in the Middle East will be reduced to about 40%. It does not mean that they are exhausted but it will be that we have to access to the Middle East, but in case America will be like at the moment in a conflict with them it will probably a big problem and which could be difficult to solve.
For example in New York City, they have a big problem with the disposal of waste. They have to ship the waste over to an island which is called "Staten Island" to recycle it there or to incinerate the rubbish or they just dump it into the sea. New York City has not enough space to combust it there. It is not really related to resources, but it could be seen that space is a kind of resources. Assuming the increase of the population, there will be a higher rate of waste and that means they need more space to recycle the garbage and this could mean that it is necessary to clear land. There is another example, like the water restrictions in Australia. The higher the population increases, the more they need water to supply everyone. But there could be in the end not enough water, so the government is forced to have stricter water restrictions. That would indicate that the water restrictions increases and the population will not have enough water.
Because "population growth naturally leads to development". Malthus did not see the technical development in those days which will be achieved. Nowadays, we are able to work with gene-alter and can manipulate the natural resources. That means we know how to redouble the minority of resources, which we need.
In my opinion both have the truth in their theories. Thomas Malthus was right with his statement that when the population increases that the resources decrease but on the other hand Ester Boserup is right with her declaration that if the world realises that they run out of resources or have a problem, they are pressured to find or invent alternatives. So as a conclusion for me, there is not a right or false theory.
Maria Brandi, Geography, Mr. Oakey
