The worldwide economic uncertainty ~ caused by Donald Trump’s shenanigans ~ has made Western countries focus on their declining populations, which has seriously eroded their manufacturing and consumer bases. On the other hand, many Emerging Market Economies (EMEs), and poorer countries, face a severe resource crunch brought about by their increasing populations. Thus, successful population management has different connotations for people on different sides of the rich-poor divide.

It would be interesting to go back to 72,000 BC, when the Toba super-volcano erupted in Sumatra (Indonesia). The volcano spewed out 9.5 trillion tons of ash, which billowed up in dark clouds, going up to 47 kms into the atmosphere, covering most of Asia in thick dust. The decades’ long volcanic winter that followed, reduced human population to around 10,000 people ~ bringing mankind to the verge of extinction. Cut to 15 November 2022, when the earth’s population touched eight billion, that is 800,000 times of its population in 72,000 BC. Since human population has never been uniformly distributed ~ humans love to live in large communities ~ ancient thinkers could foresee the harmful effects of unbridled population growth.

Advertisement

Clay tablets dating back to 1700 BC, discovered in Iraq, talk about the adverse consequences of overpopulation. The Greek philosopher, Plato, observing the growing population of Athens, concluded that the ideal city should have no more than 5,040 citizens ~ the size of a large condominium in Mumbai. Not surprisingly, Plato believed in strict population control, and also in moderating consumption ~ both pressing concerns even in the twenty-first century.

Advertisement

The question Plato raised is the essence of the population debate of today: Is the human population the issue, or is it the resources it consumes? Many thinkers ~ ancient and medieval ~ raised similar concerns, but it fell on Thomas Malthus, an 18th century English clergyman, to mathematically explain the relation between population and resources. Malthus wrote: “Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.

Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second” (An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798). Pessimistic Malthusian predictions have not come true so far, because continuous........

© The Statesman