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Overpopulation And Overconsumption

Decent Essays

Overpopulation has been correlated to some of the most overwhelming problems in the world today. Population growth has been increasing dramatically for if humans have existed, but as of more recently have been increasing more dramatically. Many theorists such as Thomas Malthus and the Cornucopians made attempts to try to better understand the trend of overpopulation. Both had very different views towards if population growth was a negative or positive effect on consumption. The true question to both is whether overpopulation or overconsumption is a bigger factor that leads to the environmental problems that are present today. While it could be said, population is growing at an exponential rate, overconsumption is the true problem of what is leading to resource scarcity. Both problems can be assessed more accurately using real world market-based and governance approaches. Many theories have been connected to how scarcity is related to either overpopulation or overconsumption. One of the main arguments for overpopulation and overconsumption was created by Thomas Malthus. Malthus stated that population grew exponentially and food sources were linearly growing by nature (Robins et al. 2014). By this accord, consumption would deteriorate the supply of food since the rates are so much more for population growth. While the argument seems sound mathematically, Malthus fails to incorporate the political or economic attributes contributing to consumption. Malthus also failed to

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