World Population: Complex Issues & Possible Solutions
2 comments
It’s interesting that, despite diverse social and spatial contexts, all countries face common concerns of population change and concentration, homelessness, insufficient planning, and lack of adequate infrastructures and services. In the U.S., we have held this this long standing value judgment that the Euclidean Model of Growth is the best way to deal with the above concerns. We like the Euclidean Model because it is predictable, consistent, comprehensive and rational. But, I wonder whether the U.S. can justly maintain the Euclidean model of growth, given these global concerns.
To jump off Peter’s comment, I was most struck by Mr. Revkin’s observation that the world has, more or less, trumped the Malthusian doctrine (that population increases at a rate greater than subsistence can keep up, such that, inevitably, large numbers of people will starve or be ill-fed). This is true only because of the phenomena of factory farming and, to some extent, genetically engineered crops, neither of which should be hailed as victories in maintaining the current global population. Neither systems are sustainable and they have contributed to producing the Mad Cow disease outbreak as well as both swine and avian flu epidemics. Such epidemics are Nature’s method of population check and top epidemiologists say we are long overdue for a pandemic. I believe that an overhaul of our current methods of food production is just as critical as access to birth control for the future health of humankind.
It’s interesting that, despite diverse social and spatial contexts, all countries face common concerns of population change and concentration, homelessness, insufficient planning, and lack of adequate infrastructures and services. In the U.S., we have held this this long standing value judgment that the Euclidean Model of Growth is the best way to deal with the above concerns. We like the Euclidean Model because it is predictable, consistent, comprehensive and rational. But, I wonder whether the U.S. can justly maintain the Euclidean model of growth, given these global concerns.
To jump off Peter’s comment, I was most struck by Mr. Revkin’s observation that the world has, more or less, trumped the Malthusian doctrine (that population increases at a rate greater than subsistence can keep up, such that, inevitably, large numbers of people will starve or be ill-fed). This is true only because of the phenomena of factory farming and, to some extent, genetically engineered crops, neither of which should be hailed as victories in maintaining the current global population. Neither systems are sustainable and they have contributed to producing the Mad Cow disease outbreak as well as both swine and avian flu epidemics. Such epidemics are Nature’s method of population check and top epidemiologists say we are long overdue for a pandemic. I believe that an overhaul of our current methods of food production is just as critical as access to birth control for the future health of humankind.