Throughout most of human existence, population growth has been so slow as to be imperceptible within a single generation. Reaching a global population of 1 billion in 1804 required the entire time since modern humans appeared on the scene. To add the second billion, it took until 1927, just over a century. Thirty-three years later, […] … learn more→
Tag Archives: population
Full planet, empty plates: Chapter 2. The ecology of population growth
Human carrying capacity and our need for a parachute
The issue of human overpopulation has fallen out of favour among most contemporary demographers, economists, and epidemiologists. Discussing population control has become a taboo topic. The silence around overpopulation prevents us from making the necessary link between the planet’s limited ability to support its people (its carrying capacity) and health and development crises. Human carrying […] … learn more→
Growth in World contraceptive use stalling; 215 million women’s needs still unmet
In 1994, the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, recognized reproductive health and family planning as fundamental human rights. Delegates committed to making voluntary family planning services universally available by 2015. Now just three years from that deadline, at least 215 million women want to prevent or delay pregnancy but are not […] … learn more→
Demographics loom large in State failure
After a half-century of forming new states from former colonies and from the breakup of the Soviet Union, the international community is today faced with the opposite situation: the disintegration of states. Failing states are now a prominent feature of the international political landscape. The most systematic ongoing effort to analyze countries’ vulnerability to failure […] … learn more→
Be wary of Malthus: Why famine and population growth in the Horn of Africa are unrelated
With nearly 12 million people at risk of starvation in a region whose population has doubled in the last 24 years, one might assume that these two factors are causally related in the Horn of Africa. Ever since the British philosopher Thomas Malthus wrote \”An Essay on the Principle of Population\” in 1798, we have […] … learn more→