More on Population

There has been a lot of deforestation happening in Africa over the last 7 decades, according to various model based studies. The exact numbers don’t really matter, since its the long term and that is of interest, but, what was interesting about the models Ive heard of are: they were based on neo malthusian ideas.

Malthus is the “scathing” father of resource and population theory. Malthus’ basic argument was that populations increase geometrically (ie exponentially) and food supply does not (it increases linearly). Malthus said that there was no way around this (we cannot change “the passion between the sexes” and we cannot indefinitely increase food supply of match up with fertility rates) And so, we have trouble “improving mankind” and reaching for the “perfectibility of society”.

Malthus society to this dilemma: any family that has a child which cannot be fed / paid for needs to die. Which his why he was so heavily criticized by later thinkers such as Marx, since his writings, many of which dont really have any original ideas, are scathing attacks on the poor. Malthus however, still has his influence amongst wealthy circles concerned about environmental decline and has sparked a number of debates around eugenics and current population theory by groups such as the Enterprise Institute, the Ford Foundation as well as writers such as Paul Ehrlich and perhaps even the reception of Richard Lynn.

There are however studies that complicate Malthus basic theory.  one such attempt was made by looking at the deforestation models mentioned above.  Whilst modeling generally is fairly common in environmental science, it is difficult. Although models are based on clear abstractions, I would personally not dismiss them to hastily, since we can get a sense of where we are going and, even if our predictions reach far into the future, can know what our current course, if maintained, will lead to.

Deforestation models mostly assume that countries were home to untouched forested lands than they currently are. Some foresters who used to work in many rural areas modeled before data was availalbe, have left records of how thes areasw ere actually populated or inhabited by indiginous people that lived in them. This arguemtn doesnt seem that strong but recent studies in Forestry have made clear that this whole notion of a pristine untouched climax forests many wilderness discourse is based upon hardly existed and if it did, might mean taht a forest is less table, since not as many seral statesare represented which means there arent as many biological “zones” for different and diverse species types to live in.

Another important point Malthus makes is that miser and Vice are necessary for society adn that only the upper classes are virtous enough to be able to resist those natural cycles (ie sex) which contribute to population rise. in other words, the rates at which population levels rise, even if their increase takes palce at a differnet pace in different scial strate, is static fixed and necessary . This overlooks inventions such as birthcontrol and contraception. Further the arithemtic rates and which food suppliues increase, for malthus, has been perhaps circumvented by GMO crops – not to say that that is a good thing,b ut, interestingly enough, it high lights the relationship between food and population as well as illustrates how popluation level incresea rates mpush towards GMO food productiona dn how market mechanisms might support thee eventual phasing out of  “nature” through such demand and then supply.

What should also be noted about the population debate is how population rates increase in poor countries such as Africa wicth some sub-saran countries averaging a fertility rate of around children per family. Afirca is developing economically though and these forces combined might be problematic if technology is not deployed wisely.