Is Population Still a "Time Bomb"

Is Population Still a ‘Time Bomb’?

By Rachael Cage

In the face of uncontrolled population growth, international relations theorists have long regarded overpopulation as a serious challenge, which if mishandled could lead to a dire catastrophe. This paper will focus on Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich who have been very influential in the population debate. Malthus established positive and preventative checks which naturally try to counteract the population increase and warned of an incapacity of subsistence to counteract population growth. Ehrlich, unlike Malthus who discussed the inadequacy of food supply, extended this idea to include the environmental degradation as a critical impact of overpopulation. He advocated the implementation of population control policies as a means of countering the effects of overpopulation and help it reach a growth rate at equilibrium, stopping population growth. This is relevant to the demographic transition theory which provides that population goes through predictable stages and as society become industrialized, fertility rates drop and population growth will settle at equilibrium, bringing Zero Population Growth (ZPG). Although this theory is more applicable to Western societies, international intervention to cause developing countries to progress through the demographic transition is leading the population towards a ZPG. However, the population continues to grow and thus natural checks will occur, however this population growth will be beneficial for mankind over the long term.
In 1798, Thomas Malthus, a Scottish clergy man educated in England, created Malthusian theory in his essay on the ‘Principle of Population’. Malthus proposed that population grows faster than the subsistence needed to sustain it and despite checks and balances that create fluctuations in this growth, the population increase is such that the world is headed for disaster. He accredited this exploding population to a geometric rate of population

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