Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge

by Lester R. Brown, Gary T. Gardner, Brian Halweil

On the bicentennial of Malthus's legendary essay on the tendency for population to grow more rapidly than the food supply, the question facing the world is not whether population growth will slow, but how. Human demands are pressing up against more and more of the Earth's limits. This book from the Worldwatch Institute examines the impacts of population growth on global resources and services, including food, fresh water, fisheries, jobs, education, income, and health. Despite the current hype of a "birth dearth" in parts of Europe and Japan, the fact remains that human numbers are projected to increase by over 3 billion by 2050. Rapidly growing nations are likely to outstrip the carrying capacity of their natural support systems. Governments worn down by several decades of rapid population growth often cannot mobilize the resources necessary to cope with emerging threats such as new diseases, food and water shortages, and mass unemployment. Already, in several African nations, hunger, disease, and social disintegration are leading to rising death rates, checking the rapid growth of population. Either nations with surging populations will quickly shift to smaller families or nature will impose its own, less humane limits to growth. As the world enters the new millennium, no challenge is perhaps so urgent as the need to quickly reduce population growth. Pakistan's population is projected to increase from 148 million to 357 million, surpassing that of the United States before 2050. Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, and Swaziland, where over one-fifth of the adult population is infected with HIV, will likely reach population stability shortly after the year 2000, as AIDS-related deaths offset soaring birth rates. A Worldwatch Environmental Alert book. Newsmaking press conference on publication National press and television coverage Illustrated

Genres: Politics, Ecology

167 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1999

About the author

Lester Russel Brown is an American environmentalist, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC Radio commentator Peter Day calls him "one of the great pioneer environmentalists."

In the mid-1970s, Brown helped pioneer the concept of sustainable development, during a career that started with farming. As early as 1978, in his book The Twenty-Ninth Day, he was already warning of "the various dangers arising out of our manhandling of nature...by overfishing the oceans, stripping the forests, turning land into desert." In 1986, the Library of Congress requested his personal papers noting that his writings “have already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources.”

He has been the recipient of many prizes and awards, including, the 1987 United Nations Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his "contributions to solving global environmental problems."

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Carl Wade · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pg 17: Writers are evolutionists. Even 11 years ago they noticed population projections going down.
Pg 23: Water is coming up from the ground but ground water will not be replace in 200 years. This resource should be taxed.
Pg 26: Resource; How much is Enough: by Alan Durning.
Pg 34: The grain graph looks just like ths static future prediction in another book I have read. I'll review it later.
Pg 38: Several rivers are not reaching the ocean now. Is there any way we can pump salt water into the ground and get fresh out? just a thought. Deserts may some day have more aquifers that the plains have now. What about aquifer under the 9/10 of land not used for food? Is there fresh water under the sea? or mountains? Ice bergs? Where can we find water?
Pg 44: The spread of exotics distroy local diversity. That is good reason to stay home.
Pg 48: World oil production per person has dropped since 1979.
Pg 50: There is no basis for some of these projections.
Pg 53: A different defination of underemployment as working but not earning enough to meet basic need. I thought it was working below what you're trained to do.
Pg 56: People employable is a good thing.
Pg 59: A reason to live in small places. Diseaces require a critical number to take roots and spread.
Pg 62: Maybe it takes less land to produce our grain.
Pg 108: Says the economy must take a dip with things are used up. However we usually find a better way to do something before the resources are used up.
Pg 125: Ethiopia controls 85% of the head water of the Nile yet their GNP is 1/10 of that of Eqypt's. How long will that go on?
Pg 127: The key to this book is moving nations from stage two of demographic progress to stage three before the fall back into stage one. But is that a correct thing to do for leaders or anyone. God builds nations and spues them out. Their plan is to empower women, strengthen helath care and promote family planning. What are these really and what are the alternatives? What does the Bible teach and what are the best truths to follow?
Pg 129: Up until 1995 we were trying to grow less grains.
Pg 132: financial security based on interest or even saving is antifamily and is selfish to say the least.
Pg 134: The plan for family planning is stopped by cultural and religious barriers it says. And they put forth their stratagy for over coming it. Maybe next time Home School christian will be listed as the enemy.
Pg 137: We got to Roe v. Wade because of privacy now the family planners are trying to impose their view upon others privacy. This is basicly an open appeal to Billionairs to control the world's population.
Pg 168: The author is head of world wath institure which must have the same position. I'm really surprised at how open they are. Of course this is very dated since the world has changed so much. What is their position now?

[Intikhab · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important book. Very handy and effective in equipping one with knowledge about the challenges emanated out of population growth. It is not effective only to the extent of informing us about the challenges, it awakens our conscience of our role and responsibility as an individual to put our share into the greater effort to make this world a worth living place for us and our generations to come. I will keep this book with me to take benefit from it.