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The Malthusian perspective

In the eighteenth century, Thomas Malthus, an English demographer, argued that population growth will eventually outstrip food supply. 

Thomas Malthus, an eighteenth-century English demographer, argued that population growth will eventually outstrip food supply. 

In this video, Dr. Gale Pooley explains the catastrophe known as the Malthusian Trap. According to Malthus, “the power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”

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Overpopulation: Resource Depletion and Human Innovation

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