Population growth, Malthus, and climate change

An essay question and answer

The number of subscribers to this Substack is now one thousand – 1k!

I am grateful to all of you who have subscribed and to those who have recommended it to others. I am also pleased that so many of you find it useful.

In celebration, below is an example of a synoptic essay – one that links common Human themes, population growth and the views of Malthus, to a theme which is largely Physical – climate change. The key here is to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the ‘Geography’ required, but also to develop links that connect the themes and come to a view. I hope you can see how I have attempted to make these links. I am not saying the answer is perfect, but I hope it enables you to see how it has been done, and thereby facilitate discussion.

One final point – for those who are recent subscribers, I always try to limit myself in these tasks to a maximum of 600 words. This, in my view, is the maximum amount that can be written in the time allocated for such essays by the exam boards in the UK.

‘Current levels of world population growth heading towards a total of 8 billion, along with the impacts of climate change, justify a Malthusian viewpoint.’

To what extent do you agree with this statement?

It is the case that by 2030 world population will exceed 8 billion, and it is expected that half of that global growth will occur in Africa – a region that is likely to suffer most from the impacts of climate change. By 2050 it is expected that Africa will add 1.3 billion people to its population. During that time climate change will impact on human health significantly. The WHO has estimated that a million people a year will die from the impacts of climate change. This pessimistic prediction would seemingly tend to support a Malthusian viewpoint.

Thomas Malthus stated in his work ‘An essay on the Principle of Population’ that population growth was geometric (1, 2, 4, 8 etc.) while food supply could only grow arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4).  This, inevitably, leads to a point where carrying capacity is exceeded, leading to food shortages. Malthus believed that increasing the food supply dramatically was not possible, and so food shortages would lead to a series of population checks, which would reduce the population size. These checks would either increase the death rate (a ‘positive check’) or reduce the birth rate (a ‘preventative check’). Examples of positive checks include war, famine, and pandemic. Preventative checks occur when individuals realise that there may not be enough food to support a family, and so they opt for later marriages or sexual abstinence. Malthus argued pessimistically that starvation, disease, and war are inevitable. In 1972 ‘The Limits to Growth’ report, produced by the neo-Malthusian Club of Rome, suggested that there would be a sudden decline in global population in 100 years due to the overuse of resources. Of course, at that time, they were not aware of the impacts of climate change.

In the developed world, under current trends, the populations of most European countries will decline in the next generation, and in the cases of Germany, Japan and Russia, the decline will be dramatic. The war in Ukraine has made the population crisis facing Russia even more stark. Contraction of the population, particularly during the transitional period before older generations die off, will leave a relatively small number of workers supporting a very large group of retirees, particularly as life expectancy increases. It could be argued that there will be underpopulation rather than overpopulation, so Malthusian pessimism would not apply here.

However, in the developing world, the situation is different. When Western countries went through their demographic transition, both mortality and fertility fell gradually over a period of a century or more. Since the 1960s, demographers have been surprised to see how fast the equivalent transition happened in Asia and Latin America, for example in China and Brazil. The experience in Asia and Latin America led demographers to expect a similarly rapid transition in Africa. However, this has not been the case. Over the past decade or two, it has become clear that fertility is falling much more slowly in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Nigeria, than it did on other continents. Furthermore, climate change here will cause nutritional standards to fall, with crop failure due to drought. Also, there is likely to be greater incidence of vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever and zika. A Malthusian viewpoint is perhaps more valid here.

There is, however, another variable that needs to be considered when examining future population growth: education. Educating girls has been found to be one of the best ways of bringing down fertility in the long term. Education is the key to global population futures, which is hopefully more positive than the views of Malthus. (596)