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Every year the world’s population gains nearly 90 million people.
Early in the 19th century, Thomas Malthus argued in An Essay on the Principle of Population that, if left unrestricted, human populations would continue to grow until they would become too large to be supported by the food grown on available agricultural land. He proposed that, while resources tend to grow arithmetically, population grows exponentially. At that point, the population would be restrained through mass famine and starvation. Malthus argued for population control, through "moral restraint", to avoid this happening.
Over the two hundred years which followed, famine has overtaken numerous individual regions; proponents of this theory state that these famines were examples of Malthusian catastrophes. On a global scale, however, food production has grown faster than population. It has often been argued that future pressures on food production, combined with threats to other aspects of the earth's habitat such as global warming, make overpopulation a still more serious threat in the future. Perhaps the best-known example of such an argument is The Limits to Growth, a report produced for the Club of Rome in the early 1970s.
Other studies have countered with the claim that the current population level of over six billion may be supported by current resources, or that the global population may grow to ten billion and still be within the Earth's carrying capacity. Buckminster Fuller and Barry CommonerBarry Commoner (born May 28, 1917) is an American biologist and college professor who ran for President in the 1980 election on the Citizens Party ticket. Commoner was born in Brooklyn. He received his bachelor's degree from Columbia University ( 1937) an were both proponents of the idea that human technology could keep up with population growth indefinitely. The assumptions that underlie these claims, however, have been strongly criticised. One criticism is that poor people can't afford such technologies.
In any case, many proponents of population control have averred that famineA famine is a situation in which a certain country or area does not have enough food to feed its population. As a result, many affected by the famine are undernourished and others die of starvation. Famine was so well known in the ancient world that Famin is far from being the only problem attendant to overpopulation. These critics point out ultimate shortages of energy sources and other natural resources, as well as the importance of serious communicable diseases in dense populations and war over scarce resources such as land area.
A shortage of arable land (where food crops will grow) is a problem. About 21% of the earth's land is arable. In the past, 160 acres (650,000 m²) of farm land crops fed one person. Hydroponics in autonomous buildingAn autonomous building is a building designed to have very little to no networked services. Most modern buildings use electric power, telephone, water, sewerage, storm drain and road services. Functionally, autonomous buildings use native resources to rep gardens and greenhouseSaint Paul, Minnesota. A greenhouse (or glasshouse is a building where plants are cultivated. A greenhouse is built of glass or plastic; it heats up because the sun's incoming electromagnetic radiation (particularly infrared light) warms plants, soil, ands grow more food in less space. Most food production experiments have used vegetable farming because it can support an adult from as little as 15 m² of land. High yieldYield may mean: In economics, yield is a measure of the amount of income an investment generates over time (related to return on investment). For example, farmers talk of the yield per unit area of land. In finance, the yield on a security is the return f vegetables like potatoes and lettuce don't waste space with inedible plant parts, like stalks, husks, vines, and inedible leaves. New varieties of selectively bred and hybridThis article is about a biological term. See hybrid (disambiguation) for other meanings. In biology, hybrid has two meanings. The first meaning is either the offspring of two different species, or of two different genera. The second meaning of "hybrid" is plants have larger edible parts (fruit, vegetable, cereal) and smaller inedible parts. With new technologies, it is now possible to grow crops on some unarable land under certain conditions.
The race is on to invent the truly self-sufficient autonomous buildingAn autonomous building is a building designed to have very little to no networked services. Most modern buildings use electric power, telephone, water, sewerage, storm drain and road services. Functionally, autonomous buildings use native resources to rep - a home that makes it's own clean water, food, electricity, heat, and eliminates its garbage and sewage. People living in such homes would not be affected by shortages. If everyone lived in self-sufficient homes, the problem of overpopulation would be practically solved. Many partially autonomous buildings have already been invented, improved, and improved again. The Biodome was a famous attempt at self-sufficient survival. New technologies bring inventors closer to their goal. Some of these technologies are : reverse osmosis water processors, sustainable agriculture, greenhouses, recycled water, grey water methods, hydroponics, new septic tanks with decomposer bacteria, solar and wind power, trapped heat, and natural pesticides and fertilizers. Self-sufficient homes would greatly reduce a population's dependancy on government help to survive. This would reduce the governments' power over people. Corrupt governments and dictators won't be able to starve the people when they disobey or revolt. These homes would make it possible to support unlimited population growth, in theory. If each person on the planet can make enough food and resources to survive, then few to no shortages would occur. In addition, medical herbs like asprin could be grown at home to cheapen the cost of medicine. Ethanol fuel for cars could be grown, so that people will be immune to fuel shortages. This is the grand dream of many inventors and scientists.
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