Chapter 3 Resource Production and Consumption PopulationResource Relationships

Chapter 3: Resource Production and Consumption

Population–Resource Relationships Appreciate the relationship between population and the resource base (carrying capacity) in a natural environment, and describe and explain the way this relationship differs between human populations and their resource bases. This should be done by examining theories of Malthus and Boserup, the views of neo-Malthusians (Club of Rome, Ehrlich) and contrary views, and population–resource regional classifications.

Resource Something that is useful to humans.

A resource is dependent on technology as well as culture.

Natural resource Anything in the biophysical environment that can be used by people.

Renewable resources Those materials that can be regenerated in nature faster than they are being exploited by a society.

Non-renewable resources Material generated so slowly in nature that for all practical purposes it exists in a finite quantity.

Will resources run out?

Theorists

Thomas Malthus Paul Ehrlich The Club of Rome versus Ester Boserup Julian Simon

Demographer Thomas Malthus argued that the earth could only support a finite population size because food supplies are limited.

Biology professor Paul Ehrlich is the modern version of Thomas Malthus — the most visible and persistent predictor of mass famine and economic catastrophe. Ehrlich went way beyond this and predicted famine and disaster on a scale unprecedented in world history. Not only was the world headed for catastrophe, but there was little that could be done to avoid it.

Club of Rome If the world’s consumption patterns and population growth continued at the same high rates of the time, the earth would strike its limits within a century. The message was this outcome was not inevitable. People could change their policies – and the sooner the better.

It can be difficult to understand why Malthus’ and Ehrlich’s arguments that population growth will reduce resources seem to be incorrect.

Julian Simon argued that the true measure of scarcity is price.

It is true that in the short run, population increases will drive up the demand for natural resources and therefore their prices.

However, when this happens, the high prices prompt entrepreneurs and innovators to find new resources, or new ways to getting existing resources more cheaply.

ivory celluloid (prototype of plastic)

§ A combination of new discoveries, recycling, new technology that allows less concentrated deposits to be used and previously inaccessible deposits to be mined has meant that as resources have been used, the estimates of known reserves for many natural resources have been revised upwards.

Long-term studies show that the prices of most natural resources have declined over time, indicating greater abundance rather than scarcity.

Hence, according to economists such as Julian Simon, nonrenewable resources, such as gold, are actually becoming more abundant as time goes on and as population grows.

Economist Ester Boserup's most notable work is The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. In doing so, she upended the assumption dating back to Malthus’s time (and still held in many quarters) that agricultural methods determine population (via food supply). Instead, she shows that population determines agricultural methods. A major point of her book is that "necessity is the mother of invention".