Explain what is meant by “The Population Bomb” and to what extent do you agree that this bomb has been diffused.
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”- Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
The population bomb theory was made popular by Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book “The Population Bomb”, Ehrlich posited that that “population growth will increase unabated until a tipping point is reached where food supplies can no longer sustain the growth resulting in a devastating collapse”, characterized by famine and wars (Ehrlich- 1968). The theory bears…show more content… The bomb threat must be taken to have other elements and it is these elements that still pose explosive repercussions. Ehrlich’s theory encapsulated overconsumption as a problem as well as overuse of pesticides, and though he may not have foreseen it green house gases-climate change and its pervasive impacts on the physical world all seem to be wires on the bomb that needs to be cut and fast. Unsustainable patterns of consumption and production are depleting natural resources and causing environmental degradation, while reinforcing social inequity and poverty (International Conference on Population and Development 1994). Today’s global consumption is undermining the environmental resource base which places significant stress on the earth’s ability to replenish its self, the cycles of nature are being shortened and interrupted. The earth is unable therefore to meet the increasingly traumatic demands placed on it. The United States alone consumes nearly a quarter of Earth’s resource flows. While the factors influencing reproductive patterns are now relatively well recognized, and thus the ways in which family-size choices can be altered, equivalent understanding of consumption choices has not been established (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2008) and this holds volatile implications if not speedily addressed.
Overuse of pesticides, especially DDT, remains a serious problem (Cowan and Gunby1996), a problem that is inextricably linked to the
