Overpopulation and Longevity
Historically, the topic of population and its contents have been feared and unknown to many. With the increasing human population on Earth accompanied by an array of factors such as disease, lack of resources, and increasing life spans, it becomes dramatically harder to look into the future and predict that the world is not being overpopulated by humans. However, despite the myriad of overwhelming issues regarding the concern of overpopulation, I posit through several key examples that we are not in danger of overpopulation and further, that we as a species are actually benefited by increased longevity.
It has been determined numerous times throughout the last several hundred years that overpopulation of the human race is looming and is an unavoidable fate of the human race which will ultimately lead to its self-destruction. One such theory, perhaps the most famous, belongs to Thomas Malthus whom lived during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution laid the foundation for manufacturing on a massive scale which was accompanied by advancements in technology that also brought about an era of farming that was vastly more efficient. In 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted in An Essay on the Principle of Population, (which was revised to accommodate for criticisms,) that the human race could not account for its growth in terms of resources and sustenance as he believed the population increased exponentially compared to food supply (Malthus). Even with the advancements that made farming and growing food significantly more efficient, Malthus believed the extreme population growth due to birth rates as well as marriage rates, would outlast the world’s food supply. This example is one of many that show the human race succumbing to overpopulation. Malthus was wrong, however, and could not account for the production of food as it paralleled