SAJC Cluster 1 Lecture 6 Notes (The Population-Resource Relationship)

St. Andrew’s Junior College H2 Cluster 1: Development, Economy and Environment (Topic 1.1) H2_Cluster 1_Lecture 6_2024/pg 1 Lecture 6 Environment and Resources (III): The Population-Resource Relationship KEY QUESTION: Are there adequate provisioning services to support population growth? With the completion of this lecture, attached readings and tutorial, you should be able to discuss: - Thomas Malthus’ views on limit imposed by the natural environment on population numbers - Ester Boserup’s views on role of technology in expanding resource base - Limitations to Thomas Malthus’ and Ester Boserup’s views - Malthus’ and Boserup’s lack of consideration of unevenness in access to resources across the population Lecture Outline 6.1 The Population-Resource Relationship 6.2 Thomas Malthus 6.2.1 Malthus’ views on the population-resource relationship 6.2.2 Limitations to Malthus’ views (a) Lack of credit to human inventiveness (b) Lack of consideration of unevenness in access to resources across the population (see Section 6.4) 6.3 Ester Boserup 6.3.1 Boserup’s views on the population-resource relationship Box 1: Technology and resources 6.3.2 Limitations to Boserup’s views (a) Lack of consideration of degradation of the resource base as a result of technological innovations Box 2: The Green Revolution (b) Lack of consideration of unevenness in access to resources across the population (see Section 6.4) 6.4 More than meets the eye? Unevenness in access to resources 6.5 Summary: Comparisons between Malthus and Boserup

St. Andrew’s Junior College H2 Cluster 1: Development, Economy and Environment (Topic 1.1) H2_Cluster 1_Lecture 6_2024/pg 2 6.1 The Population-Resource Relationship • We all need resources to survive. But with 8 billion people in the world today, and continuing to increase in the future, will we have sufficient resources to support our needs? Will there be sufficient resources to support our population growth? What could happe n if not? • The concern over whether there will come a point in time when population will not be sustained by resources available on Earth has been raised for centuries, with the earliest modern theories dated as far back as the late 1700s. The interest over this concern remains today. • In this lecture, we consider the perspectives of two different thought leaders to help us examine the relationship between population and resources – Thomas Malthus (Section 6.2) and Ester Boserup (Section 6.3). 6.2 Thomas Malthus 6.2.1 Malthus’ views on the population-resource relationship • Reverend Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834) had a very enquiring mind and his concerns about the world’s capacity to sustain continued growth led him to publish his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Through this work, he was the first to draw a picture that links the consequences of population growth to its causes in a systematic way. • He theorised th