Population Growth and the Environment

Paper Summary:

This essay discusses the effects that human population growth has on the earth and the environment. As population increases, life sustaining resources are often depleted. Paul Ehrlich, Paul Harrison and Julian L. Simon shine significant light of varying perspectives and theoretical insight on these dark and ominous clouds of modern human forecast. The paper examines how, in three very diverse and distinguishable articles, they discuss the effects that population growth, environmental degradation and resource depletion will have on the environment and the future of human subsistence.

From the Paper:

"Malthusians and Neo-Malthusians tend to regard environmental degradation as a direct result of human population growth. Ehrlich believes that while human population manifests itself in the form of food shortage and starvation in under-developed countries, it also triggers "environmental deterioration" in more industrialized nations (Ehrlich 35). Harrison sees a decrease in population growth as the only formidable solution to environmental deterioration. He views humans as naturally destructive, and he feels that a depletion of this naturally negative force will eventually promote a more sound environment. Cornucopians like Julian Simon, however, believe that increased human population will produce more humans capable of solving problems attributed to population expansion. He suggests that humans are not the end, but the means."

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