Human Population - A Depleting Resource
Some predictions about the human population As early as the sixth century B.C., catastrophists have been describing human beings as ‘burdensome to the world’. They were wrong then, and continue to be wrong today. Such concerns were expressed in the writings of Plato and Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. as well as in the teachings of Confucius as early as the sixth century B.C. In 200 A.D., Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, an early Christian author from the city of Carthage, argued “We are burdensome to the world, the resources are scarcely adequate for us… already nature does not sustain us”. The population of the world then was approximately 180 million, which is about 3-4% of what it is today! And far from facing hunger and destitution; in fact most of these people are leading quite a decent lives! In 1588, Giovanni Botero, an Italian thinker, priest, poet and diplomat, published Delle cause della grandezza delle città (On the Causes of the Greatness of Cities)....