Yes, rapid population growth rate is the biggest threat to this planet. Growing population is the root cause of poverty, depletion of resources and environment pollution. In order to support the growing population, forests have been destroyed on large scale resulting into the loss of biological diversity. Tropical deforestation is cause of climate change as forests are the major sink of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Yes, rapid population growth rate is the biggest threat to this planet. Growing population is the root cause of poverty, depletion of resources and environment pollution. In order to support the growing population, forests have been destroyed on large scale resulting into the loss of biological diversity. Tropical deforestation is cause of climate change as forests are the major sink of carbon dioxide (CO2).

Maybe...I am not sure...

But developed nations are more responsible than developing nations...

please read this old news...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/19/not-overpopulation-that-causes-climate-change-but-overconsumption

Population needs to be addressed but climate change does not?

What!! They are throwing out that Malthus population boomer rang again and someone is going to hit by it.

This is an irrational unsubstantiated jump that some people are suggesting.

This represents a classic Red Herring diversion argument.

This is like saying we need to address increasing temperature but not the source of the increase temperatures which are the greenhouse gases.

There are some people seeding the pool with Red Herring arguments.

Do not let yourself get hooked by these fish stories.

I absolutely agree with increasing human population will give negative effects the ecosystem. However, it is no way to ask people to slow down to reproduce. What we can do is to educate the people not to waste, recycle, and invent new equipments that environment-friendly. Government has the power to ensure their citizen to follow the rule. Make it happen, and I'm sure that human can be 11.5 billion, but still have good environment to live.

The so-called "elite", the Cabal, tries depopulation "solutions" like this one, by vaccinations:

https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_innovating_to_zero/discussion

Bill Gates, one of their members, gives the solution: "You've got a thing on the Left co2 that you want to get to zero and that's going to be based on the number of people the services each person's using on average, the energy on average for each service and the co2 being put out a per unit of energy. So, let's look at each one of these and see how we can get this down to zero. Probably one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty near to zero. Now, that's back from a high school algebra, but let's let's take a look. First we've got population. Now the world today has 6.8 million people that's headed up to about 9 billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."

Wait a minute! So, vaccines kill us? Listen carefully!

Analysis: Quote: "How can vaccines actually be used to reduce world population?

Let's conduct a mental experiment on this issue. If vaccines are to be used to reduce world population, they obviously need to be accepted by the majority of the people.

Otherwise the population reduction effort wouldn't be very effective.

And in order for them to be accepted by the majority of the people, they obviously can't just kill people outright. If everybody started dropping dead within 24 hours of receiving the flu shot, the danger of vaccines would become obvious rather quickly and the vaccines would be recalled.

Thus, if vaccines are to be used as an effective population reduction effort, there are really only three ways in which they might theoretically be "effective" from the point of view of those who wish to reduce world population:

They might kill people slowly in a way that's unnoticeable, taking effect over perhaps 10 - 30 years by accelerating degenerative diseases.

They might reduce fertility and therefore dramatically lower birth rates around the world, thereby reducing the world population over successive generations. This "soft kill" method might seem more acceptable to scientists who want to see the world population fall but don't quite have the stomach to outright kill people with conventional medicine. There is already evidence that vaccines may promote miscarriages.

They might increase the death rate from a future pandemic. Theoretically, widespread vaccination efforts could be followed by a deliberate release of a highly virulent flu strain with a high fatality rate. This "bioweapon" approach could kill millions of people whose immune systems have been weakened by previous vaccine injections.

This is a known side effect of some vaccines, by the way. A study documenting this was published in PLoS. Read the story here.

Here's the study title and citation:

Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus?

Viboud C, Simonsen L (2010)

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/fetchObjectAttachment.action;jsessionid=2F53B4C30E9CC4084A8E9B9939AF8C3C.ambra02?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000259&representation=PDF

PLoS Med 7(4): e1000259. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000259

The short answer is yes, seasonal flu vaccines do cause increased susceptibility to the H1N1 pandemic virus.

In other words, seasonal flu vaccines could set up the population for a "hard kill" pandemic that could wipe out a significant portion of the global population (perhaps 10 to 15 percent, as Bill Gates suggested ).

Conveniently, their deaths could be blamed on the pandemic, thereby diverting blame from those who were really responsible for the plot. As yet another beneficial side effect for the global population killers, the widespread deaths could be used as a fear tool to urge more people to get vaccinated yet again, and the entire cycle could be repeated until world population was brought down to whatever manageable level was desired... all in the name of health care!

The more people around the world are vaccinated before the release of the "hard kill" pandemic virus, the more powerful the effect of this approach." "Unquote

Regardless of climate changes the population expansion is threatening our survival and there is nothing that can or will do to control it, whereas we can adapt our life to climate changes

Climate change is one of the symptons of population expansion. Fewer people burning fossil fuels and there would be no AGW.

All governments on earth can't prevent a virus from spreading, but they do say they can change the earth's climate if you pay more taxes.

https://twitter.com/stmc1964/status/1226442830979223554?s=20

The idea that they are spending massive amounts of resources to reduce world population has a little issue.

If that were the case why is there no evidence of it working? Last I looked there is little information that in areas of vaccination the populations are shrinking. Oh well.

Or is this just another diversion and disinformation to prevent people of addressing real problems for another group of phantoms?

I do not think Rockefeller has much to do with global population growth or not.

I agree with the suggestion that population increase is a bigger threat than global warming and climate change. as a matter of fact, increasing population is the main cause of depletion in per capita water availability, water and environmental pollution, consumption of resources, destruction of habitat and reduction of forest cover, use of hydrocarbon, food security, and various types of conflicts.

Who said climate change does not need to be addressed? It plainly does, although not with fantasy geo-engineering projects.

It is quite correct that population control is not possible anymore than scrubbing the atmosphere of CO2 is. That is why the solutions are in adaptation not resorting to science fiction fantasies.

No one is spending massive resources on population control. It is not fashionable whereas climate change is. Endless amounts of research funding is available for this providing you are on message.

The only thing that attenuates population growth is wealth increase. There is direct correlation between the highest levels of population growth in African and South America and poverty. It may be paradoxical but less resources correlates with higher population growth. It is not feasible that wealth per capita in these impoverished parts of the world can be addressed at anywhere near the rate to stabilise the world's population. We are going to see 11.5 billion people on Earth by 2100.

They will need food and more critically water. Much more land is going to have to be converted for agriculture to provide the food and water will need to be managed in a way that will undoubtedly affect the environment. These extra 4 billion people all need shelter, Billions of tons of concrete. Infrastructure, even more concrete. Contrary to the silly ideas of the radical environmentalists sustainable traditional local housing and cottage industries will not support this size of population. This needs major industry and infrastructure not a few more basket weaving communities.

It is possible the global temperature will increase by between 1.5 and 3 degrees before the end of the century but as the research shows us nobody is sure, except the zealots.

It is a fact that the population will grow by 4 billion. That can be predicted on a linear trajectory as opposed to the 'models' used in climate prediction.

One million people a week are joining Earth's population we can see that so we do not need to make models of it. No one yet has been able to demonstrate by how much the climate is increasing week by week or even year by year.

Climate change is important we need to adapt to it. We are already aiming for a carbon neutral world by 2050 and it is unrealistic to think that can be accelerated.

We now need to start making plans for all that extra farming, water management and a vast building programme to provide houses and work for the worlds population.

If we don't we know already know the consequences, history clearly shows us.

Great topic! I am still wondering why the potential problems related to the increase of human population are not on the current scientific and political agenda in order to try to develop solutions.

I have the assumption that this is related to the view that economic growth is strongly correlated with population growth aka mass consumption boosts the economy.

Part of the Red Herring that it is not climate change it is the population is the false statement that of course the climate cannot not be determined by man

This is taking one false assumption leading to another false assumption and then retiring to a den of erroneous conclusion.

As for the idea the man cannot influence climate well he/she already has that is Anthropogenic Global Warming or Global Warming which clear it is here and it is caused by fossil fuel combustion not based by greenhouse gas sequestration.

But what about population?

Yes it is also know that the birds and the bees reproduce and of how.

So in this goulash of false facts and conclusion it thrown into the Hungarian stew that this of course means that geo engineering proposals is the only course of action and recourse.

What? False assumptions and false conclusions Garbage In and Garbage Out.

Nice play Shakespeare but no cigar.

It is no mystery no inability of how to address and no ability to launch an unnecessary geoengineering project.

Rather the issue is one of simple economics what is coming in and what is going out.

So the manipulation is to change the facts to try to get the false conclusion that is required for the propaganda effect.

Pure manipulation no research and certainly no science.

Secondly then population cannot be influenced either but actually people have made personal and societal decisions to influence the size of their families continual and the vast majority of knowledge have been taught of the birds and bees.

The reality of the situation is that man can influence both climate and their own populations in ways which were not so apparent of populations in states of unconscious behavior.

Indeed we know what is the root of both climate change and population change and both of these are largely a consequence of our individual and collective decisions.

The apocalyptic vision of Malthus is erroneous in population food and resources and the idea that man does not have population influences is a twin tower or double headed dragon of erroneous mind set.

The idea that it just too complex for someone to understand and act upon is pretty disingenuous it is not the case for the majority of aware and educated modern men and women.

Think about what is actually being suggested and proposed.

OK Paul we have agreed before on this, the only thing that matters in the world is climate change.

All you have to do now is convince people.

I think that the overpopulation is one of the crucial current environmental problems our earth's planet is facing. All other environmental issues are linked to to population growth. I agree with some thinkers such as Attenborough (2013) who described humanity as "a plague on the Earth" that needs to be controlled by limiting population growth.

With population growth which searching to survie, our resources are getting depleted at a faster rate than they are produced or renewed by nature.

Many activities of human society are responsible for this degradation of the environment.

Methods of agricultural practices and its effects, urbanisation, Deforestation, Soil degradation, Deterioration of water resources are all factors contributing to this depletion. The industrialisation, ways of transportation producing carbon dioxide and other green house gases such as Chlorine and Bromide,Chloro-floro carbons (CFC’s) are responsible of global warming that lead to climate change and ipso facto to the depletion of the crucial Ozone layer of the atmosphere.

Once these toxic gases reach the stratosphere in which ozone is concentrated, they cause a hole in the ozone layer, for example the biggest of which has been observed above the Antarctic.

OK Barry it is all about people.

Now all you have to do is figure how you can going to convince them not to reproduce. Good luck.

https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/world-population-prospects-2019.html

A main factor to climate change, but not something we can change anyway. I would rather focus on climate change mitigation measures than on this. How can it be a greater threat anyways - since it caps out and climate change doesnt...!?

We should make efforts t to change it. How would the Earth support 11 billion people by the beginning of next century? A combination of education/awareness, pursuance and "law" may at least slow down the boom.

If the energy system was completely based on renewables the issues with greenhouse gases would be an after thought. As such the number of people may be less consequential than how our population uses energy. The reflection of this is the comparative use of energy of an inhabitant of Saudi Arabia compared to Botswana. The impact on climate and environment is not strictly related to the number of people but the foot print of those people on the planet they inhabit.

The polarised nature of the climate change debate affects the quality of answers here. The comparison of population expansion with climate change is not a competition but a consideration of consequences.

A population of 11 billion people is going to change the face of the planet, particularly in Africa. A great deal of natural pristine land is going to be gone with the population expansion. People will be will be living where Giraffes and Elephants now live. Huge areas of savannah will be cultivated to provide food. Rivers will be diverted and harnessed to provide electricity and potable water. This is already happening. major cities will need to be built and the Chinese are already building the infrastructure in The Belt & Road Initiative

The impact on the environment will be tremendous. 4 billion people need a huge a mount of food and water and you cannot get that without altering the environment. This is not a Mathusian nightmare but a reality. The smart-assed and smug people in the developed world need to wake up to this.

If the climate change zealots are right and we end up with a barren and overheated desert between the tropics the expanding population will expand North.

Let's hope the Tundra melts enough to provide farmland for them.

I personally believe a population is just a number but if the population increases ultimately demand for every good which leads to the corporate people ultimately destroy the natural resource complete manner. This issue is the biggest threat of current as well as the future world. Development is much needed for every country but at the same time, sustainable development is the only way to protect our world's future.

if you fix population growth you also fix anthropogenic climate change. given that there isn't a single item that the global economy is spent on that has a gross (not net but gross) environmental benefit, abolishment of currency seems like another possible solution.

If we are speaking about the impacts on nature, then we can argue from an ecological viewpoint about the impacts of an overpopulated species. Climate change though it is being accelerated by the demands of this over populated species, is still a natural process of the earth. Climate change is a part of the ebb and flow of mother nature. It is a process that mother nature uses in the cycle of the earth's regeneration. I don't see climate change as an environmental issue as nature will always continue beyond its climate warming and climate cooling events. It will bring about mass extinction which is another picture in the cycle of evolution that is enevitable. The world has seen 5 mass extinctions and nature is still going. Climate change is really a problem for humans because it is a disruption for our comfortable way of life. The irony of society is that we depend on nature to survive, our extraction and discharge is the source of all ecological turbidity, we want to preserve our way of life but change nothing about the way we live with nature. We think our technology or money will allow us to live this consumerism life without feeling the impacts from our destructive ways. Accelerated climate change is the biggest impact we are starting to see now.

World population growth

See chart.

Barry Turner Stephan Moonsammy Bighole Mcginty Niruban Chakkaravarthy D Paul Reed Hepperly Lucas Huckfeldt Boaz Kagabika M. Qasim Jan Thierry De Mees Jean-Pierre Jost Alastair Bain McDonald

I am deeply concerned by two things as a read over the comments above. First, there is the issue of mocking and name-calling, rather than clear issue discussion (@ Mr. Hepperly, sorry but that is beneath your abilities. You usually do much better).

Second, there is the matter of group-think. I have noticed that it is quite common to seek popularity by guessing the most desired answers then to design commentary to match the expected positions.

As a quick answer, before I divert, we can cope with climate far easier than with population. Population drives difficulties in many ways. Pollution is probably the worst challenge followed by scarcity of certain rare mineral resources, food distribution difficulties, rapid plague spread and the ability of madmen too rapidly gather vast numbers of fanatical followers. Energy supply and more problems like soil depletion and ecological desertification become greater challenges as population continues to expand. Nature's beauty is threatened before her bounty is threatened. Climate change is constant. Mankind is clever, malleable and very adaptable. Climate change is a thing that can be managed. My personal belief, however, is that every human ought to strive to leave as small a footprint as possible and to improve the condition of the planet in some way. ...

There are underlying suppositions to the question. I pose a return question. Is either an entirely bad thing? Group-think leads the world to believe they are both terrible and that either might doom the Earth's keystone species to extinction. Yet some of us have been around long enough to recall the prior cries of doom in the late 70s, the mid 80s, the late 80s, the year 2000, year 2012 ... we are still here, still improving in many areas. In the 1940s and 1950s, the best minds thought Earth could not sustain half the population we currently have now, yet look!

Please consider this, at one point Antarctica was not ice-covered. The theory is that man did not exist then, and could not have . . . but that is just a theory. Man can easily adapt to a temperature range a few degrees higher. Increased temperatures actually increase the ability to sustain life, though it will take a while to overcome some initial difficulties. Doom & gloom models predict droughts from increased heat despite increased evaporation (as stupid as that sounds), BUT those models do not take into account the simple fact that trees make rain and that mankind knows how to plant trees.

One single poor man in India planted 2 million trees in his lifetime! Imagine how many trees 100,000 men might plant in 10 years given government funding? Ridiculous to hire 100k? No. There are 75 million active duty and reserve military personnel in the world. Teach them to plant trees properly using video classes in every language and/or traveling instructors ... If only a third of them plant a single tree each, per year, and only one-third of the planted trees survive to maturity, that is 8 and 1/3 million trees EACH YEAR added to our planet. That's a lot of trees. If world governments became convinced that the greatest threat to their survival was climate and that, no matter what the truth was, the best thing to do was to plant trees, it seems reasonable that this scheme might become a defense priority.

Today, there are people that think the earth is flat, that we never went to the moon, and that the Antarctic ice cap is 2 million years old (despite scientific evidence, including maps from 300BC that tend to contradict such silliness). Scientists have been wrong in the past and some are wrong today. We know this for certain, because many state things that contradict each other. What we can be absolutely certain of is that there as to be a reason why people falsify data and hide data to try and press one particular concept. I can never support a concept pushed by those who falsify data, those who push forward misleading data, those who program a computer to spit out a model then claim their programmed model is a "fact," or those who hide data they do not like. Those people are not trustworthy.

There are significant problems with population growth, yet CURRENT (not future, but CURRENT) technology already holds plenty of power to feed, clothe, shelter and even provide luxuries for the largest population estimates of 2050. The food answers are in reducing waste and increasing logistics capabilities while rehabilitating soils, largely in Africa & India.

Shifting some effort to PFALs, maritime farming, urban & semi-urban gardening -especially using permaculture principles and high intensity growing methods like aquaponics- easily produces vast amounts of year round fresh produce very close to urban populations reducing reliance upon long-distance produce transport and all its wastes. Food is actually the simpler part of the population challenge -not problem, challenge. For those who are still unaware ... without "advanced" technology dating back to the late 1960s-early 1990s, it is possible to feed a family of six on 1 quarter of an acre using the correct planting methods, especially if you add in small avians or rodents like rabbits.

The greater challenges of growing populations are actually the matters of power generation, rare mineral sourcing, manufacturing waste, pollution and waste disposal. Thanks to the world leaders in waste recycling -Sweden- we have a model! Not only are they able to harvest metals, compost, paper and power from their trash, but they are actually soooo good at harvesting good things from waste, that they import waste from other nations every single week! The reduce-reuse-recycle concept must be modified to include refuse & repair.

One HUGE key to our energy problem is our stick building or thin metal wall building designs. A few simple changes in materials and methods can reduce energy costs for a single family home by 40 to 85%! Businesses are often even MORE poorly constructed, especially warehouse spaces. Many climate-controlled businesses are extremely inefficiently built too reduce initial capital outlay for investors, costing vast sums of money over the life of the business. Improving those structures can reduce energy costs by 10-93% (depending upon variables that might include open truck bay doors, frequency of access, etc.) Green construction is essential to long-term viability.

Excellent commentary David!

Who is threatening Earth's ecology?

Climate change.

Who is causing climate change?

Human activities (primarily).

What causes 'human activities'?

Population

Conclusion:

Population expansion has a limit as a time would come when population would reach its peak. Whereas climate change's peak is human extinction. Hence bigger threat seems Climate change, directly resulting from the activities of population.

A boss hired more people in the company than there was actually space for thus the offices were overcrowded and everyone felt uncomfortable.

Jack: 'Problem is increase in number of employees'

Harry: 'Problem is poor planning, and thus poor management'

Boss (to HR): 'Fire Mr. Harry, the filthy communist'.

To me, the problem is space. Before hiring employees, the boss should plan and manage the environmental capacity to accommodate them. Otherwise the offices will be overloaded and will be slammed. Given the limited space, the boss should respect the promiscuity rate to avoid contagious diseases and other related problems. Space is comparable to our Earth planet, its resources become increasingly scarce due to their mismanagement generated by the pressure of population growth.

The population issue is not about space. The Earth is big enough to accommodate 12 billion people easily but feeding, clothing and sheltering them requires resources. In many cases we have more that enough, in others they are scarce.

We are facing an acute shortage of potable water and a problem with waste disposal. As the population grows these will become more acute.

The infrastructure required to service this population will result in destruction of pristine environments and a huge increase in energy consumption however much wishful thinking is deployed.

At present our emphasis is on climate change to the detriment of other pressing global environmental issues. Huge amounts of resources are being spent on this, in many cases on utterly ridiculous fantasies about atmospheric carbon sequestration.

This startling example of the Emperor's new clothes is wasting time energy and money that could be spent on the world's other problems.

We can of course employ technology to reduce further emissions but the notion that we even have a workable idea how to return the atmosphere to mid 1980's levels of CO2 is breathtaking stupid. We have no science or technology that could do this safely, there is no where we could put the stuff even if we could sequester it, we do not have the money even on a global scale to mount an operation on this scale and finally there is no global political will for this and unlikely to be in the foreseeable future.

We need to focus on immediate problems and the problems the population growth will bring will be here a long, long time before the sea level rises will cause an issue.

Antarctic ice sheets still increasing in volume.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

Barry Turner Thank you. I feared few might read it for its length. Then of those, many might become angered by the proposed points. I think the 100 year data from China listing half a millimeter sea level rise per year is a good complement the Japanese data that was being disputed by US-based "scientists." If the Earth did not rotate, it might be possible for water to pool on one side of an ocean, but it still spins so multi-story office building heights should not be the difference in height from one side of our great Pacific puddle to the other.

It really irks me when people repeat false information as facts, apparently hoping that in its repetition more gullible people might be found to buy into it and repeat it to yet more gullible people -continuing the cycle.

Qu, Y. et al 2018. Coastal sea level around the China Seas. Global and Planetary Change 172:454-463.

Since 1993 sea level rise 3.2 mm/year with a standard error of 1.1 mm/year.

Since 1980 the rate was 2.9 mm/year rise.

Even under a reduction of Greenhouse Gas emission the project increase in sea level by 2100 is projected at 48 to 61 cm. Without any effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions the increase is sea level is 84 to 99 cm.

We are having issues with our coasts mostly related to accelerated greenhouse gas emissions related to the warming of the temperature.

The weight of increased population is not sinking the land surface. Our strategy related to climate needs to focus on emissions and sequestrations and the focus on population will dwindle as socioeconomic outcomes are improved just as it proved out in Europe.

Barry Turner It is all about the balance. As you might know, availability of any resource is supply minus demand. While population growth negatively affects the demand side, climate change is imposing increasing threat to the supply side (although it has indirect impact on the demand side, it is trivial compared to its influence on the supply side).

If it was 10-15 years ago, I'd say population growth is far a more dangerous threat than climate change, as the latter was more easily manageable then. But now, I'd say they are equally important and equally a threat to our supply of resources.

We're getting into a phase that climate change impacts are becoming irreversible, thanks to those countries who are at the front line of polluting the planet yet are showing minimum commitment to do anything about it - I think you know who I am talking about.

Majed

I like your balanced approach to the issues.makes such a change to the rather obsessive fixation on climate change as if it was the only issue tone concerned about.

Climate change however is never irreversible as paleogeography indicates.

I am somewhat sceptical about 'commitments' to do something about it. Everyone is doing the 'commitment' none are doing the task.

Dear Ales if mean are not overlapping to zero when the standard error is substracted it generally indicates a real and significance statistical difference between them. Beyond the real and significance difference the increase of 50 cm or more in just slightly over a generation is going to have marked effects on coastal erosion flooding and damage from tropical storms. You do not have to believe this it is just the scientific truth of the matter. The difference between 1980 is a clear indication that the significant increasing are having a tendency for increasing or accelerating significant in both cases the difference was statistically significant to the baseline line but not within the abbreviated test times. To say they are not significant is somewhat of a misnomer as both times are significantly different from the baseline just not to the abbreviated periods among them.

The ugliest "balance":

"Malthus argued that society has a natural propensity to increase its population, a propensity that causes population growth to be the best measure of the happiness of a people: "The happiness of a country does not depend, absolutely, upon its poverty, or its riches, upon its youth, or its age, upon its being thinly, or fully inhabited, but upon the rapidity with which it is increasing, upon the degree in which the yearly increase of food approaches to the yearly increase of an unrestricted population."[5]

However, the propensity for population increase also leads to a natural cycle of abundance and shortages:

We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population...increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions, must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease; while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great, that population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land; to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage; till ultimately the means of subsistence become in the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened; and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to happiness are repeated". — Thomas Malthus, 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population, Chapter II.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_trap?fbclid=IwAR3K7nFH57Z3GLvGNgz6fpAeB5yn3XtQ93uiLUguMY3qAhjH55YyrbM98CU