Fifty Years To Prove Malthus Right

Condensed Matter journal club

Fifty Years To Prove Malthus Right

Event details

Abstract

A major question confronting sustainability research today is to what extent our planet, with a finite environmental resource base, can accommodate the faster than exponentially growing human population. Although these concerns are generally attributed to Malthus (1766-1834) early attempts to estimate the maximum sustainable population (ergo, the carrying capacity K) were reported by van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) to be at 13 billion people. Since then, the concept of carrying capacity has evolved to accommodate many resource limitations originating from available water, energy, and other ecosystem goods and services.
PNAS 110 pages 4161-4162 (2013)
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'Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind' by Condorcet
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'An Essay on the Principle of Population' by Malthus
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Authors

Lynn H. Kaack, Gabriel G. Katul

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Given the diversity of research in the CM group, chosen topics vary widely. We tend to stick to high-impact journals - Nature, Science, PNAS and PRL have been popular - but this is not prescriptive..

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