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Malthus Revisited MALTHUS REVISITED John Scales Avery June 25, 2020 INTRODUCTION1 Malthus’ Essay on The Principle of Population T.R. Malthus’ Essay on The Principle of Population, the first edition of which was published in 1798, was one of the the first systematic studies of the problem of population in relation to resources. Earlier discussions of the problem had been published by Boterro in Italy, Robert Wallace in England, and Benjamin Franklin in America. However Malthus’ Essay was the first to stress the fact that, in general, powerful checks operate continuously to keep human populations from increasing beyond their available food supply. In a later edition, published in 1803, he buttressed this assertion with carefully collected demographic and sociological data from many societies at various periods of their histories. The publication of Malthus’ Essay coincided with a wave of disillusion- ment which followed the optimism of the Enlightenment. The utopian so- cieties predicted by the philosophers of the Enlightenment were compared with reign of terror in Robespierre’s France and with the miseries of indus- trial workers in England; and the discrepancy required an explanation. The optimism which preceded the French Revolution, and the disappoint- ment which followed a few years later, closely paralleled the optimistic expec- tations of our own century, in the period after the Second World War, when it was thought that the transfer of technology to the less developed parts of the world would eliminate poverty, and the subsequent disappointment when poverty persisted. Science and technology developed rapidly in the second half of the twen- tieth century, but the benefits which they conferred were just as rapidly consumed by a global population which today is increasing at the rate of one billion people every fourteen years. Because of the close parallel between the optimism and disappointments of Malthus’ time and those of our own, much light can be thrown on our present situation by rereading the debate between Malthus and his contemporaries. 1This book draws heavily on my previously published chapters in various books, but a considerable amount of new material has been added Famine, disease and war Malthus classified the checks to population growth as preventative and posi- tive. Among the preventative checks he mentioned late marriage, and what he called “vice”. This included birth control, of which he disapproved. If he had been living today, I think that Malthus would consider birth control to be the most humane method for preventing excessive growth of population. Among the positive checks to population growth, are the three terrible Malthusian forces, famine, disease and war. Today, each of these has taken on new and terrifying dimensions, and in this book, a chapter is devoted to each. Was Malthus wrong? Many people maintain that because both our food supply and the global population of humans have grown so enormously, Malthus was wrong. How- ever, I believe that we still must listen to the warning voice of Malthus. The fossil fuel era is ending, and with it, the possibility of Green Revolution agri- culture. Population growth, climate change and the end of the fossil fuel era may combine to produce a famine of completely unprecedented proportions by the middle of the present century. The climate emergency The threat of catastrophic climate change came to the attention of scientists after the time of Malthus. However, this existential threat to the future of human civilization is connected to Malthus’ work by the fact that one of the driving forces behind climate change is population growth. Our footprint on Nature’s face has grown too large At present, the total human economy is demanding more from the environ- ment than the environment can regenerate. If we go on with business as usual, then within a decade it would take two Earths to regenerate the re- sources that we collectively demand. Most economists are focused on growth, but endless growth of anything physical on a finite planet is a logical impos- sibility. We need a new economic system, a new social contract, and a new and more considerate relationship with our environment. 4 Contents 1 MALTHUS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES 11 1.1 Godwin's Political Justice ........................... 11 1.2 Enormous instant fame; The New Philosophy . 15 1.3 Things as they are ............................... 16 1.4 A few hangings needed to cast a chill over discussion . 16 1.5 William and Mary . 17 1.6 Mary's tragic death in childbirth . 18 1.7 The wave of hope crashes down . 19 1.8 Condorcet: A vision of human progress . 19 1.9 Condorcet becomes a mathematician . 20 1.10 Human rights and scientific sociology . 20 1.11 The French Revolution . 21 1.12 Drafting a new constitution for France . 22 1.13 Hiding from Robespierre's Terror . 22 1.14 Condorcet writes the Esquisse ......................... 23 1.15 Condorcet's On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship (1790) 25 1.16 The education of Malthus . 29 1.17 Debate on the views of Godwin and Condorcet . 31 1.18 Publication of the first essay in 1798 . 36 1.19 The second essay published in 1803 . 38 1.20 Systems of equality . 42 1.21 The Poor Laws . 44 1.22 Replies to Malthus . 45 1.23 Ricardo's Iron Law of Wages; the Corn Laws . 51 1.24 The Irish Potato Famine of 1845 . 53 1.25 The impact of Malthus on biology . 56 2 FAMINE TODAY 65 2.1 Introduction . 65 2.2 Optimum population in the distant future . 66 2.3 Population growth and the Green Revolution . 68 2.4 Energy-dependence of modern agriculture . 71 2.5 Effects of climate change on agriculture . 73 5 6 CONTENTS 2.6 Harmful effects of industrialized farming . 78 2.7 The demographic transition . 81 3 DISEASE TODAY 87 3.1 History of the pandemic . 87 3.2 China . 93 3.3 Europe . 95 3.4 The United States . 97 3.5 India . 99 3.6 Africa . 101 3.7 How our immune systems work . 101 3.8 Paul Ehrlich, the father of chemotherapy . 102 3.9 Mechnikov . 107 3.10 Burnet, Jerne and the clonal theory of immunity . 109 3.11 K¨ohler,Milstein and monoclonal antibodies . 113 3.12 Searching for a vaccine against the COVID-19 virus . 113 3.13 Balancing dangers in an emergency . 115 4 WAR TODAY 121 4.1 Militarism and money . 121 4.2 Ethology . 121 4.3 Population genetics . 127 4.4 Hope for the future . 129 4.5 Religion and ethnic identity . 129 4.6 Tribal markings; ethnicity; pseudospeciation . 130 4.7 The arms race prior to World War 1 . 139 4.8 Krupp, Thyssen and Germany's steel industry . 141 4.9 Colonialism and the outbreak of the First World War . 141 4.10 Prescott Bush and Hitler . 142 4.11 Fritz Thyssen supports Hitler's rise to power . 144 4.12 Eisenhower's farewell address . 150 4.13 The nuclear arms race . 152 4.14 Global famine produced by nuclear war . 158 4.15 Military-industrial complexes today . 160 4.16 A culture of violence . 168 4.17 The threats and costs of war . 171 4.18 The threat of nuclear war . 177 4.19 Flaws in the concept of nuclear deterrence . 181 4.20 Dangers of nuclear power generation . 185 4.21 Militarism is the US national religion . 191 CONTENTS 7 5 THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY 209 5.1 Contrasting responses to the pandemic and the climate crisis . 209 5.2 Recovery from the pandemic offers climate action opportunities . 210 5.3 Quick action is needed to save the long-term future . 210 5.4 Is the transition to 100% renewable energy possible? . 211 5.5 Renewables are now much cheaper than fossil fuels! . 215 5.6 An economic tipping point . 219 5.7 An unprecedented investment opportunity . 220 5.8 For creating jobs, renewables beat fossil fuels . 222 5.9 The Stern Review . 223 5.10 Major producers of fossil fuels . 230 5.11 Blood for oil . 232 5.12 Fossil fuel extraction must stop! . 232 5.13 Extinction events and feedback loops . 233 5.14 A warning from the World Bank . 236 5.15 Permian-Triassic extinction event . 237 5.16 The Holocene (Anthropocene) extinction . 238 5.17 Global warming and atmospheric water vapor . 240 5.18 The albedo effect . 240 5.19 The methane hydrate feedback loop . 243 5.20 A feedback loop from warming of soils . 243 5.21 Drying of forests and forest fires . 244 5.22 Tipping points and feedback loops . 244 5.23 Greta Thunberg's TED talk . 245 5.24 Only immediate climate action can save the future . 248 5.25 Worldwide school strike, 15 March, 2019 . 252 5.26 The World Meteorological Organization's report . 259 5.27 Only 12 years left to limit climate change catastrophe . 259 5.28 COP24, the climate summit in Poland . 260 5.29 The UK declares a climate emergency . 270 5.30 Understatement of existential climate risk . 271 5.31 The 2018 IPCC report . 276 6 FORMS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY 291 6.1 Solar energy . 291 6.2 Wind energy . ..
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