A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay: Conservation, Population and the Indifference to Limits (NPG Booknote)
- Sharon McCloe Stein
- August 1, 1998
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
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A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay: Conservation, Population and the Indifference to Limits
An NPG Forum Paper
(An NPG Booknote)
by Sharon McCloe Stein
August 1998
In 1798, an English clergyman published an essay about human population growth that served to define the terms of debate on this issue for the next two hundred years. Today, as the debate continues unabated. John Rohe’s new hook provides a vital and fresh reading that does an excellent job of highlighting the contemporary relevance of the principles first enunciated by Thomas Robert Malthus. Much like An Essay on the Principle of Population, Rohe uses a series of short essays to examine, elucidate and elaborate on the central Malthusian tenet, “the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”
Malthus wrote his essay partially in reaction to the spirit of optimism and progress that characterized the growing power of the industrial revolution to expropriate the goods and services of the natural environment. And, like Malthus, Rohe’s book is primarily directed toward those who believe that for humans all things are possible —even the impossible, unending growth in a finite world. Unfortunately, from his 18th Century perspective, Malthus could not have foreseen the tremendous power of human ingenuity to create and use technology. This technology has given humans the power to exponentially expand their economy, and the corollary ability to use and pollute the natural environment to provide the means of not only subsistence but luxury. But, as Rohe so clearly demonstrates in this book, knowledge is not the same as wisdom.
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