NP&S - Population and Scarcity

Malthus - Poverty and Gender

"Principals of Population" - welfare programs such as England's Poor Laws facilitated population growth among the poor and therefore exacerbate resource scarcity; moral restraint (by women) is necessary to maintain sustainable population levels These arguments remove blame from political and economic systems, the wealthy, and men

Zero Growth Rate

A condition in a population where the number of births matches the number of deaths and therefore there is no net increase; an idealized condition for those concerned about overpopulation

Death Rate

A measure of mortality in a population, typically expressed as the number of deaths per thousand population per year

Birth Rate

A measure of natural growth in a population, typically expressed as the number of births per thousand population per year

Population Density

A measurement of the number of persons per unit land area; 90% of human population located on less than 20% of land area (from greatest to least - East Asia, South Asia, Europe, Southeast Asia, USA and Canada)

Forest Transition Theory

A model that predicts a period of deforestation in a region during development, when the forest is a resource of land is cleared for agriculture, followed by a return of forest when the economy changes and population out-migrates and/or becomes conservation-oriented.

Population Pyramid

A model used in population geography to show the age and sex distribution of a particular population; less developed countries have far more young people relative to elderly while the reverse is true for more developed nations

Green Revolution

A suite of technological innovations, developed in universities and international research centers, which were applied to agriculture between the 1950s and 1980s and increased agricultural yields dramatically, but with a concomitant rise in chemical inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) as well as increased demands for water and machinery

Induced Intensification

A thesis predicting that where agricultural populations grow, demands for food lead to technological innovations resulting in increased food production on the same amount of land

Densely Populated Areas

Areas that have 60 people/square mile ; about half the population of the world lives in coastal areas (proportion increasing)

Low Density Areas

Areas with low population densities; central and northern Asia, northern and western North America, and vast interior areas of South America, Africa, and Australia

Women's Rights and Fertility

Around the world, women's rights, education, and literacy rates are linked to lower fertility rates (which one leads to the other?); lower fertility rates also associated with women's access to reproductive health care and ability to make reproductive decisions

Thomas Malthus

Author of "Essay on the Principal of Population" (1798) who claimed that population grows at an exponential rate while food production increases arithmetically, and thereby that, eventually, population growth would outpace food production.

Environmental Kuznets Curve

Based in the theory that income inequality will increase during during economic development and decrease after reaching a state of overall affluence, this theory predicts environmental impacts rise during development, only to fall after an economy matures

Japan's Population Decline

Country's population currently in decline (began in 2004); in 2013 the population declined 244,000 people; the population will have fallen from 127 million to 87 million by 2060; country considering adding 200,000 foreigners a year via immigration to stabilize population at 100 million; would also have to raise fertility rates from 1.39 to 2.07 (want to make it easier for mothers to work)

Kerala

Impoverished state in India that has recently experienced decreasing population growth rates but NOT economic development (contradicts DTM); slowing population is probably related to women's empowerment, as shown by high levels of education and literacy

Geometric Growth Model

Malthus's argument that population grows exponentially while resources grow linearly, which will result in population outgrowing food supply; disease, war, and famine are natural corrections to rapid population growth

Population, Violence, and Injustice

Malthusian theories lead to the targeting of the poor and women as causes of degredation even though they are often not the primary cause (ex - India's sterilizaiton program); diverts attention from systemic causes of degredation

Critiques of Demographic Transition Model

Model assumes a linear trajectory of development based on a particular context (European industrialization in the 1800s-1900s); does not account for non-economic factors that may affect population growth (ex - women's rights and fertility rates)

Demographic Transition Model

Multistage model that describes population growth over time and considers the changes in birth and death rates through stages of economic development Stage 1 - high birth, high death (stable or low populaiton growth; pre-industrial; parts of Africa) Stage 2 - high birth, low death (rapid population growth; some countries in Asia) Stage 3 - low birth, low death (moderate to low population growth) Stage 4 - lower birth, low death (stable, low,, or decreasing population growth; Italy, Japan)

Physiological Density

Number of acres per person (agricultural areas)

Arithmetic Density

Number of people per square mile

One Child Policy

Policy introduced to the People's Republic of China in 1979; uses fines and incentives to limit the number of children in most families in China to 1; reduced fertility rate from 2.9 to 1.6

Cornucopia Population Theory

Population a resource rather than a problem; scarce resources cause people to innovate; more people means more brains and hands working to solve problems (ex - induced intensification of agro, Green Revolution)

Critiques of I=PAT

Some argue that development has varying impact on the environment; development initially has a great impact on the environment; once a threshold of affluence is reached, economic transition and regulation lead to a decrease in environmental impacts

Fertility Rate

The average number of children born to an average woman during her reproductive lifetime

Overpopulation

The number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living.

Carrying Capacity

The population of human or non-human organisms that could be sustained in an area over time; depends on the amount of consumption of the organisms (their ecological footprint)

Ecological Footprint

The theoretical spatial extent of the earth's surface required to sustain an individual, group, or organization (includes both resources and waste 'receptacles')

Critiques of Cornucopia Population Theory

Theory ignores the scale of processes such as food production (different impacts on local communities compared to distant markets); some innovations increase agricultural food supply but damage other ecosystems (especially aquatic ones); more food may be produced that is needed, but is not distributed evenly

I=PAT

Theory popularized by Ehrlich and Holdren (1974); the impact of humans on the environment is the combined effect of population (often density), affluence (GDP or GNP per capita), and technology (energy consumption per capita, can reduce or increase impact)

Neo-Malthusians

Those that maintain that population is the factor that has the greatest impact on the environment, but that the effects of population are mediated by differences in lifestyle; still adhere to Malthus' view that population growth is the single greatest driver of environmental degradation and crisis