On 31 October 2011, World Population Day was marked with the announcement that the 7 billionth person had been born [Ref: Reuters]. While this was treated as a cause for celebration, it also generated considerable debate and unease: with some predictions stating the 9 billionth baby could be born by 2050. With existing problems of poverty and famine, how could an overcrowded planet possibly sustain a growing population? While China and India rapidly industrialise and their billions of citizens aspire to a Western consumerist lifestyle, there is much talk of a ‘population timebomb’. For some, including high profile figures such as Sir David Attenborough and Bill Gates the solution is drastic: we must accept that some form of population control, voluntary or otherwise, is necessary to keep future growth at a sustainable level, based on current resources and projected growth [Ref: Sunday Times]. Others maintain that the problem is not that there are too many people – but that current standards of living in the West result in the overconsumption of resources. If the West can take a lead in reducing this consumption, then population is not a problem. Yet for those who subscribe to an alternative view, both diagnoses are equally flawed and pessimistic: the question should be how to maximise our use of resources, through radical technological innovation and development, rather than focusing on limiting or rationing how we use them. This is the way, it is argued, to ensure society can provide resources to maintain a rising population and rising living standards for all.

A population timebomb?
Although the idea of an ‘optimum population’ was first popularised by Thomas Malthus in 1789 [Ref: Buzzle.com], much of the contemporary debate has been driven by environmental campaigners such as Paul Ehrlich, who observe that current levels of growth in population and living standards simply cannot be maintained by a planet with finite resources [Ref: New York Times]. While it is believed world population growth will begin to stabilise by 2050, there are difficult decisions to be made in the present. The most obvious, it is argued, is controversial: finding ways to manage population growth [Ref: Population Matters]. While such a measure has chequered historical associations for many – China’s present one-child policy is met with international disapproval – others suggest that there are more humane and beneficial voluntary methods to consider, from making contraception easier to access in the developing world to encouraging those in the developed world to consider having fewer children [Ref: The Gates Notes].

Rational optimism?
For some, however, ‘the population timebomb’ has already been proven to be a myth: there is every reason to believe scientific and economic development will continue to provide enough resources for a growing world population. The likes of ‘rational optimist’ Matt Ridley argue that the Industrial Revolution [Ref: Yale New Haven Teachers Institute] and ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960/70s [Ref: Wikipedia] transformed food production in a way contemporaries such as Malthus and Ehrlich did not predict: the likes of GM crops hold similar potential to revolutionise food production today, for example. Population growth and rising living standards are far from a zero-sum game: as societies modernise and develop, family size tends to stabilise and the use of resources becomes more efficient. Ridley observes that between 1970 and 2005 world production of poultry meat quadrupled whilst the food and land used to rear chickens reduced by two thirds largely due to improvements in chicken breeding [Ref: WSJ]. Fossil fuels, meanwhile, were originally developed as an energy supply to replace scarce wood resources. From nuclear to renewables (or a potentially abundant supply of another fossil fuel such as shale gas) there are numerous potential replacements if we can find ways to exploit them. The most important resource humanity has, several commentators note, is its own ingenuity in developing these resources.

Is the problem too much consumption?
An increasingly mainstream view argues that while population itself is not a problem the world cannot afford to be complacent.  The ability of future technology to rescue us from present threats posed by food price crashes, dwindling energy supply and the impacts of environmental damage linked to modernisation needs tackling now. The affluent and consumerist-driven West must be prepared to reduce its use of these resources, with at least a willingness to reduce consumption of luxuries, in order to allow sustainable growth elsewhere. Furthermore, given the damage it causes environmentally and socially, there is a prominent school of thought which queries whether this kind of lifestyle is desirable or worth aspiring to [Ref: Guardian]. Yet as some counter, this position shares more in common with a Malthusian perspective than it appears: both, says commentator Brendan O’Neill, ‘misunderstands social problems as demographic ones…social limits as natural limits.’ As a recent report concluded, many engineering solutions to current resource shortages exist but require the ‘political and social will’ and financing to be enacted [Ref: Institution of Mechanical Engineers]. Rather than accepting limits on either population level or consumption of resources, several commentators note that society should be more willing to challenge the substantial and risk averse barriers society places in the way of support for the development of potentially radical new technology such as GM food [Ref: Telegraph].