Myth: Because past predictions of resource and population problems have proved incorrect, all future such predictions will not come true, therefore th

This view stems in part from past predictions of disasters which did not materialize as scheduled. Notable were those by Malthus in 1798. The argument presented by those who apparently see no need now to relate population to resources is that if Malthus' predictions of two centuries ago proved so wrong, why should similar predictions be taken seriously today.
Reality: Malthus—then and now
Malthus' predictions were wrong because he did not foresee the coming industrial and scientific revolution. The Industrial Revolution provided much improved housing with adequate space heating, greatly improved sanitary facilities, and machines and the energy to run them. It provided the basis for supporting a much expanded population. Huge resources not known to Malthus were discovered and developed.
But with this much improved scene today, why should there be concern for the future?
The problem is that science and technology will not be able to continue to discover and develop the amount of new resources necessary to support a population growing at an exponential rate. And resources which might be thought of as something which could be depended on indefinitely such as soil and groundwater are being degraded. Population demands on resources are beginning to outpace the ability of science and technology to provide them. This is due to the fact that resources are not limitless. The availability of material resources to sustain the quality of life cannot keep pace with a continued exponential growth of population. Advanced exploration and production technologies have allowed geologists and engineers in a less than two hundred years to discover and develop the huge store of mineral and energy resources which accumulated slowly over billions of years. In a fraction of a second in terms of the length of human existence, Earth resources basic to civilization have been brought into production in volumes never before seen.
Soils, oil, high grade metal and coal deposits and now those of lower grade, groundwater, and other resources including dam sites, are being used up at an unparalleled rate. Since 1900, world population has increased nearly four times, but the world economy has expanded more than 20 times. Fossil fuel use has increased by a factor of 30 and industrial production has grown by a factor of 50, and four-fifths of these increases have occurred since 1950. Civilization exists now in a new reality which is far different from that of Malthus's time. Population grows but mineral and energy resources do not increase. By discovery and advanced recovery technology, the immediate supply can be made to increase, but in total, minerals and energy sources with the exception of sunlight, are depletable.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the speed of human assault upon Earth's resources has greatly increased. More petroleum, coal, and metals have been used since 1950 than in all previous human history. In the United States the high grade, easily won, low cost deposits of iron ore (hematite), copper, and petroleum have been depleted. In some other regions of the world, high grade deposits still exist but are rapidly being developed and used. There are few major dam sites in the United States on which to build large reservoirs for additional hydroelectric power, and irrigation projects. Elsewhere more do exist but are now being developed, as, for example, the huge Yangtze River project. Dam sites are non-renewable and when the reservoirs completely silt up as has already happened at some localities, that resource is gone. All over the world, groundwater tables are dropping, in many areas precipitously, as in China, India, Australia, the Middle East and in parts of western United States. In Malthus' time none of these things had occurred.
For hundreds of thousands of years the human population had made only a minor impact on mineral and energy resources. With low living standards, and little or no medical services, the population grew very slowly, and sometimes was even briefly reversed by famines and plagues. But these hazards have been largely eliminated and population has soared. It took from the beginning of human existence to approximately the year 1850 to reach the first billion world population mark. It will take less than 10 years to increase the present five and three quarter billion by another billion.
What is different from the time of Malthus? The population in his time was small and the potential resources were large and undeveloped. Subsequently, the Industrial Revolution was rather rapidly able to produce enormous resource and material wealth in contrast to the past. It was the hare of energy and mineral development leaping ahead of the tortoise of population. In part, the population growth was tortoise in speed because of the lack of modern medicine, including vaccines and the knowledge of what caused plagues which would decimate populations. And, to a large extent, that hare of mineral and energy has kept ahead of population. This has been achieved by expanding the search, discovery and development of vital raw materials to a worldwide endeavor. That was not possible during Malthus' life.
But now with the present worldwide transportation network made possible chiefly by oil not available to Malthus, mineral and energy supplies can be searched for and produced on one area and transported great distances to another region. When one area experiences declining production, discoveries are made in other regions. Britain's metal deposits and coal resources were small but they supplied the basis for the start of the Industrial Revolution. But eventually the supply base moved to the rich undeveloped North American continent, and then oil was discovered. But now these North American metal and oil deposits have been largely developed and some are in decline. The oil development has gone more and more to the Middle East. Metal exploitation has moved to South America, New Guinea, Australia, and Africa. Worldwide, petroleum and metals are still in abundance. This tends to give a false expectation of a continual cornucopia of Earth resources, and an unjustified complacency especially in political circles toward the future.
However, we are running out of more world to explore and exploit. Only the ice-covered Antarctic continent remains untouched. In Malthus' time, the entire world's mineral and energy resources were virtually undeveloped, and the means to exploit them did not exist.
In Malthus' time, there was a small population and huge undeveloped world energy and mineral resources. The situation is now reversing. The difference is the present peaking or declining energy and mineral production in many parts of the world, and an already huge and continually expanding population. We live on a finite globe which now has been rather thoroughly explored. There are no more continents on which to continue to move as one region becomes depleted. The globe has been encircled. Malthus was simply ahead of his time.

Copyright 1997, Walter L. Youngquist -- Posted with permissionfrom GeoDestinies, by Walter Youngquist PhD & Chair Emeritus,Department of Geology, University of Oregon;National Book Company, 1997; ISBN 0894202995