Population Growth and Food

I think Mathus was right, but it may take a while for his philosophy to become aknowledged by the modern world. His postulate that "the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence" is apparent today in Africa. Africa has one of the fastest growing populations with proportionatly smallest amount of resources in the world. The African continent has a desert that is the size of the United States, this leaves for a smaller area that can be used for agriculture. The starving people in Africa is proof that the power of population is greater than the earth's power to produce food.

I do not think that limiting births like China is a viable option for the United States. America is land of the free. Limiting births is a way of limiting freedom, and would not go over well in America. A more realistic way that we can control the escalating population is by developing cheaper and more effective birth control techniques. By offering birth control pills or other methods, the population won't feel repressed. If a population feels repressed other problems besides hunger will become apparent. Passively offering cheaper birth control won't put the desired cap on population, but it will preserve our freedom.

We should also start teaching sex education more in depth. We should be teaching in detail about each and every repercussion that comes from having sex. As of now, the chance of having a child is always there unless you are barren. We should teach this to the public, starting with middleschoolers. If teens know what the chances are that they will have a child, maybe they won't engage in as much sexual intercourse. In addition to adding to the population, most of these children born to teen mothers are born into a broken family and poverty. We should therefore teach the respectfulness of abstinence and the proper techniques of birth control.

My proposed solutions of birth control and knowledge won't stop our population problem, but it may slow it down fast enough for us to really think about it. If the world really thinks about the earth not being able to support an infinite population, maybe people will decide on their own that it is not so wise to have seven children.