The population debate

The world may have sufficient resources to support 10-12 billion people.

The question of whether there are too many people in the world is complicated. Investigate this debate by completing the following tasks:

1 Who was Malthus and what were his predictions for the world's population?

2 Who was Boserup and how did her views differ in the population debate?

3 What is overpopulation?

4 How is the world's population set to change between now and 2050?

5 Briefly summerise the effects of overpopulation on resources such as food, water, energy etc.

6 Give 5 examples of countries which are said to be overpopulated.

7 What is underpopulated?

8 Are any countries currently underpopulated?

9 What are the consequences of this?

10 What is optimum population? (be careful with this wiki link)