Malthus

MIAMI 2007
MALTHUS
MALTHUS
MALTHUS...................................................................................................................................................................1
1NC SHELL LONG.....................................................................................................................................................6
1NC SHELL LONG.....................................................................................................................................................7
1NC SHELL – LONG..................................................................................................................................................8
THE ONE-CARD SHELL...........................................................................................................................................9
2NC UNIQUENESS RUN.........................................................................................................................................10
2NC UNIQUENESS RUN.........................................................................................................................................11
UNIQUENESS – POPULATION WILL CONTINUE TO GROW...........................................................................12
UNIQUENESS – CARRYING CAPACITY AT LIMIT............................................................................................15
UNIQUENESS – RESOURCE SHORTAGES..........................................................................................................19
UNIQUENESS – RESOURCE SHORTAGES..........................................................................................................20
UNIQUENESS – FOOD SHORTAGES....................................................................................................................21
UNIQUENESS – WATER SHORTAGES..................................................................................................................22
UNIQUENESS – AFRICA POPULATION INCREASING......................................................................................23
UNIQUENESS – AFRICA POPULATION INCREASING......................................................................................24
UNIQUENESS – FERTILITY RATES INCREASING.............................................................................................25
NOW IS KEY TIME..................................................................................................................................................26
BRINKS – WORLD CAN NOT SUSTAIN...............................................................................................................27
AT: LOWER FERTILITY RATES............................................................................................................................28
AT: LOWER FERTILITY RATES............................................................................................................................29
LINK HELPERS – LINEARITY...............................................................................................................................30
LINKS – REVERSING DEATH CHECKS...............................................................................................................31
LINKS – FOREIGN AID...........................................................................................................................................34
LINKS – PUBLIC HEALTH CARE..........................................................................................................................35
...................................................................................................................................................................................35
LINKS – DISEASE....................................................................................................................................................36
2NC AIDS LINK RUN...............................................................................................................................................37
2NC AIDS LINK RUN...............................................................................................................................................38
2NC AIDS LINK RUN...............................................................................................................................................39
LINKS - AIDS............................................................................................................................................................40
LINKS – AIDS...........................................................................................................................................................41
LINKS – ARVS..........................................................................................................................................................42
AIDS ≠ EXTINCTION...............................................................................................................................................43
LINKS – CONTRACEPTIVES.................................................................................................................................44
LINKS – TB...............................................................................................................................................................45
LINKS – MALARIA..................................................................................................................................................46
LINKS – LANDMINES.............................................................................................................................................47
LINKS – DEVELOPMENT.......................................................................................................................................48
LINKS – POVERTY REDUCTION..........................................................................................................................49
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LINKS – FOOD AID..................................................................................................................................................50
LINKS – IMMUNIZATIONS....................................................................................................................................51
LINKS – DESALINATION.......................................................................................................................................52
LINKS – PRE-NATAL CARE....................................................................................................................................53
LINKS – BREASTFEEDING....................................................................................................................................54
LINKS – WATER WARS...........................................................................................................................................55
LINKS – GLOBALIZATION.....................................................................................................................................56
...................................................................................................................................................................................56
AT: FAMILY PLANNING LINK TURNS................................................................................................................57
AT: CONTRACEPTIVES LINK TURN...................................................................................................................58
AT: CONTRACEPTIVES LINK TURN...................................................................................................................59
AT: WOMEN IN PUBLIC SPHERE LINK TURNS................................................................................................60
...................................................................................................................................................................................60
MORTALITY RATES KEY.......................................................................................................................................61
AFRICA KEY.............................................................................................................................................................62
AFRICA KEY.............................................................................................................................................................63
DISAD OUTWEIGHS THE CASE...........................................................................................................................64
OVERPOP  EXTINCTION....................................................................................................................................65
OVERPOP  FAMINE.............................................................................................................................................70
OVERPOP  FAMINE.............................................................................................................................................71
OVERPOP  FAMINE.............................................................................................................................................72
OVERPOP  FAMINE.............................................................................................................................................73
OVERPOP  FAMINE.............................................................................................................................................74
OVERPOP  FAMINE.............................................................................................................................................75
RESOURCE SHORTAGES IMPACTS.....................................................................................................................76
FAMINE IMPACTS...................................................................................................................................................77
OVERPOP  ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION..............................................................................................78
ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION IMPACTS....................................................................................................79
OVERPOP  GLOBAL WARMING........................................................................................................................80
OVERPOP  GLOBAL WARMING........................................................................................................................81
GLOBAL WARMING IMPACTS..............................................................................................................................82
OVERPOP  BIODIVERSITY LOSS......................................................................................................................83
OVERPOP  BIODIVERSITY LOSS......................................................................................................................84
...................................................................................................................................................................................84
OVERPOP  DEFO..................................................................................................................................................85
OVERPOP  DISEASE SPREAD...........................................................................................................................86
OVERPOP  POVERTY..........................................................................................................................................87
OVERPOP  POVERTY..........................................................................................................................................88
OVERPOP  TERRORISM.....................................................................................................................................89
OVERPOP  CONFLICT.........................................................................................................................................90
OVERPOP  WASTE...............................................................................................................................................91
OVERPOP  OIL SHORTAGES..............................................................................................................................92
OVERPOP  OIL SHORTAGES..............................................................................................................................93
OIL SHORTAGES IMPACTS....................................................................................................................................94
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OIL SHORTAGES IMPACTS....................................................................................................................................95
OVERPOP  POOR WATER QUALITY.................................................................................................................96
AT: MALTHUS FALSE.............................................................................................................................................97
AT: RESOURCES INFINITE – THE 2NC RUN......................................................................................................98
AT: DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION TURN..........................................................................................................99
AT: CONTRADICTION BETWEEN UNIQUENESS AND STATUS QUO DEATH CHECKS..........................100
AT: TECH SOLVES................................................................................................................................................101
AT: TECH SOLVES................................................................................................................................................102
AT: MORE LAND PRODUCTIVITY....................................................................................................................104
AT: DENSITY.........................................................................................................................................................105
AT: NETHERLANDS FALLACY..........................................................................................................................106
AT: AFRICANS DON’T CONSUME.....................................................................................................................107
2NC ETHICS RUN..................................................................................................................................................108
2NC ETHICS RUN..................................................................................................................................................109
2NC ETHICS RUN..................................................................................................................................................110
MALTHUS MORAL – FUTURE GENERATIONS................................................................................................111
MALTHUS MORAL – NO EXTINCTION.............................................................................................................113
MALTHUS MORAL – QUALITY OF LIFE...........................................................................................................114
MALTHUS MORAL – AT: DON’T BLAME THE POOR.....................................................................................115
MALTHUS MORAL – AT: THOU SHALL NOT KILL.........................................................................................116
SIMON INDICTS.....................................................................................................................................................117
SIMON INDICTS.....................................................................................................................................................118
2AC FRONTLINE....................................................................................................................................................119
2AC FRONTLINE....................................................................................................................................................120
2AC FRONTLINE....................................................................................................................................................121
2AC FRONTLINE....................................................................................................................................................122
2AC FRONTLINE – GAG RULE/FAMILY PLANNING......................................................................................123
2AC FRONTLINE – GAG RULE/FAMILY PLANNING......................................................................................124
2AC RACISM K.......................................................................................................................................................125
RACISM K HELPERS – JUSTIFIES GENOCIDE.................................................................................................126
RACISM K HELPERS – BLAMING THE POOR..................................................................................................127
RACISM K HELPERS – BLAMING THE POOR..................................................................................................128
RACISM K HELPERS – HARDIN INDICTS........................................................................................................130
RACISM K HELPERS – ABERNATHY/CCN NETWORK INDICTS..................................................................131
CLASSISM K MODULE.........................................................................................................................................132
NON-UNIQUE – FERTILITY RATES ↓.................................................................................................................133
NON-UNIQUE – NO RESOURCE SHORTAGES.................................................................................................136
NON-UNIQUE – NO RESOURCE SHORTAGES.................................................................................................137
1AR EXTS – RESOURCES NOT FINITE..............................................................................................................138
NON-UNIQUE – CARRYING CAPACITY............................................................................................................139
UNIQUENESS OVERWHELMS THE LINK.........................................................................................................140
LINK TURNS – FAMILY PLANNING...................................................................................................................141
LINK TURNS – FAMILY PLANNING – SPACING..............................................................................................142
LINK TURNS – CONTRACEPTIVES....................................................................................................................143
LINK TURNS – ABORTIONS................................................................................................................................144
LINK TURN HELPERS – FERTILITY RATES HIGH...........................................................................................145
LINK TURN HELPERS – FERTILITY RATES KEY............................................................................................146
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LINK TURN HELPERS – FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS EFFECTIVE......................................................147
LINK TURNS – DEVELOPMENT.........................................................................................................................148
LINK TURNS – PATRIARCHY..............................................................................................................................149
LINK TURNS – WOMEN IN PUBLIC SPHERE...................................................................................................150
LINK TURN HELPERS – QUICK FIX SOLUTIONS...........................................................................................151
NO LINK – AIDS NOT A DEATH CHECK............................................................................................................152
EXTS - SOCIAL CHANGE TURNS.......................................................................................................................153
TECH SOLVES........................................................................................................................................................154
TECH SOLVES........................................................................................................................................................155
INSTITUTIONS CHECK........................................................................................................................................156
CAPITALISM CHECKS..........................................................................................................................................157
NON-INTRINSIC MODULE - SPACE ..................................................................................................................158
MALTHUS IMMORAL...........................................................................................................................................159
MALTHUS IMMORAL – AT: OBLIGATION TO NATURE................................................................................160
MALTHUS IMMORAL - AT: WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO FUTURE GENERATIONS...........................161
MALTHUS IMMORAL - AT: WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO FUTURE GENERATIONS...........................162
MALTHUS IMMORAL – ROLSTON INDICTS....................................................................................................163
MALTHUSIAN THEORY FALSE...........................................................................................................................164
CARRYING CAPACITY THEORY FALSE...........................................................................................................168
CARRYING CAPACITY THEORY FALSE...........................................................................................................169
DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS FALSE........................................................................................................................170
OVERPOP HELPS ENVIRONMENT.....................................................................................................................171
OVERPOP GOOD – DIVERSIFICATION..............................................................................................................172
OVERPOP GOOD – ECONOMIC GROWTH........................................................................................................173
OVERPOP ≠ GENERIC IMPACTS.........................................................................................................................174
OVERPOP ≠ GENERIC IMPACTS........................................................................................................................175
OVERPOP ≠ RESOURCE SHORTAGES...............................................................................................................176
OVERPOP ≠ FOOD SHORTAGES.........................................................................................................................177
OVERPOP ≠ FOOD SHORTAGES.........................................................................................................................178
OVERPOP ≠ ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION.............................................................................................179
OVERPOP ≠ BIODIVERSITY LOSS.....................................................................................................................180
OVERPOP ≠ GLOBAL WARMING.......................................................................................................................181
GLOBAL WARMING IMPACT ANSWERS..........................................................................................................182
OVERPOP ≠ DEFO..................................................................................................................................................183
OVERPOP ≠ AIR POLLUTION..............................................................................................................................184
OVERPOP ≠ TERRORISM.....................................................................................................................................185
OVERPOP ≠ CONFLICT........................................................................................................................................186
OVERPOP ≠ ENERGY SOURCES.........................................................................................................................187
OVERPOP ≠ POVERTY..........................................................................................................................................188
OVERPOP ≠ MIGRATION......................................................................................................................................189
PREFER OUR EVIDENCE.....................................................................................................................................190
EHRLICH INDICTS................................................................................................................................................191
HOMER-DIXON INDICTS.....................................................................................................................................192
AT: POOR QUALITY OF LIFE..............................................................................................................................193
AT: WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF SPACE............................................................................................................194
AT: PLANET TOO SMALL....................................................................................................................................195
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THE CATCH-ALL CARD:

( ) God told us to populate so we should – he’d know if we were in trouble
Roeten 06 (Kevin, Chemical Engineer, “The ‘Sucker’ Punch of the Overpopulation Myth,” Sept 21,
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/kroeten_20060921.html, dbm)
We know the facts, and what the probable outcome is if we stay the course of eliminating ‘overpopulation’. But wasn’t God the
one who told us to “…be fruitful and multiply.”? If He actually was God, He would know if overpopulation would ever become a
problem. Instead, we choose a course of abortion, conception, and sterilization. Depressingly, the US gives over $3 billion a year
to the UN.
THIS FILE WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY ALEJANDRO, COLE, SARAH, CARL, AND MAPES…WITH A
BIT OF HELP FROM TATE
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1NC SHELL LONG
A. THE END IS NEAR – THE EARTH IS RACING TOWARDS THE CARRYING CAPACITY –
POPULATION CONTINUES TO RAPIDLY EXPAND
Bystroff 07 (Chris, Assoc Prof of Biology & Comp Sicence Rensselaer Polytech Institute Troy,The Hearst
Corporation, “Simple math shows overpopulation is no myth,” The Times Union, 3/12, l/n, dbm)
Please cite your sources, Ms. Callahan. Global population is increasing by about 1 billion every 12 years, according to various
sources including the U.N. At the same time, scientists have failed to detect any increase in the size of our planet. It therefore
requires only a little math to prove that overpopulation is not a myth. In fact, using a little more math we can put a number on the
upper limit of sustainable population, called the carrying capacity. Using ecological footprint analysis, the highest estimates of the
global carrying capacity are nine billion people, a number we will reach in less than 30 years at the current growth rates. Life
beyond the carrying capacity - and by some estimates we are already beyond it - will be increasingly tenuous. Food will become
more scarce, war and disease more common. Scientists now predict, by simple mathematical extrapolation, the collapse of all wild
seafood fisheries by 2050 along with a 50 percent decrease in arable land per person in the U.S.
B. The plan reverses death checks - Reducing mortality rates exacerbates overpopulation problems
Ehrlich & Ehrlich & Daily, 95 (Paul R. is professor of population studies @ Stanford and Anne H. is the co-
author of several books on overpopulation and ecology and Gretchen is Professor of biological sciences @
Stanford, The Stork and the Plow, pg. 15) / vinay
Of all the harmful interventions by Western powers into the affairs of less developed nations, it is ironic that the
one most heavily laden with good intentions has, in retrospect, spawned the most horrifying consequences. How
much human misery today traces to the Western introduction of the means to lower mortality, with hardly a thought
to satisfying the need that would thus be created—to lower fertility commensurately? That intervention to save
lives helped to curse the developed world with the all-engulfing, self-reinforcing problems of rapid population
growth, poverty, and environmental deterioration.
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1NC SHELL LONG
AND, A POPULATION INCREASE LEADS TO AN OVERSHOOT OF OUR CARRYING CAPACITY – A

MASSIVE DIE-BACK INEVITABLE
ABERNETHY 1993 [Virginia, professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology @ Vanderbilt University
School of Medicine, Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our Future, pages 26-27] / ttate
But stabilization takes time, and never before has the human population spread so totally into all habitable corners
of the Earth with such devastating environmental consequences. This projection, today, is a truly extraordinary
testimony to hope that mankind will be able to avoid terrible, terrible suffering. The U.N. projection contains no
hint that sharply rising mortality could reign in some human populations in the relatively near term, a “mortality
ambush,” warned Paul Demeny of the Population Council at a 1989 conference at the Hoover Institution. A curve
describing the ambush scenario might slow only a modest (but lasting) downward trend because local populations
might be decimated serially over an extended number of years. Alternatively, the present steep rise in numbers
could be followed by a world-wide crash. The climb-and-crash scenario describes a plausible future if only
because animal populations that grow beyond the carrying capacity of their environment usually follow such a
path. The longer overpopulation runs the more damage is done. More nonrenewable or very slowly renewable
resources are used up; more harms is done to soil, water, and air quality; and species which keep the ecosystem in
balance and share this earth with us become depleted or extinct. Life support systems deteriorate from overuse and
become unable to support life. That means that overpopulation in one period decreases the future number of people
who can be maintained without aggravating the damage. The carrying capacity does not remain constant, it
shrinks. The process seems to be occurring on our planet today, faster in some regions than in others. Humankind,
through sheer numbers and the scale of human activities, may already be exceeding the Earth’s carrying capacity.
We are in danger of using up what was given us merely to use. If we are to fulfill our trust as stewards of Earth’s
goodness, we must become serious about it soon.
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1NC SHELL – LONG
AND, OVERSHOOT LEADS TO COMPLETE GLOBAL EXTINCTION THROUGH NUCLEAR

CONFLICTS AND ECOCIDE
TOBIAS 1998 [Michael, asst prof of Environmental Studies @ Dartmouth, WORLD WAR III:
POPULATION AND THE BIOSPHERE AT THE END OF THE MIILENNIUM,
p. 408] / ttate
The second pattern of millennial long waves is analogous to mutational bacteria, viruses, and pesticide-resistant insects, namely, a shorter and shorter period between
undulations of disaster and rebound. What this has meant is that the more epidemics, crime, war and infant mortality, the more rapid the human population resurges.
Tragedy invokes biological success. The more disasters, the more people; the more people, the more disasters.
But the irony must not be missed. The logic of all things finite permits catastrophe only up to a point, beyond
which a tragedy too vast, one that has totally closed the ecological circle of attrition, will admit to no succession.
Such ineluctable confluences of human numbers following the wake of human self-destruction, must unleash a
global Armageddon on a scale that will admit to no swift and easy population resurgence thereafter. There must
come a time when one inferno will actually prevent us from repopulating. A nuclear holocaust, for example; or an
ecological virus of global proportions. The will mean, of course, eventual extinction. For those who temporarily
survive this vague and distant bang, or whimper – however one views the generic calamity – it might be a blessing.
But there is no consolation whatsoever in this post-human scenario. The events of which I speak would undo,
within a human generation or less, the dreams and miracles of the most recent several hundred million years of
biological activity.
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THE ONE-CARD SHELL
LACK OF A POPULATION CRASH  INEVITABLE POPULATION OVERSHOOT – LEADS TO

EXTINCTION
BROWN 2006 [Paul, PhD, NOTES FROM A DYING PLANET, pages 3-4] / ttate
Everyone I know is uneasy about this space ship we live on. We have good reason to be edgy. Scientists around the
world are warning us of growing dangers to our survival. We only have about 150-250 years left in which to fix
them. We, Homo sapiens, the people of this world, must make some major changes in our lives in the next 5-10
years, starting this year, or we’re toast. The threats we face stem from overpopulation and environmental
degradation.
The resulting climate change and mass extinctions are leading to ecological collapse, in which the once-robust
tapestry of interrelationships among living creatures, climate, and our physical environment has been weakened
and is starring to unravel. Clinical indicators of our planet’s serious illness are illustrated in the graph. I’ve adjusted
the vertical scales for population, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, temperature, and extinction of species per ear so
they all have a common minimum and maximum All the minimal occurred tens of thousands of years BC, and all
the maxima are now. The state of the Earth today is unique. We’re consuming the world’s resources faster than
they can be restored. The world’s population is now doubling in less than fifty years. Around mid-century, the
world’s population is expected to level off at eight to twelve billion people. The lower number is far too high:
population must start to decline before 2050 if we are to survive. The upper limit, to put it simply, will never be
reached because we would all die first.
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2NC UNIQUENESS RUN
The population bomb is imminent—Africa is the greatest contributor to the population overshoot
Dyer, 2007 (Gwynne is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries,
“Overpopulation is still an issue we must consider”, March 15, Sault Star, p. Lexis.) / vinay
You look at the numbers and you think: "That's impossible." Uganda had about seven million people at
independence in 1962, and in only 45 years it has grown to 30 million. By 2050, just over four more decades, there will be 130
million Ugandans, and it will be the twelfth biggest country in the world, with more people than Russia or Japan. Its population will have increased eighteen-fold in less than ninety years.
Many people think that population growth is no longer a problem, and everybody somehow knows that it is politically
incorrect to talk about it. Back in 1968, when Paul Ehrlich terrified everybody with his book "The Population Bomb," it was seen as the
gravest long-term threat facing the human race, but now it scarcely gets a mention even in discussions on climate change - as if the
number of people producing and consuming on this planet had no relevance to how great the pressure on the environment is.
True, the population explosion has gone away in large parts of the world, in the sense that most developed countries now have birthrates well
below replacement level (2.1 children per woman), and that the global average, including the developing countries of Asia and South America, is now down to 2.3 children. That's pretty impressive, given that it was 5.4 children per
woman as recently as 1970. But there remains the problem of what you might call "inertial growth."
My own mother had five children, which was not seen as at all unusual at the time. (There was one year when Newfoundland, my birthplace, beat Guatemala for the honour of having the highest birth-rate in the Americas.) The
next generation of our family, by contrast, dropped to 2.0: we five brothers and sisters and our five spouses have had a total of just ten children. But that doesn't mean that our population boom stopped.
If we had just spawned and died, it would have, but we insisted in living on after our children were born. In fact, we're all still here, although the first grandchildren are already starting to appear - so where there were once ten of us,
there are now twenty- three. It takes two full generations at replacement level before the population finally stabilizes.
That accounts for about half of the anticipated population growth in the next forty years, which will raise the total number of people on the
planet from 6.5 billion to about nine billion. (In other words, we will be adding as many extra people as the total population of the world back in 1950.) But the other half of the growth comes
mainly from Africa, already the poorest continent.

This may explain why it became politically incorrect to talk about population growth around 25 years ago. Nine out of the ten countries in the world
with the highest birth-rates are African (the other is Afghanistan), and it seemed uncomfortably like pointing the finger at the victim. But runaway
population growth is a big factor in making so many Africans victims, and it doesn't help to stay silent about it.
Sometimes the steadily worsening ratio of people to resources just causes deepening poverty, as in the case of Nigeria, whose population by
2050 will reach 300 million. That is the same as the current population of the United States, but Nigeria, apart from being virtually without industry, does not have one-tenth of the natural resources of the US. If those 300 million
people live at all, they will live very badly.
Often, however, the growing pressure of people on the land leads indirectly to catastrophic wars: Sierra Leone, Liberia,
Uganda, Somalia, Congo, Angola and Burundi have all been devastated by chronic, many-sided civil wars, and all seven
appear in the top ten birth-rate list. Rwanda, Ethiopia and Mozambique, which have suffered similar ordeals, are just out of the top ten. Africa, which accounted for only eight percent of
the world's population when most of its countries got their independence in the 1960s, will contain almost a quarter of the world's (much larger) population in
2050.
Uganda's birth-rate is seven children per woman, little changed from thirty years ago. Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, believes that his country is under-populated, and told
parliament last July: "I am not one of those worried about the population explosion. It is a great resource." He has
done many good things for his country, but this one blind spot could undo them all. And he is far from alone.
AND, THE POPULATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA CONTINUES TO GROW

UNION FOR AFRICAN POPULATION STUDIES 2006 [“Conference Theme: The emerging issues on
Population and Development in Africa”, January 20, http://uaps.org/] / ttate
Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is still growing rapidly, and is expected to reach 1.7 billion in the next forty-five
years primarily as a result of current and past high fertility. Early marriage, high desired family size, gender disparity in socioeconomic status,
low contraceptive use, and unequal access to information and services are some of the major reasons for sustained high fertility in Africa. This high population
growth is occurring in a context of high levels of poverty, poor education, low economic growth, environmental
degradation, and food insecurity. Yet, empirical knowledge of the potential role of population dynamics on poverty eradication is very limited, especially in
the context of the MDGs
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2NC UNIQUENESS RUN
AND, The world is overshooting now which will inevitably precipitate in extinction
Brown 06 (Lester, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute
which is a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C, Plan B 2.0, p 5-6, dbm)
The bottom line is that the world is in what ecologists call an “overshoot-and-collapse” mode. Demand has exceeded the
sustainable yield of natural systems at the local level countless times in the past. Now, for the first time, it is doing so at the global
level. Forests are shrinking for the world as a whole. Fishery collapses are widespread. Grasslands are deteriorating on every
continent. Water tables are falling in many countries. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions exceed CO2 fixation everywhere. In 2002,
a team of scientists led by Mathis Wackernagel, who now heads the Global Footprint Network, concluded that humanity’s
collective demands first surpassed the earth’s regenerative capacity around 1980. Their study, published by the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences, estimated that global demands in 1999 exceeded that capacity by 20 percent. The gap, growing by 1 percent
or so a year, is now much wider. We are meeting current demands by consuming the earth’s natural assets, setting the stage for
decline and collapse.2
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UNIQUENESS – POPULATION WILL CONTINUE TO GROW
(__) The global population will increase by 40% in the next forty years.
Boyne, 2007 (Bill, retired editor and publisher of the Post-Bulletin, “Population exhausts world’s resources,” Post-
Bulletin, http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=12&a=301157, July 18,
2007) / rosenberg
A recent United Nations report indicates that the world's population will increase by 2.5 billion by 2050, with most
of the growth occurring in developing countries. The total will rise to 9.2 billion, compared to today's 6.7 billion.
That's an increase of 37.3 percent. The problem arises because there will be no significant increase in the natural
resources that keep us all alive. This is a problem that has been faced in the past, but only by segments of the
population in specific areas, never by all the people alive.
(__) Population growth is occurring in developing countries

Boyne, 2007 (Bill, retired editor and publisher of the Post-Bulletin, “Population exhausts world’s resources,” Post-
Bulletin, http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=12&a=301157, July 18,
2007) / rosenberg
According to the U.N. report, most of the growth will take place in the less developed countries. Their population is expected to grow
from 5.4 billion to 7.9 billion by 2050, an increase of 31.6 percent. The population of the poorer countries -- including Afghanistan,
Burundi, Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, East Timor and Uganda -- is expected to triple by the middle of the 21st century.
On the other hand, the population of the richer nations is expected to remain unchanged at around 1.2 billion and that figure will include
migration from poorer countries estimated at about 2.3 million per year. It is obvious that serious problems will result internationally from
the rapid growth of population in poorer countries and static population totals in the most developed countries.
(__) The global population is growing by 80 million per year

McDougall and Guillebaud, 2007 (Rosamund, Co-Chair of the Optimum Population Trust, an environmental
research and campaigning group; John, Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health at University
college of London, “Too many people: Earth’s population problem, Optimum Population Trust,
http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.earth.html, June 7 2007) / rosenberg
World population will reach 6.7 billion in July 2007, according to World Population Prospects: the 2006
Revision, the projections published by the United Nations in March 2007. Human numbers are now expected to
reach 9.2 billion by 2050, our numbers are growing by 78 million a year, and the 2.5 billion increase is equal to the
entire population of the world in 1950. The Population Reference Bureau estimates the world's annual growth at
81 million - about 9,200 extra people each hour and 221,000 every day. Either way, a population almost the size of
Germany's is being added to the planet each year, with the equivalent of one new city added every single day.
Every year about 56.4 million people die (PRB), but they are more than replaced by the annual 137 million births -
a natural increase of 81 million human beings, all of whom add to the numbers causing environmental degradation
to their only habitat - Earth.
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(__) WORLD’S POPULATION WILL CONTINUE TO EXPAND – DEVELOPING NATIONS MOST

VULNERABLE
AKROYD, MAYHEW, AND CLELAND 2006 [Toby – co-chair of the Population and Sustainability Network, Susannah and John
– professors @ Centre for Population Studies @ London School for Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, “Population Increase Will Challenge
Development”, THE BA, http://www.the-ba.net/the-
BA/CurrentIssues/ReportsandPublications/ScienceAndPublicAffairs/SPAArchive/S
PADec06/PopulationIncreaseOpinionDec06.htm]
Global population is set to rise by 40 per cent to 9 billion over the next 45 years, presenting a challenge to the
future of our planet that should rank in importance alongside climate change.
Poverty mitigation
Future increases in world population will be concentrated among the poorest countries with the weakest
institutional capacities to respond to the challenges of rapid population growth.
Equally, large increases in population will create high levels of unemployment and underemployment, making the alleviation of mass poverty much less likely. This case
has, for example, been compellingly argued for India.
(__) STATUS QUO CAN’T AVOID OVERSHOOT – POPULATION WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE
ALEXANDROTOS 2005 [Nikos, FAO, POPULATION, AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, June,
Pages 237-258] / ttate
Leaving this larger theme aside, we may ask whether these global demographic prospects mean that the
“population explosion”–related issues pertaining to food and agriculture are losing much of their relevance. In
particular, will the global demographic slowdown and the eventual attainment of zero world population growth
imply that the classical Malthusian concern (that population growth will outstrip the potential of agriculture to
increase food production, and its corollary—that food insecurity is caused predominantly by production
constraints) will no longer be relevant? The short answer is that these issues retain their full relevance, and this for
a number of reasons. Of particular importance is the prospect that several countries, many of them with inadequate
food consumption levels, will continue for some time to have rapidly growing populations. A number of these
countries face the prospect that their present problems of low food consumption levels and significant incidence of
undernourishment may persist for a long time. For example, Niger, a country with scant agricultural resources
barely sufficient to support its year 2000 population of 12 million, but with high dependence on agriculture for its
food supplies, employment, and income, is projected to grow to 50 million in 2050. In like manner, Ethiopia’s
population is expected to grow from 69 million to 170 million, Uganda’s from 24 million to 127 million, Yemen’s
from 18 million to 59 million, and so on for a number of other countries. From the standpoint of global welfare,
these problems related to population growth will continue to surpass those emanating from the fertility declines to
below replacement level in many developed countries.
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MALTHUS
Malthusian theory is more applicable than ever—numerous developments have contributed to insane
population growth
Byrant, 2005 (Peter J. (P.H.D) is a professor in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology,
“BIODIVERSITY and CONSERVATION”, Hypertext Book, University of California,
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec24/b65lec24.htm, accessed 7/15/07.) / vinay
Worries about human population growth are not new. Over 200 years ago (1798) Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of
Population. In this book he pointed out that the human population tends to grow geometrically, while the resources
available to support it tend to grow arithmetically. Under these conditions the population must inevitably outgrow the
supply of food that is available to fulfill its needs. He postulated that population growth was already outpacing the production of food supplies in
18th-century England. He predicted that population growth would lead to degradation of the land, and eventually massive famine, disease and war. Malthus presented his
Improvements in agriculture and the
theory in response to optimists of his day who thought that mankind's ability to master the environment was limitless.
industrial revolution postponed the disaster that Malthus thought was imminent. But his ideas are even more
applicable today.
Especially since 1960, several developments have dramatically reduced infant and child mortality throughout the
world: the use of DDT to eliminate mosquito-borne malaria; childhood immunization programs against cholera,
diphtheria and other often-fatal diseases; and antibiotics. During the same period, the "Green Revolution" greatly
boosted food output through the cultivation of new disease-resistant rice and other food crops, and the use of fertilizers and more
effective farming methods. These changes have contributed to a dramatic increase in human population growth rates.
The Earth's population reached 6 billion in September, 1999 (Updated total). It will increase this decade by another billion,
the fastest population growth in history. It was only 2 billion in 1930, so today's older generation was the first in history to see a tripling of the Earth's
population during their lifetimes! Every second, three people are added to the world; every day a quarter of a million (2 times the population of the
city of Irvine) are added. Every year, about 87 million people (about the population of Mexico, or 3x the population of California, or the combined populations of the
During the
Philippines and South Korea) are added to the world. During the next 2.5 years, the equivalent of the U.S. population will be added to the planet.
coming decade the increased population of one billion people is the equivalent of adding an extra China to the
world's population. A recent joint statement by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the British Royal Society finds that population
is growing at a rate that will lead to doubling by 2050.
Obviously the earth cannot continue indefinitely to sustain population growth at the current rate. How many people
can it support?
Ecologists have often made use of the concept of carrying capacity in addressing the pressures that populations put on their environments. Carrying capacity is simply the
largest number of any given species that a habitat can support indefinitely.
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UNIQUENESS – CARRYING CAPACITY AT LIMIT
The global carrying capacity has already been reached

Lafferty, 2007 (Mike, science reporter, Columbus Dispatch, “Too many people, not enough Earth; Scientists
debate how much population the world can sustain,” Feb 13 2007, http://web.lexis-
nexis.com/universe/document?_m=3cdae4ad56378a8e9828bd3af5b38f97&_docnum=7&wchp=dGLzVlz-
zSkVb&_md5=9a243725953ae14be9b9fc94ad03c375)
Every year, at least 91 million humans are born in excess of those who die. That's 1 billion people every 11 years.
Some, however, argue that we are adept at adapting, and point to increased agricultural production and medical
advances that fend off disease. Right now, Earth's carrying capacity is thought to be somewhere in the range of 4
billion to 5 billion people. There are 6.5 billion of us. In biology, the carrying capacity usually refers to the number
of animals a given area can support with adequate food, shelter and territory or the space to reproduce.
(__) Unsustainable population increase is inevitable

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.earth.html, June 7 2007) / ROSENBERG
The Earth faces a future of rising populations and growing strains on the planet. Whatever else the future holds,
significant population increase is inevitable and the current UN forecast of 9.2 billion by 2050 – itself a 40 per cent
increase on the 6.7 billion in 2007 – may turn out to be an underestimate. The environmental damage resulting
from population increase is already widespread and serious, ranging from climate change to shortages of basic
resources such as food and water. By 2050, humanity is likely to require the biological capacity of two Earths.
Without action, longages of humans – the prime cause of all shortages of resources – may cause parts of the planet
to become uninhabitable, with governments pushed towards coercive population control measures as a regrettable
but lesser evil than conflict and suffering.
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MALTHUS
(__) EARTH IS IN ECOLOGICAL OVERSHOOT NOW
BARRY 2006 [Dr. Glen, president and founder of Ecological Internet, “Earth Meanders”, April
25, http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html] / ttate
Interest is rising regarding climate change and energy security, but the true extent and nature of the Earth's environmental problems are not being recognized. Proposed
solutions are often inadequate, such as the idea that hybrid cars can appreciably make the world's car culture sustainable. In the case of recently much hyped biofuels, the
impacts upon the environment caused by further industrial resource intensive agriculture makes the solution equally bad if not worse than the problem. A large scale
embrace of industrial biofuel will further harm prospects for global ecological sustainability.
Exponential growth in population, energy use and consumption are no longer a possibility as humanity is running head
on into bio-chemical and ecological limits. The Earth is in ecological overshoot, largely as a result of deadly and
unsustainable industrial agriculture that mines soil nutrients and water, allowing populations to burgeon to beyond
what is sustainable in the mid to long term.
The Earth and human society are undergoing broad-based ecological collapse that far surpasses and is more
complex than merely too much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Climate change is but one indicator of too many
humans overwhelming the planet's ecosystems. If not climate change, it would be desertification or water scarcity
or ocean ecosystem collapse or soil erosion/loss of fertility which would herald the deadly implications of
humanity's population having exceeded the Earth's carrying capacity.
AND, WE ARE EXCEEDING THE EARTH’S CARRYING CAPACITY

EHRLICH AND EHRLICH 2004 [Paul and Anne, professors at Stanford, ONE WITH NINEVAH,
Page 287]
Our species is overshooting the capacity of its planetary home to support it in the long run; our margin of error has
shrunk to almost nothing. The penalties for continued ignorance, malfeasance, and folly among opinion makers,
the leaders of society, indeed, all of us, have escalated enormously—and often those penalties may be paid globally
rather than merely locally or regionally. We have utterly changed our world; now we’ll have to see if we can
change our ways.
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MALTHUS
(__) WE ARE ALREADY EXCEEDING EARTH’S SUSTAINABILITY – CRASH COMING WITHIN
THIS GENERATION – MUST ACT NOW
CARRYING CAPACITY NETWORK 2004 [“U.S. and World Headed for Ecological Collapse if
Current Trends Continue”, November,
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/04aa5.html] / ttate
Readers of the latest version of Limits will find some grim conclusions: The human burden on the natural environment is already above
sustainable levels, and if a profound correction is not made soon, a crash of some sort is certain to occur within the
lifetimes of many who are alive today. Alarming facts and statistics paint a picture of a planet in peril:
Major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed. Roughly half the north Atlantic warming since last ice age
was achieved in only a decade;
The world is facing widespread shortages of our least substitutable and most essential resource – potable water.
Groundwater sources are being depleted faster than they can recharge on every continent except Antarctica;
The world's large water bodies contain 61 major dead zones – areas where virtually all aquatic life has been killed. The Mississippi dead zone covers 8,000 miles, the size of
the state of Massachusetts;
The Colorado, Yellow, Nile, Ganges, Indus, Chao Phraya, Syr Darya, and Amu Darya rivers are so diverted by withdrawals for irrigation and cities that their channels run
dry for some or all of the year;
Mass extinction of plant and animal species is underway at a rate ecologists say has not happened since the
extinction wave that eliminated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago;
The current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are far higher than they have been for 160,000 years;
Peak oil – meaning the maximum annual production achievable – followed by decline, is predicted to arrive within a few
years. Some experts claim Peak Oil is Now! Peak production of natural gas is expected to follow within 20 years. This will severely crimp our ability
to grow food in present quantities, because both fossil fuels are major inputs in agricultural production;
75 percent of the world's oceanic fisheries have now been fished at or beyond capacity; and, most alarming,
The world's population growth is on track to increase from the current 6 billion to over 9 billion people by 2050.
This increase in population will greatly exacerbate the aforementioned trends.
A frightening forecast, indeed. But perhaps not unalterable. The enclosed synopsis outlines the evidence and identifies the authors' main
conclusions. The Limits To Growth: The 30 Year Update leaves us with a hopeful, if urgent, message: although the situation remains precarious,
there is still time to bring the Earth back from the brink of ecological collapse, if we act now.
17
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MALTHUS

(__) WE HAVE REACHED OUR CARRYING CAPACITY – POPULATION GROWTH HAS BEEN
COMPOUNDED BY RUNAWAY RESOURCE CONSUMPTION
CATTON 2000 [William, professor emeritus @ Washington State University, “Worse than
Foreseen by Malthus”, March, http://desip.igc.org/malthus/Catton.html] / ttate
Malthus, were he among us today, would surely agree -- because it matters how we live. The very technological progress
cited by those who imagine the warnings of Malthus have been rendered obsolete has actually intensified the
problem he was trying to illuminate -- the problem of a human load outgrowing their environment's carrying
capacity.
In recognition of our voracious appetites for non-renewable resources, I have proposed the term "Homo colossus" to designate modern humans equipped with today's
technology and organization. Per capita energy use can serve as a reasonable index of the extent to which we are colossal. [3] During those same two centuries since
Malthus wrote his essay, the world average per capita energy use more than doubled, and in America it doubled four times! Depending on just what threshold we require for
applying the label, it could well be true that there are more members of Homo colossus living than dead, even if that is not so for non-colossal Homo sapiens.
For too long too many have imagined that all 6 billion Homo sapiens (or more yet in the future) could aspire to
become colossal. Even the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission) advocated
achieving this by accelerating economic growth everywhere, to bring living standards in the developing countries
up to those of industrial nations. But the Commission seemed oblivious to the fact this would require several
additional Earths to provide the needed resources and absorb the end-products of so much Homo colossus
metabolism. [4]
If, as is increasingly being argued, we colossal modern humans have overshot global carrying capacity,[5] a monumental downsizing
episode lies ahead. Can we yet choose whether it will be a downsizing of prodigal life-styles rather than a downsizing of population numbers? That is the issue modern
Malthusians are striving to bring to public attention.
(__) POPULATION SURGES HAS PUT CARRYING CAPACITY AT BRINK

BROWN, GARDNER AND HALDWELL 1998 [Lester - founder of Worldwatch Institute, Gary - Senior researcher at
Worldwatch Institute, and Brian – Staff researcher, BEYOND MALTHUS,
p 5,http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
During the last half-century, world population has more than doubled, climbing from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 5.9 billion in 1998. Those of
us born before 1950 are members of the first generation to witness a doubling of world population. Stated otherwise, there has been more growth in
population since 1950 than during the 4 million years since our early ancestors first stood upright.1
This unprecedented surge in population, combined with rising individual consumption, is pushing our claims on
the planet beyond its natural limits. Water tables are falling on every continent as demand exceeds the sustainable yield
of aquifers. Eventual aquifer depletion will bring irrigation cutbacks and shrinking harvests. Our growing appetite for seafood has pushed
oceanic fisheries to their limits and beyond. Collapsing fisheries tell us we can go no further. The Earth’s
temperature is rising, promising changes in climate that we cannot even anticipate. We are triggering the greatest extinction of plant
and animal species since the dinosaurs disappeared. As our numbers go up, their numbers go down.
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UNIQUENESS – RESOURCE SHORTAGES
Climate change is causing a decrease in water supply in sub-Saharan Africa

Gulf News, 2007 (Editorial, “Climate change is all hot air,” Gulfnews.com, June 28 2007,
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/world/10135470.html) / rosenberg
So not only is it estimated that climate change will cause flooding and the disappearance of low-lying lands as ice-
caps and glaciers melt, but in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, there will be a dramatic reduction
of water, hence vegetation, allowing for an increasing encroachment of desert on once-fertile land.
(__) Current levels of resource consumption are unsustainable due to population levels
Trainer, 2007 (Ted, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Work, University of New South Wales (Australia), “A planet
hell bent on eating its future,” April 23, 2007, http://web.lexis-
nexis.com/universe/document?_m=8677a8dc398c42315f8c3a006430a901&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLzVlz-
zSkVb&_md5=a57560f44071e39bcc5ad209c1a21d68) / rosenberg
THE FUNDAMENTAL cause of the big global problems threatening us now is simply overconsumption.
The rate at which we in rich countries are using up resources is grossly unsustainable. It's far beyond levels that
can be kept up for long or that could be spread to all people.
Yet most people totally fail to grasp the magnitude of the overshoot. The reductions required are so big that they cannot be achieved within a consumer- capitalist society.
Huge and extremely radical change to systems and culture are necessary.
The per capita area of productive land needed to supply one Australian with food, water, settlements and energy, is 7-8ha. The United States figure is closer to 12ha. But
the average per capita area of productive land available on the planet is only about 1.3ha. When the world
population reaches nine billion the per capita area of productive land available will be only 0.8ha. In other words, in a
world where resources were shared equally we would all have to get by on about 10 per cent of the present
average Australian footprint.
if we are to stop the carbon dioxide
The greenhouse problem is the most powerful and alarming illustration of the overshoot. Scientists are telling us that
content of the atmosphere from reaching twice the pre-industrial level we must cut global carbon emissions and
thus fossil fuel use by 60 per cent in the short term, and more later.
If we cut it 60 per cent and shared the remaining energy among nine billion people, each Australian would have to get by on less than 5 per
cent of the fossil fuel now used.
These lines of argument show we must face up to enormous reductions in rich world resource use, perhaps by 90 per cent, if we're to
solve the big global problems.
Now all that only makes clear that the present situation is grossly unsustainable. But this society is fundamentally and fiercely obsessed with raisigng levels of production
and consumption all the time, as fast as possible, and without any limit.
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UNIQUENESS – RESOURCE SHORTAGES
(__) Resource consumption overshoot will be at 100% by 2050 – ecological extinction and conflicts are
inevitable
Vidal, 2007 (John, environmental editor, “Collapse of ecosystems likely if plunder continues,” The Guardian, Oct
25 2006, http://web.lexis-
nexis.com/universe/document?_m=8677a8dc398c42315f8c3a006430a901&_docnum=9&wchp=dGLzVlz-
zSkVb&_md5=f48271202b8c7d724ce35fc8cd641b97) / rosenberg
Humans are living well beyond their ecological means and are now exhausting natural resources at an
unprecedented rate. In so doing, says WWF's bi-annual report, we are threatening ourselves and all other species
with extinction.
New calculations on the decline in the planet's capacity to provide food, fibre and timber, and absorb carbon
dioxide, suggest we are using 25% more resources than are renewed naturally in a year.
This ecological "overshoot", which has been growing steadily for nearly 40 years, will on present trends be 100%
by 2050, making the likelihood of large-scale ecosystem collapse likely, and conflict and political tension certain,
says the environmental group's report.
"Effectively, the earth's regenerative capacity can no longer keep up with demand - people are turning resources
into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources. Humanity is no longer living off nature's interest,
but is drawing down its capital. This growing pressure on ecosystems is causing habitat destruction or degradation
and is threatening both biodiversity and human wellbeing," says the report.
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UNIQUENESS – FOOD SHORTAGES
(__) AVAILABLE GRAIN IS DECREASING

Grainland per person has been shrinking since midcentury, but the drop projected for the next 50 years means
the world will have less grainland per person than India has today. Future population growth is likely to reduce this
key number in many societies to the point where they will no longer be able to feed themselves. Countries such as
Ethiopia, India, Iran, Nigeria, and Pakistan will see grainland per person shrink by 2050 to less than one tenth of a
hectare (one fourth of an acre)—far smaller than a typical suburban building lot in the United States.13
(__) NO NEW LAND – HAS DECREASED GRAIN PRODUCTION

The slower growth in the world grain harvest since 1984 is due to the lack of new land and to slower growth in
irrigation and fertilizer use. Irrigated area per person, after expanding by 30 percent from 1950 until 1978, has
declined by 4 percent since then as growth in the irrigated area has fallen behind that of population.19
AND, INCREASING LAND PRODUCTIVITY WILL NOT YIELD MORE GRAIN

p 15, ,http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
Now that the frontiers of agricultural settlement have disappeared, future growth in grain production must come
almost entirely from raising land productivity.
Unfortunately, this is becoming more difficult. After rising at 2.1 percent a year from 1950 to 1990, the annual
increase in grainland productivity dropped to scarcely 1 percent from 1990 to 1997. The challenge for the world’s
farmers is to reverse this decline at a time when cropland area per person is shrinking, the amount of irrigation
water per person is dropping, and the crop yield response to additional fertilizer use is falling.
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UNIQUENESS – WATER SHORTAGES
(__) WATER SUPPLIES SHRINKING

Given that the amount of fresh water produced each year is essentially fixed by nature, the water available per
person has shrunk steadily as a result of population growth, leading to severe water shortages in some areas.
Countries now experiencing these shortages include China and India, along with scores of smaller ones. As
irrigation water is diverted to industrial and residential uses, the resultant water shortages could drop food
production per person in many countries below the survival level. The fast-deteriorating water situation in India
was described in July 1998 in one of India’s leading newspapers, the Hindustan Times: “If our population
continues to grow as it is now…it is certain that a major part of the country would be in the grip of a severe water
famine in 10 to 15 years.” The article goes on to reflect an emerging sense of desperation. “Only a bitter dose of
compulsory family planning can save the coming generation from the fast-approaching Malthusian catastrophe.”14
(__) WATER TABLES ON EVERY CONTINENT IS FALLING

p 16, http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
Evidence of water stress can be seen as rivers are drained dry and as water tables fall. The Colorado River in the
southwestern United States now rarely reaches the sea. The Yellow River, the northernmost of China’s two major
rivers, has run dry for a part of each year since 1985, with the dry period becoming progressively longer. In 1997,
it failed to make it to the sea for 226 days. The Nile, the largest river in the Middle East, has little water left when it
reaches the sea.25
Water tables are now falling on every continent, including in major food-producing regions. Among those where
aquifers are being depleted are the U.S. southern Great Plains; the North China Plain, which produces nearly 40
percent of China’s grain; and most of India. Wherever water tables are falling today, there will be water supply
cutbacks tomorrow, as aquifers are eventually depleted.26
(__) AMOUNT OF AVAILABLE WATER WILL CONTINUE TO FALL

Wherever population is growing, the supply of fresh water per person is declining. As a result of population
growth, the amount of water available per person from the hydrological cycle will fall by 74 percent between 1950
and 2050. Stated otherwise, there will be only one fourth as much fresh water per person in 2050 as there was in
1950.
With water availability per person projected to decline dramatically in many countries already facing shortages, the
full social effects of future water scarcity are difficult even to imagine. Indeed, spreading water scarcity may be the
most underrated resource issue in the world today.24
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UNIQUENESS – AFRICA POPULATION INCREASING
(__) AFRICA CONTINUES TO EXPAND ITS POPULATION

USA TODAY, 2006 (Rob Crilly, Africa sinks deeper into despair as famine worsens; Continent fails to rebound
from drought, AIDS, overpopulation, May 22, p. Lexis) / vinay
His plight is familiar to many people across the Horn of Africa and, according to the United Nations, much of the continent. While the problem isn't new, famine no
longer is a cyclical event that hits a specific region. Each year, the continent is a little less able to feed itself. And drought isn't the
only or even the major cause of the famines.
Much of the continent is suffering after a succession of droughts, worsened by overpopulation, conflict and the devastation
caused by HIV and AIDS.
Situation critical
As a result, the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) estimates that this year 11 million people in Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti need emergency food aid to stave off hunger. In all, 36 of Africa's 53 countries need help to feed
their populations. The U.N. estimates that nearly 5% of the 877.5 million people on the continent -- about 40 million -- need urgent assistance.
Africa is suffering on a greater scale, says the WFP's Peter Smerdon, because the region-wide shortage of food and water comes
after years of localized shortages have stretched populations to the breaking point. "Populations have a whole range of problems to deal with," he says. "Often
drought is the final straw."
Africa's problems vary by region, but the result often is the same: famine.
*Rapid population growth throughout the continent has stretched the region's already limited food resources and placed a
greater strain on the land, says Todd Benson, a research fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute.
*In countries such as Kenya, overpopulation has pushed people into uninhabited areas. Farmers clear forests for crops or cut down trees for fuel. The result is creeping desertification and the loss of precious topsoil.
*A December report on Africa by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization says conflict is at the root of hunger in countries such as Sudan and Uganda. It says millions of people have been forced to leave their traditional
farming communities to seek protection in camps run by humanitarian agencies. There, they often rely on handouts to survive.
disease -- particularly HIV -- as a leading reason for declining productivity in southern Africa. Infection rates of more than 20% have
*The World Food Program cites
mowed down a generation of people who once would have been the breadwinners. The impact on food production has been devastating.
In the past, there may have been a single country in a decade that became the poster child for hunger -- for example, the Nigerian area known as Biafra in the 1960s and Ethiopia in the 1980s. Now, a new country or region is added
to a growing roster of desperation on the continent nearly every year.
Last year it was Niger, in West Africa, where locusts combined with drought forced millions to the brink of famine. Three million there -- more than 25% of the population -- still need emergency aid.
This year, nomadic herders close to Kenya's border with Somalia have been added to the groups that face hunger and death.
Among them is Abdi, who has five children still living at home. He uses his stick to prod one of his dead animals and looks despairingly at the five surviving cattle.
There is no grass left after seasonal rains failed to come for the past three years. "I just have to keep them here, and there's nothing to eat," he says. "Sometimes they even share the children's food or (eat) the trees as there's just
nothing."
The drought has forced parents, including Abdi, to pull their children out of school because they can't pay the tuition. "Every section of life, from the young to the old, is entirely affected," says Mohamed Mohamud Ali, project
coordinator with the Arid Lands Development Focus Organization, a Kenyan government agency.
Jan Egeland, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, last month appealed for $426 million to help drought victims in the Horn of Africa: Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Djibouti. The U.N. says more than
40% of people in the region are undernourished and thousands have died because of complications from hunger.
Effects of political problems
In its most recent Africa Report published in December, The Food and Agriculture Organization names political problems, such as civil strife and refugee movements, as primary factors in 15 of the countries affected by famine.
Drought is named in 12.
For example, about 2.5 million people in Sudan's western Darfur region have been forced to flee their homes as a result of civil war. Most live in refugee camps. As a result, farming in the region has ground to a halt. Many families
are dependent on food aid.
Then there is the impact of HIV and AIDS. "It is a contributing factor, especially in southern Africa, to the inability of a lot of
rural households to produce enough food to feed themselves," says Benson, of the International Food Policy Research
Institute. "It decimates production systems."
The WFP estimates that 40% of Swaziland's population ages 15-49 is infected with HIV. Most can't work the fields or do other work to earn money to support their families or pay for treatment. That means infected people die
relatively soon. So a country with a population of a little more than 1 million has to find food for about 80,000 AIDS orphans.
Africa's problems will grow worse, Benson says, mainly because of explosive population growth. The U.N. says sub-Saharan
Africa's population was 751 million in 2005, double its 335 million population in 1975.
AND, AFRICA POPULATION CONTINUES TO RISE

Rapid increases in population already put serious pressure on water and land for increased food production, a
scenario particularly acute for Africa. Research in 19 African countries has concluded that resource scarcities, lack
of fertile land, limited potential for crops and increasing urbanization are all largely driven by populations set to
treble by 2050 in countries like Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Somalia, making it impossible for them to attain
sustainability in food. In such settings a sharp fertility decline is critical to helping reduce the risk of future population pressure.
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UNIQUENESS – AFRICA POPULATION INCREASING

(__) Global population growth is continuing, especially in developing regions like Africa
Lafferty, 2007 (Mike, science reporter, Columbus Dispatch, “Too many people, not enough Earth; Scientists debate
how much population the world can sustain,” Feb 13 2007, http://web.lexis-
zSkVb&_md5=9a243725953ae14be9b9fc94ad03c375) / rosenberg
Global population growth has been rapid. From about 1 billion people in 1800, our planet now supports about 6.5
billion. Between 1960 and 1999 the world added 3 billion people, with the last billion being added in only 12
years. Annually, global population is growing by some 75 million, although the rate of growth is now declining.
These changes have been attributed to improvements in food production, education, medicine and hygiene, which
resulted in rapidly decreasing death rates, especially among infants and young children, and increased life
expectancy.
Most of the global population growth is taking place in developing countries. In 2005, world population growth
was at 1.2 per cent with an average of 1.5 per cent for developing countries and 0.1 per cent for developed nations.
By 2025, with an estimated 7.9 billion people in the world, some 6.7 billion will be in developing countries with
1.3 billion in developed nations. But there are considerable regional differences within both.
The greatest population increase is occurring in Africa and the Middle East, where many countries experience at
least 2 per cent annual growth.
(__) AFRICAN POPULATION GROWTH IS DEPLETING AGRICULTURAL CAPACITY

HENAO AND BAANANTE 1999 [Julio and Carlos, researchers @ International Food Policy Research
Institute, “Nutrient Depletion in the Agriculture Soils of Africa”,
http://www.ifpri.org/202O/briefs/number62.htm] / ttate
About two-thirds of Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. The fate of agricultural production,
therefore, directly affects economic growth, social improvement, and trade in Africa. As the region's population
continues to grow rapidly, outpacing the growth rate in other regions of the world, its agricultural land is
becoming increasingly degraded. Farmers are intensifying land use to meet food needs without proper
management practices and external inputs. The resulting depletion of nutrients from soils has caused crop
production to stagnate or decline in many African countries. In some cases, notably in the East African highlands,
the rate of depletion is so high that even drastic measures, such as doubling the application of fertilizer or manure
or halving erosion losses, would not be enough to offset nutrient deficits. Unless African governments, supported
by the international community, take the lead in confronting the problems of nutrient depletion, deteriorating
agricultural productivity will seriously undermine the foundations of sustainable economic growth in Africa.
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UNIQUENESS – FERTILITY RATES INCREASING
Fertility rates still increasing in sub-Saharan Africa

Jackson and Strauss, 2007 (Richard Jackson is director of Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and
International Studies’ global aging initiative. Rebecca Strauss is a research assistant at CSIS, “The geopolitics of
world population change,” Asian Investor, July 13, 2007,
http://www.asianinvestor.net/article.aspx?CIaNID=56219) / rosenberg
The problem is that the aggregate indicators hide critical differences in regional trends. Though fertility is dropping
everywhere, it remains extraordinarily high in Sub-Saharan Africa and much of the Islamic world – 7.5 in
Afghanistan, 6.0 in Yemen, and 4.9 in Iraq. Nearly all of the global population growth in the coming decades will
occur in the poorest regions of the world. Of the 2.7 billion extra people living in 2050, roughly 40 percent will
live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another 30 percent will live in Muslim-majority countries. Only 1 percent will live in
the world’s most developed regions. By and large, the countries that will remain the youngest and fastest growing
are also the countries with the weakest state institutions, least-adequate infrastructure, and worst-performing
economies.
The highest birth rates are in sub-Saharan Africa

Peopleandplanet.net, 2007 (A website for people and population pressures, “Poor countries losing out on family
planning benefits,” July 19 2007, http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=3053) / rosenberg
The report says that the globe's highest birth rates are found in Sub-Saharan Africa, where average fertility remains
above five children per woman. While demographic patterns are converging in many regions, countries that are
lagging in fertility decline and mortality reduction are increasingly different from the rest of the world.
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NOW IS KEY TIME
(__) Now is the time to determine our fate – soon we will surpass the point of no return making extinction
inevitable.
Brown ’06 (Paul, Phd, “Notes from a Dying Planet, 2004-2006, p 4) / rice
The state of the Earth today is unique. We’re consuming the world’s resources faster than they can be restored.
The world’s population is now doubling in less than fifty years. Around mid-century, the world’s population is expected
to level off at eight to twelve billion people. The lower number is far too high: population must start to decline
before 2050 if we are to survive. The upper limit, to put it simply, will never be reached because we would all die first.
Because of population growth and increasing consumption, concentrations, of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere are the highest in
human history, as are global temperatures. This is not normal climate fluctuation, as fossil-fuel industry shills would have you believe.
The rate of species
extinctions is comparable to mass extinctions that have occurred only five times before, and is likely to exceed
those. The total decline of species since the Industrial Revolution will soon be worse than the mass extinction caused by the asteroid
impact sixty-five million years ago off the Yucatan peninsula, which wiped out 83% of species including dinosaurs.
Before we came along, species evolved and went extinct for billions of years, creating and filling a diversity of ecological niches. Organisms used energy from the sun to
grow and reproduce, recycling the materials needed for life through an interdependent worldwide ecosystem. Mechanisms existed to maintain ecological stability, ensuring
that the environment didn’t change too fast for evolution to keep up. Our biosphere recovered from calamitous events like asteroid collisions, even though only a minority
of species made it through some of those catastrophes. Today’s ongoing catastrophe may eliminate all but the smallest and simplest of life forms.
we’ve changed our environment too fast for other species to adapt. A system’s
Our species has flourished, but without realizing it,
stability can only be eroded so far, after which it becomes unstable. We’re approaching a point where the world’s
ecosystem will change too fast even for us to adapt. We will become extinct.
It’s already too late for us to return to the world as we found it or even as it was ten years ago. We’ve wiped out too many species. However, we can protect the
remaining fragile stability. In a word, we must seek sustainability, which means consuming resources only as fast as they’re replenished. All the trends on our
graph have to be reversed, until they’re all back to pre-industrial levels or lower. This doesn’t mean returning to a pre-industrial quality of life – in fact, we should all be
able to live much better once there are fewer of us. But we have to take effective action very soon, before it’s too late.
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BRINKS – WORLD CAN NOT SUSTAIN

(__) PLANET CAN NOT SUSTAIN 7.5 BILLION
MEADOWS ET AL 2004 [Donella, adjunct professor of Environmental Studies @ Dartmouth,
“Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update”, page 204]/ ttate
But industrial output peaks in 2040 and declines at about the same rate as it did in Scenario 2, and for exactly the
same reasons. The larger capital plant emits more pollution, which has negative effects on agricultural production.
Capital has to be diverted to the agricultural sector to sustain food production. And later on, after 2050, pollution
levels are sufficiently high to have negative impacts on human life expectancies. In summary, the model world
experiences a “pollution crisis” where high levels of pollution poison land and lead to food shortages for the
people. Thus, given the limits and technologies assumed in the simulated world of Scenario 7, and given no
constraints on material aspirations, that world cannot sustain even 7.5 billion people. We do not avoid collapse if
we stabilize only the global population. Continued capital growth is as unsustainable as population growth. Each, if
left unchecked, can produce an ecological footprint that exceeds the carrying capacity of the globe.
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AT: LOWER FERTILITY RATES
(__) FERTILITY RATES ARE NOT DECLINING IN MANY COUNTRIES

ALEXANDROTOS 2005 [Nikos, FAO, POPULATION, AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, June,
Pages 237-258] / ttate
Several of the countries still experiencing rapid demographic growth have poor agricultural resources or have
resources that are difficult to exploit, whether because of remoteness from population centers, lack of infrastructure, high incidence of disease, or other
circumstances. Their economies are also highly dependent on agriculture, high percentages of their gross domestic product and exports come
from agriculture, and high proportions of their population depend on agriculture for a living. This combination could condemn such countries to
persistent poverty if future populations were to become as large as projected and urbanization or emigration to
other countries were to provide outlets no larger than foreseen in the demographic projections. Gallup and Sachs (2000)
consider that countries in the tropical zones have limited potential for productively absorbing more labor in agriculture. There is a possibility, therefore, that in some of
these countries the Malthusian specter could endure at the local level, no matter that for the world as a whole population growth may fall
to zero and surplus food production potential may exist in other parts of the world. These countries have few alternatives but to continue to
depend on further exploitation of agricultural resources for their food security and survival as well as for their overall development.
There are 19 countries with “high” projected population growth rates in the period 2000–2050. “High” is defined here as a growth rate of
1.8 percent per annum or higher, that is, at least twice that of the developing- country average for the same 50-year period. Their main demographic variables are shown in
they all have
Table 1, and those pertaining to food security and other socioeconomic characteristics are shown in Table 2. With the possible exception of Mauritania,
serious problems of food insecurity, as evidenced by their low per capita apparent food consumption and high prevalence of undernourishment. Their
rapid demographic growth can represent a serious obstacle to improvements in food security. The historical experience of the
past four decades shows that 13 out of the 19 “high population growth” countries never achieved a national average of apparent food consumption exceeding 2,500
kcal/person/day, a level totally inadequate as a national average. Eight of them never exceeded 2,200 kcal (see Table 2). In some of these countries the paucity of agricultural
resources does not augur well for the prospect that agriculture can play the role expected of it and that even the present inadequate levels of nutrition can be maintained. For
in a study of Ethiopia with projections to 2030, Lutz et al. (2004b: 208) conclude that, even under their optimistic assumptions, the food security
example,
situation is bound to deteriorate further, and “it seems that the population–environment– agriculture nexus in
Ethiopia has fallen below the threshold of sustainability.”
AND, ANY DECLINE IN FERTILITY HAS BEEN UNEVEN

UNFPA 1999 [“Chapter 2: Population Changes and People’s Choices”, STATE OF THE WORLD
POPULATION: 1999, http://www.unfpa.org/swp/1999/chapter2c.htm] / ttate
The number of births per year rose from 98 million in 1950 to a peak of 134 million in the late 1980s, and is
projected to remain just under 130 million for the next 20 years while death rates slowly rise as the global population ages.
Although only a very few countries have declining populations, 61 countries (with about 44 per cent of the world’s population)
already have below-replacement fertility rates (less than 2.1 births per woman). The number of such countries is projected to grow to 87 by 2015,
encompassing about two thirds of the world’s population.
On the other hand, in 2050, 130 countries will still have positive growth rates, 44 of them above 1 per cent per
year, about the rate observed in more-developed regions in 1965.
In 1950-1955, the average fertility rate in the more-developed regions was 2.8 children per woman; it has since dropped to 1.6 and is projected to begin a slow rise, to 1.8,
by the middle of next century. In the less-developed regions, the fertility rate was almost 6.2 in 1950; it was slightly less than 3 by 1999, and is projected to fall to less than
2.1 by 2045.
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AT: LOWER FERTILITY RATES
(__) THE DECLINE IN FERTILITY RATES HAVE ONLY SLOWED THE DOUBLING RATE OF THE
POPULATION SIZE
MEADOWS ET AL 2004 [Donella, adjunct professor of Environmental Studies @ Dartmouth,
“Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update”, page 29]/ ttate
That turnaround in population growth rate is an amazing shift, indicating major changes in the cultural factors that
cause people to choose their family size and in the technical factors that enable them to carry out that choice
effectively. The global average number of children born per woman went down from 5 in the 1950s to 2.7 in the
1990s. In Europe at the turn of the twenty-first century, completed family size averaged 1.4 children per couple,
considerably less than the number required to replace the population. The European population is projected to
decline slowly, from 728 million in 1998 to 715 million in 2025. This fertility downturn does not mean that total
world population growth has ceased, or ceased being exponential. It simply means that the doubling time has
lengthened (from 36 years at 2 percent per year to 60 years at 1.2 percent per year) and may lengthen still farther.
The net number of people added to the planet was in fact higher in 2000 than it was in 1965, though the growth
rate was lower. Table 2-3 shows why: The lower rare in 2000 was multiplied by a larger population.
AND, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA’S FERTILITY RATES HAVE DECLINED VERY SLOWLY

Fertility has declined most quickly in Latin America and Asia, less rapidly in North Africa and the Middle East,
and much more slowly in sub-Saharan Africa. Asia’s fertility fell sharply in the last 50 years, from 5.9 to 2.6
children per woman. Sub-Saharan Africa’s has dropped much more slowly, from 6.5 to 5.5. Latin America and the
Caribbean have seen a decline from 5.9 to 2.7, North Africa and Western Asia from 6.6 to 3.5.
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LINK HELPERS – LINEARITY
And the impact’s linear—for every one person the plan saves, ten more will die in the crunch
Ehrlich & Ehrlich, 74, (Paul R. is professor of population studies @ Stanford and Anne H. is the co-author of
several books on overpopulation and ecology, “Misconceptions, Proquest New York Times Historical, June 16, pg.
241, accessed 7/17/07.) / vinay
Furthermore, there are other pernicious fallacies in the “what we as Americans can do about the world population
problem” game. Let’s start with a fallacy that the authors helped to create—the idea that we might suc-cessfully
pressure govern-ments into launching effective population control programs. In the first edition of our book “The
Population Bomb,” it was suggested that the United States try to use its food aid as a lever to get recalcitrant
governments moving on population control programs. The logic then (as today) was impeccable. If you deluded
people into thinking that either the U.S. could (or would) supply food in perpetuity for an number of people, you
were doing evil. Sooner or later, population growth would completely outstrip the capacity of the United States or
any other nation to supply food. For every 1,000 people saved today, perhaps 10,000 would die when the crunch
came. Simply sending food to hungry nations with population explo-sions is analogous to a physician prescribing
aspirin as the treatment for a patient with operable cancer—in deferring something unpleasant, disaster entrained.
Yes, send the food—but insist that population control measures be instituted. But despite the logic, no on in the
U.S. Government paid the slightest heed to that suggestion (or tolerated proposals by Wil-liam and Paul Paddock
in their 1968 book, “Famine—1975!”), and the point is now moot, since we have no more sur-plus food.
(__) EACH PERSON SAVED  MORE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET

BROWN 2006 [Paul, PhD, NOTES FROM A DYING PLANET, page 141] / ttate
The really bad news is that the two younger populations increase in size for about 30 years because major portions
of their populations are younger than the child-bearing age of 25 at the time they all shift to the one-child rule. This
is disastrous because the more people there are during this period, the more damage they do to their environment,
and the fewer resources will be left for the survivors, if any, one or two centuries from now. For every person, for
every year that a population remains unsustainable, they inflict more damage.
(__) MUST SLOW POPULATION GROWTH TO AVOID ALL IMPACTS

All of our worst problems—environmental degradation, resource depletion, even climate change and mass
extinctions—can be eliminated or alleviated, but only if we reduce our population size enough, fast enough.
Population pressure has caused wars, destroyed great civilizations, and driven brutal colonization, genocide, and
exploitation.
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LINKS – REVERSING DEATH CHECKS
AND, EMPIRICALLY, LOWER MORTALITY RATES HAVE A LARGER IMPACT ON POPULATION

GROWTH THAN FERTILITY RATES
KIMBALL 2006 [John, professor of biology @ Tufts, “Human Population Growth”,
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/P/Populations.html] / ttate
Birth rate (b) − death rate (d) = rate of natural increase (r).
• birth rate expressed as number of births per 1000 per year (currently 14 in the U.S.);
• death rate expressed as the number of deaths per 1000 per year (currently 8 in the U.S.);
• So the rate of natural increase is 6 per thousand (0.006 or 0.6%).
Although the value of r is affected by both birth rate and death rate, the recent history of the human population has
been affected more by declines in death rates than by increases in birth rates.
The graph shows birth and death rates in Mexico since 1930. The introduction of public health measures, such as
• better nutrition
• greater access to medical care
• improved sanitation
• more widespread immunization
has produced a rapid decline in death rates, but until recently there was no corresponding decline in birth rates. In
2006, r is 1.7%. (Data from the Population Reference Bureau.)
Although death rates declined in all age groups, the reduction among infants and children had — and will continue to have — the greatest impact on population growth. This
is because they will soon be having children of their own.
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(__) LOWER MORTALITY RATES  POPULATION EXPLOSION

At the beginning of the 20th century, the world’s population was approximately 1.5 billion; by 1960 it had
doubled; and by late 1999, it had quadrupled to 6 billion. The global population is unlikely ever again to grow as
fast as it has in the last few decades and particularly the past 12 years, in which a billion people were added.
Annual additions to the global population rose from 47 million per year in 1950–1955 to a peak of 86 million in
1985–1990. This unprecedented growth was the net result of faster declines in mortality than in fertility, both from
initially high levels. As a consequence, the fourth, fifth and sixth billion marks in global population were achieved
in only 14, 13 and 12 years, respectively.3
(__) DECLINING DEATH RATES  POPULATION EXPANSION

The most important story behind the rapid rise from 3 to 6 billion people since 1960 is the unprecedented drop in
mortality. This trend actually began in the 19th and early 20th century, but intensified after World War II as basic sanitation, clean drinking
water and modern health care became more available in larger areas of the world. Since 1950, the death rate has been
cut in half, from about 20 to fewer than 10 deaths per year per thousand people. At the same time, average global
life expectancy has risen from 46 to 66 years.
The world’s population is healthier from infancy through old age than it ever has been. Global infant mortality has
fallen by two thirds since 1950, from 155 per thousand live births to 57 per thousand; this rate is projected to be reduced by a further two thirds by 2050. Maternal
mortality has also declined, but much more slowly and less generally (see Chapter 3). Other promising health trends include
improvements in immunization levels and health education.
One positive effect of lengthening life-spans and better medical treatment has been that the annual number of deaths actually fell by more than 10 per cent between 1955 and
1975 even as nearly 1.5 billion people were added to the world population. Subsequently the number of deaths began to increase. The current number of deaths per year, 52
million, is the same as in 1950, when the population was less than half the size it is today.
Death rates have declined substantially in the less-developed regions since 1950, but have remained roughly constant in the more-
developed regions because of their greater proportion of older people.
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(__) Decreasing death checks causes a population boom – Aff studies flawed.
Demeny ’04 (Paul, Distinguished Scholar at the Population Council, POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
REVIEW, http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/councilarticles/pdr/PDR303Demeny.pdf, September 2004) / RICE
By the criteria of its basic input characteristics, the core trio of the UN projections up to 2300 could be justly characterized as optimistic to a
fault. Mortality improves everywhere, but the changes, in comparison to those experienced during the last century, are supposed to be modest.
Radical changes in biomedical technology that would push average life expectancy well beyond 100 years are not part of
the scenario. Thus, the potential curse of populations with extreme senescence is assumed away. Also excluded, from the post-2050 future, are
mortality setbacks, even temporary ones, ignoring numerous warning signs clearly present in the contemporary world.
Posited fertility changes are also a model of conservatism: the medium scenario envisages convergence to replacement levels everywhere,
albeit at differing speeds. This leads to a global stationary population, or, rather, one creeping up in size very slowly through an accretion of the very old, as that category is
currently defined. The bracketing scenarios, in terms of total fertility rates, differ from the middle one, up or down, by only a quarter child, thus assuming away the
possibility of precipitous population decline or rapid population growth. As to migration, the 190-odd territorial units of today’s world are preserved for the next 300 years
and their borders, past the middle of the twenty-first century, are crossed only by temporary migrants—presumably just tourists or business travelers. Changes in each of
these characteristics, if any, especially after 2050, are assumed to be slow—indeed nearly imperceptible year-after-year and even decade-after-decade, and by the twenty-
If these surprise-free long-term scenarios, especially the one articulated in the medium projection, sound too good
third century virtually nil.
to be true in comparison to the demographic dramas and dislocations of the twentieth century, they probably are. Paradoxically, the coming-true of their end-of-
history outcomes, even if they are in harmony with a near-consensus in expert opinion, could be called a historical surprise par excellence.
(__) Decreasing death checks means a population boom.

Simon ’81 (Julian, a professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the
Cato Institute, "The Ultimate Resource II", www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR22.txt) /
rice
The main cause of the rapid increase in population during the past two centuries - the most important and amazing
demographic fact, and the greatest human achievement in history, in my view - is the decrease in the world's death
rate. It took thousands of years to increase life expectancy at birth from just over 20 years to the high '20's. Then
in just the past two centuries, the length of life you could expect for your baby or for yourself in the advanced
countries jumped from less than 30 years in France, and the mid-30s in Great Britain, to perhaps 75 years today.
(See figure 22-8.) What greater event has humanity witnessed? Then starting well after World War II, the
length of life one could expect in the poor countries has leaped upwards by perhaps fifteen or even twenty years
since the l950s, caused by advances in agriculture, sanitation, and medicine. (See figure 22-9.) Again, it is this
amazing decrease in the death rate that is the cause of there being a larger world population nowadays than in
former times. In the 19th century the planet Earth could sustain only one billion people. Ten thousand years ago,
only 4 million could keep themselves alive. Now, more than 5 billion people are living longer and more healthily
than ever before, on average. The increase in the world's population represents our victory against death, our
advancing march toward life being ended mainly by the diseases of old age.
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LINKS – FOREIGN AID

(__) Foreign aid increases the fertility rate – Africa proves
Abernethy, 2002 (Virginia, an American professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt
University School of Medicine, “The Demographic Transition Revisited: Lessons for Foreign Aid and U.S.
Immigration Policy,” http://www.carryingcapacity.org/va2.html) / rosenberg
Between the end of World War II and 1970 fertility rates rose virtually everywhere in the third world. The demographic
transition model bears a share of responsibility for this overpopulation debacle because the policies it spawned raised
worldwide expectations. The greatest damage was done by aid and the rhetoric of development and prosperity because they
undermine the rationale for limiting family size. Africa, which has received more in foreign aid per capita than any other
continent, has the highest fertility rate in the world--about six children per woman. It was not always so: In the 1950s, fertility
in Africa averaged about one-half child less per woman than in South America.
What changed? Could it be that Africans got three times as much aid per capita as South Americans? Admittedly, Africa
has among the highest illiteracy and mortality rates in the world. But these conditions were not new; indeed, illiteracy and
mortality rates were both declining even as fertility rose! Moreover, anthropologist and development specialist Penn
Handwerker (1991) says that, in Africa, educating women barely changes completed family size; at best it delays the first
birth for a few extra years while girls remain in school.
(__) Large-scale aid encourages population increases

Abernethy, ’93 (Virginia, an American professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt
University School of Medicine, Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our Future, 1993) / rosenberg
The lessons of microloans and opportunities for women are not that foreign aid has no role. The lesson is that
modesty, frugality and personalized help with local entrepreneurial activity are crucial. International aid goes
astray by trying to implement large-scale programs which involve bureaucrats, are insensitive to local and
ongoing economic activities, and damage or deplete natural resources. The single most destructive aspect of
foreign aid may be that it dispels the former cultural balance based on understanding limits. Large-scale foreign
aid reinforces unrealistic expectations and belief in abundance.
Couples raise their family-size target when they think prosperity is on the horizon. Although children are
rewarding in many ways, they are costly to raise. Children can be a type of consumption good, and when people get a
windfall, they want more of them. The result for a nation is population growth. Africa, the recipient of large-scale
foreign aid and investment through the late 1970s, now has the highest population growth rate in that continent's history,
3.2 percent per year. Fertility rose in the decades after World War II as though in response to international aid and
economic activity.
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LINKS – PUBLIC HEALTH CARE
(__) TECHNOLOGY MAGNIFIES THE LINK – IT PROLONGS THE SUFFERING BECAUSE IT

ALLOWS THE POPULATION TO EXPAND
p. 239] / ttate
Every factor influencing demographic projections confronts the same unknowable forces. Disaster breeds disaster.
Medical technology devised 5 and applied compassionately can inadvertently invoke even greater pain and
suffering by keeping more people alive for longer periods and setting the groundwork for more and more children.
Healthier children are understood to be the secret to fewer children. And yet, just the opposite can also be argued.
(__) PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCE  DECREASE MORTALITY RATES IN AFRICA – MOST

AFRICAN DEATHS ARE PREVENTABLE – PLAN REVERSES THIS NATURAL DEATH CHECK
GOLIBER 1997 [Thomas, PhD, “Population and Reproductive Health in sub-Saharan Africa”,
POPULATION BULLETIN, December,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3761/is_199712/ai_n8764393] / ttate]
More than half of the annual deaths in sub-Saharan Africa are caused by infectious and parasitic diseases. In
contrast, these diseases cause only 5 percent of the deaths in developed countries and about 20 percent of deaths in
Latin America. Because most deaths from infectious and parasitic diseases can be prevented through public health
measures, immunizations, and adequate health care, this heavy death toll in sub-Saharan Africa is a testament to
the depth and breadth of the region's poverty and the low level of economic development. Less than half of the
population has access to safe drinking water; unsanitary drinking water promotes the spread of such waterborne
diseases as cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A and E, and schistosomiasis. Malaria is endemic in the region and kills an
estimated 1 million children each year. Common childhood diseases such as measles and whooping cough also
claim the lives of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans annually.7
Most African countries are committed to improving health care and they collaborate on public health campaigns
with international organizations such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF. Universal immunization of
children against measles, whooping cough, tuberculosis, and three other major childhood diseases has been a major
thrust of international health efforts in the region. This effort could bring down death rates even given the low level
of economic development. Unfortunately, the HIV/AIDS epidemic may reverse the gains in life expectancies in
some African countries over the next few decades.
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LINKS – DISEASE
(__) DISEASE SPREAD IS KEY TO CHECKING POPULATION EXPANSION

HARDIN 1991 [Gary, professor @ UC – San Diego, “From Shortage to Longage: Forty Years in the
Population Vineyards”,
http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_from_shortage_to_longage.html] /
ttate
The potential of exponential growth in the human population is a standing threat of human welfare. Until very
recently, however, this threat was mitigated by the sporadic eruption of such crowd-diseases as dysentery, cholera
and plague which, at their worst, could wipe out a quarter to a half of a population in a year or two. Crowd-
diseases were the most important negative feedbacks of the Malthusian demostat.
Sanitation and modern medicine have greatly weakened the power of disease as an effective controller of
population size. When external controls are eliminated, humanity must then face the problem of devising
alternative controls that are internal to the species. In the past two centuries much effort has been expended looking
for acceptable internal population controls-so far without much success. This daunting problem remains to be
solved.
(__) THE AFF PLAN TO SOLVE DISEASE DISRUPTS THE NATURAL CHECK ON POPULATION
GROWTH
HARDIN 1998 [Gary, prof @ UC – San Diego, THE OSTRICH FACTOR, page 146] / ttate
In the plays of ancient Greece the playwright sometimes became so entangled with the plot that no rational
resolution seemed possible. Rather than admit defeat, the author took the coward's way out: he invented an agent
of the gods who, by supernatural means, engineered a happy ending. The agent was called a deus ex machina "god
from a gadget" I guess we'd say now. A modern scientist, using Einstein's technique for solving the difficult
problem of species survival, would ask, "How would God manage it?" He or she would soon conclude that the
potential increase of a species must always be exponential: that is, like money put out at compound interest. But if
the resources practically available to the species are finite, the species will soon eat itself out of house and home
and die. That won't do. So Einstein's God must supply a deus ex machina (or several) to every species to keep it
from committing suicide. That is where the "blessings of Tertullian" come in, and the greatest of these is disease.
The infectivity of pathogenic agents is subject to a scale effect: the denser the susceptible population, the larger the
proportion of the population that will die of disease. Now human beings are interfering with the ancient balance.
Man the inventor and discoverer-Homo faber- has seriously injured, and may eventually kill, the Tertullian deus ex
machina.
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2NC AIDS LINK RUN

FIRST, Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest population growth rate—public health measures increase this—
however, the AIDS epidemic is checking back population growth now.
Byrant, 2005 (Peter J. (P.H.D) is a professor in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, “BIODIVERSITY and CONSERVATION”,
Hypertext Book, University of California, http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec24/b65lec24.htm, accessed 7/15/07.) / vinay
Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest birth rate, the highest rate of population increase and the lowest use of
contraceptives of any major region in the world. The average annual population increase in sub-Saharan Africa is 3
percent, ranging from 2.5 percent to 3.8 percent. But its food supply increases by only 1%. In 12 countries of the region, women have, on average,
more than seven children. At current rates, the population of sub-Saharan Africa will double by 2016. The biggest annual increases --more than 3.5 percent
--will occur in some of the region's poorest countries: Ivory Coast, Togo, Comoros and Kenya, whose per capita gross national product ranges between $340 and $690 (compared with $22,560 in the United States).
Another area with very rapid population growth is Israeli-occupied Gaza --with a fertility rate of 7.9 children per woman, the highest in the world, and annual population increase of 4 percent, also the world's highest. It is expected to double in population by 2007. Other Middle
Eastern countries where women have seven or more children are Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Rapid population growth has social consequences that have been perfectly clear for at least 30 years. They are low
living standards, low education standards, unemployment, starvation, and civil war; these will continue to increase
in the developing nations. It also leads to environmental destruction, mainly in the form of deforestation caused by
slash-and-burn agriculture, which can only be sustainable at very low population density. This means that the rate
of deforestation is going to increase.
Age Structures and the Demographic Transition
The populations of European nations, of North America, and parts of Asia, have all gone through a characteristic series of changes called the demographic transition:
I. Before the transition, both birth and death rates are high, and the growth rate is zero or close to it.
, the birth rate remains high while the death rate declines due to better public health measures (e.g.
II. In the transitional phase
immunization) and expanded food production due to the improvement of agricultural methods. Population growth is a result of the difference between death
rate and birth rate (ignoring immigration and emigration for now), so the decreased death rate leads to a high growth rate.
III. Birth rate begins to decline due to better education, better family planning, more career options for women, and reduced infant mortality which reduces the desire for large families. The growth rate declines, eventually to zero.
(graphics from the Department of Meteorology, University of Maryland College Park)
This is a description of what has happened in presently industrialized nations, and in the 1950's it was accepted as a description of what would inevitably happen to all countries. But in the developing countries (Mexico as an example), the death rate has declined but the birth
rate has stayed high. In these agrarian countries, large family sizes are needed to supply the farm labor. The social and economic changes that could lower the birth rate have not happened.
In many developing countries, the populations will probably stabilize not because of a decrease in the birth rate, but a return to higher death rates, and this will reflect mainly an increase in the number of children dying from starvation-related causes. Over 40% of deaths in
India are of children under four years old.
The U.S. is at an early stage in a demographic transition. The growth rate has slowed to 0.7% per year although we are still the fastest-growing industrialized nation. The death rate has been reduced substantially but this has not yet been compensated by a big enough decline in
birth rate. About half of our population growth is from immigration, higher than in any other nation. Teenage pregnancy rates have been soaring, both on a nationwide level and in Orange County.
Different countries have different population structures, leading to two different types of problem: The population increase in the less-developed countries will be largely in the reproductive age classes. Even if average family sizes were brought down dramatically in the near
future, the population will still increase substantially as the huge pre-adult population in the developing world reaches child-bearing age and reproduces. These are also the people that need jobs.
A different problem faces the developed countries: the increase is in the older age groups, especially those that are beyond employable age. The number of people over 100 years old in this country was 4,000 in 1970; 64,000 in 1990, and is projected to be 1.4 million in 2040.
Visit Population Pyramids and ask for dynamic population pyramids for any country. Compare Mexico, Sweden and the U.S.
Effects of Uneven Income Distribution
The widening gap in the distribution of income is a major cause of environmental decline. In 1960, the richest 20% of the world's people absorbed 70% of global income; by 1989 their share had increased to 83%. Over the same period, the poorest 20% saw their share of global
income decrease from 2.3% to 1.4%. The ratio of the richest fifth's share to the poorest fifth's share rose from 30 to 59 over this period. The rich really do get richer and the poor get poorer.
The inequality of income distribution is bad for the environment for two reasons: it encourages excess consumption, waste and pollution at the rich end of the spectrum and it perpetuates poverty at the poor end. Both categories of the population are more likely than those in the
middle to do serious ecological damage - the rich because of their high consumption of energy, raw materials, and manufactured goods, and the poor because they are often forced to cut down forest, grow crops and graze cattle in order to subsist on the land.
A similar picture emerges at the national level. The rich countries have a large per capita impact on the environment because of their high rate of consumption and waste. The U.S., with only 4.7 percent of the world's population, consumes 25 percent of the world's resources
and generates 25 to 30 percent of the world's waste. Compared to an average citizen in India, a typical person in the U.S. uses:
50 times more steel
56 times more energy
170 times more synthetic rubber and newsprint
250 times more motor fuel
300 times more plastic
Each American consumes as much grain as five Kenyans, and as much energy as 35 Indians, 150 Bangladeshis (a whole village!) or 500 Ethiopians.
Paul Ehrlich has suggested that we should measure the environmental impact of populations not simply as a function of the number of people but by using the equation I (environmental impact) = P x A x T, where P is the size of the Population, A is Affluence (or consumption),
and T is a measure of how environmentally malign are the Technologies and the economic, social, political and political arrangements involved in servicing the consumption. Mainly because of the high level of "T", the population growth in the United States is more serious
for the environment than anywhere else in the world.
Many countries (newly industrialized countries) have become much more industrialized since World War II, and this has allowed them to greatly increase their standards of living. But this has been at enormous ecological costs, mainly in other countries. Japan, economically
very successful and with a very high population density (331/sq.km.) has only 1/7 the world average of cropland per capita. So it imports 3/4 of its grain and 2/3 of its wood. It is now the world's largest net importer of forest products. The Netherlands, to meet its need for food
and fiber, relies on importing the products of about 10 times its own area of cropland, pasture and forest. These countries, and many other industrialized countries, have far exceeded their own internal carrying capacity and must rely on other nations to provide food.
There is nothing wrong in principle with one nation selling its agricultural and forestry products, and other nations selling their manufactured goods. However, many developing countries would like to emulate the industrialized nations and increase their standard of living. But
it is not possible for all countries to exceed their carrying capacities and convert to manufacturing.
POPULATION POLICIES
U.N. Conference on Population (Cairo, 1994)
The United Nations has for over forty years been coordinating efforts to bring global population growth under control.
At the U.N. Conference on Population in Cairo in 1994, 179 nations endorsed a new "Programme of Action" that called on governments to provide universal access to reproductive health care by 2015 as a global human rights imperative. Instead of focusing just on controlling
population growth (an approach which was not very effective) this program tries to identify and deal with the many interrelated social problems that contribute to population growth and poverty. The conference recognized that meeting individual reproductive health needs
would enable couples to choose the number and spacing of their children, and that this would lead to smaller families and stabilization of the human population.
The goal of the Cairo agreement is to stabilize human population at 7.8 billion by 2050. There are five basic components:
Provide universal access to family-planning and reproductive health programs and to information and education regarding these programs. An estimated 125 million women desire family-planning services but do not have access to them.
Recognize that environmental protection and economic development are not necessarily antagonistic, but that economic development is essential for environmental protection. Promote free trade, private investment and development assistance.
Make women equal participants in all aspects of society - by increasing women's health, education, and employment.
Increase access to education. Inadequate education is an undeniable determinant of high birth rates and prevents individuals from reaching their full potential. The goal is universal primary education by 2015. Provide information and services for adolescents to prevent
unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortion, and the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.
Ensure that men fulfill their responsibility to ensure healthy pregnancies, proper child care, promotion of women's worth and dignity, prevention of unwanted pregnancies, and prevention of the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases.
The United Nations Population Fund
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the main international source of population assistance to developing countries. It is funded by voluntary contributions from member countries. The Fund supports Programs to improve pre- and post-natal mother's health, to
provide access to voluntary family planning programs and contraception, to support education on sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, and to formulate population policies that support sustainable development and poverty eradication. The fund helps to reduce unwanted
pregnancies, abortions, and deaths and injuries for millions of mothers around the world.
U.S. funding for UNFPA has been withheld for many years because of the agency's support of China's policies (in 1983, the peak year for abortions in China, UNFPA presented China's family planning minister with the U.N. Population Award). In 2002, President George W.
Bush withheld the $34 million that both houses of Congress had agreed to give to the agency, arguing that UNFPA gives tacit support to China's one-child policy just by working in China. The president has continued to deny these funds every year.� The U.S. is the only
country ever to deny funding to UNFPA for non-budgetary reasons. UNFPA estimates that the loss of U.S. support could result in 2 million unwanted pregnancies, nearly 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths.
China
China's population in 2002 was estimated at 1.28 billion people, which is five times higher than that of the U.S. and over 20% of the world’s total. Its land area is slightly less than that of the U.S., but only 10% of it is arable compared to 19% in the U.S.
In China, a "one-child-per-couple" policy has been in effect since 1979, with the (unmet) goal of limiting the nation's population to 1.2 billion by the year 2000. The policy includes rewards for having only one child including monetary grants, additional maternity leave, and
increased land allocations for farmers. The children of these couples are also given preferential treatment in education, housing, and employment. The policy allows couples to have a second child only under rare circumstances, and does not allow more than two children.
After her first child is born, a woman is required to wear an intrauterine device, and removal of this device is considered a crime. Otherwise, one of the parents must be sterilized. Physicians receive a bonus whenever they perform sterilization. Couples are punished for
refusing to terminate unapproved pregnancies, for giving birth when under the legal marriage age and until recently they were punished for having a second child. The penalties include fines, loss of land grants, food, loans, farming supplies, benefits, jobs and discharge from
the Communist Party. In some provinces the fines can be up to 50% of a couple's annual salary.
In many provinces sterilization is required after the couple has had two children.
The one-child-per-couple policy was strictly enforced during the early 1980's. The coercive measures peaked in 1983, when 14.4 million abortions were performed (for comparison, there were 19 million live births in that year). Because of strong public resistance, the Chinese
government moderated its stance in the late 1980's and tried instead to emphasize public education and good public relations with the people. Because the birth rate started to climb again, the government tightened up its family planning guidelines in 1987 and 1989. In 2001, a
new law was passed to reinforce and standardize the one-child policy over the entire country. It includes incentives for compliance but no longer requires fines to be imposed for couples who have a second child.
China's draconian population policy has brought the average number of children per woman down from 5.01 in 1970 to 1.84 in 1995. But the Chinese population is still growing. This is because the children born during the previous period of high fertility are having children --
albeit fewer per couple -- of their own. China did not achieve its goal of stabilizing population at 1.2 billion in the year 2000. Instead, it grew to 1.3 billion in 2000 and will inevitably increase to about 1.45 billion by 2031.
But China’s environmental impact is increasing much faster than its population.� Its economy is growing at nearly 10% per year, and its population is already consuming more grain, meat, coal and steel than the U.S. China still lags behind the U.S. in oil consumption but is
rapidly catching up.
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[It continues}
2NC AIDS LINK RUN
[Continued..no text omitted]
If economic growth continues at the current rate, by 2031 China's income per person will be equivalent to that of the U.S. today, according to projections by Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.� This would mean that China's consumption of grain
would be two-thirds of the current grain consumption for the entire world. And if the Chinese consume oil at the same rate as the U.S. today, they would consume 99 million barrels a day which is more than the entire world is currently producing (84 million barrels a day).
China’s economic growth has led to unimaginable pollution problems all over the country. According to China's deputy environment minister, five of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in China; acid rain is falling on one-third of the country; half of the water in its seven
largest rivers is 'completely useless'; a quarter of China's citizens lack access to clean drinking water; one-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air; and less than a fifth of the trash in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable way.
A 2005 report from Greenpeace shows that China’s economic progress depends on a huge level of deforestation both at home and abroad.� China cut back on logging its own forests in 1988 after catastrophic flooding, caused by deforestation, killed thousands of people.�
Now China imports vast amounts of tropical hardwood, promoting disastrous deforestation, much of it illegal, in Papua New Guinea and other tropical countries.� About half of the timber from the world's threatened rainforests is exported to China, more than to any other
destination.� Much of the wood is used to make plywood for export, so China is now the world's largest plywood producer and exporter.
The inescapable conclusion: China's dramatic economic growth is one of the greatest environmental threats the earth has ever faced.
India
In India, where family-planning efforts have been less aggressive, the population is growing much faster. With 947 million inhabitants today, India may overtake China as the world's most populous nation, surpassing the 2 billion mark in 2025.
Rising death rates
In 1999 the Worldwatch Institute reported that rising death rates are slowing world population growth for the first time
since famine killed 30 million people in China in 1959-61. Partly because of these rising death rates, the U.N. revised its estimate for world
population in 2025 from 9.4 to 8.9 billion. Three factors are pushing the death rates up, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian sub-
continent: the HIV epidemic - between a fifth and a quarter of adults are already infected in Zimbabwe, Botswana,
Namibia, Zambia and Swaziland. In India, four million adults are now HIV positive, more than in any other country.
AND, THE AIDS DEATH CHECK IS SUPER-CHARGED – AIDS IS DRAINING OTHER PUBLIC
HEALTH RESOURCES, WHICH FURTHER INCREASES MORTALITY RATES
The most obvious impact of the HIV/ AIDS epidemic will be on mortality, both directly through AIDS deaths, and
indirectly through strains on the health system, the increase in indigent orphans, and the facilitation of the spread
of other diseases such as tuberculosis. AIDS also will deplete the experienced labor force in some countries
because it tends to strike adults in their prime working ages.
AND, AIDS DECREASES FERTILITY RATES – REDUCES FERTILITY OF INFECTED WOMEN

In many countries, AIDS has erased decades of progress in reducing child mortality and increasing life expectancy.
In addition to increasing mortality, HIV/AIDS can also affect demographic change by reducing the fertility of
women who are infected and influencing age at marriage, sexual behaviour and contraceptive use.
AND, CURRENT AIDS INFECTION RATES MEANS MANY AFRICAN NATIONS WILL HIT ZERO
POPULATION GROWTH
Other African countries that are also expected to soon reach zero population growth as rising death rates offset high
fertility are Botswana (an HIV adult infection rate of 25 percent), Namibia (20 percent), Zambia (19 percent), and
Swaziland (18 percent). Other nations where roughly one out of 10 adults is now infected with the virus and where
the HIV/AIDS epidemic is spiraling out of control include Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Congo, Côte
de Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania. In the absence of a
concerted effort to check the spread of the virus, these countries too are heading for a rise in death rates that will
bring their population growth to a halt.
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2NC AIDS LINK RUN
AND, Even a worst case scenario AIDS outbreak wouldn’t cause extinction, it would barely register on the
scale of human history
Bostrom 2002 (Nick, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford, Journal of Evolution and Technology, “Existential risks,”
Vol. 9 March http://www.nickbostrom.com/existential/risks.html, dbm)
Risks in this sixth category are a recent phenomenon. This is part of the reason why it is useful to distinguish them from other risks. We have not evolved mechanisms,
either biologically or culturally, for managing such risks. Our intuitions and coping strategies have been shaped by our long experience with risks such as dangerous
animals, hostile individuals or tribes, poisonous foods, automobile accidents, Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts, World War I, World War II,
epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. These types of disasters have occurred many times and our cultural attitudes towards risk
have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such events are to the people immediately affected, in the big picture of
things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the
great sea of life. They haven’t significantly affected the total amount of human suffering or happiness or determined the long-term fate
of our species.
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LINKS - AIDS
AND, AIDS IS CHECKING POPULATION GROWTH NOW
In addition to checks imposed by food shortages, there is evidence that other checks on population growth are now
emerging, such as new infectious diseases, including AIDS. Ethnic conflicts within societies, such as Rwanda and
the Sudan, are also taking a growing toll. Water shortages on a scale that would deprive people of enough water to
produce food could undermine governments.
(__) AIDS IS OFFSETTING INCREASING BIRTH RATES – STABILIZING AFRICAN POPULATION

GROWTH
If these threats are not dealt with, they can force countries back into stage one. For several African countries with
high HIV infection levels, this is no longer a hypothetical prospect. Although industrial nations have been able to
control the spread of the disease, holding infection levels under 1 percent of their populations, governments in
many developing countries—already overwhelmed by the pressures just described—have not been able to do so.
For example, in Zimbabwe, a country of 11 million people, more than 1.4 million of the adult population of less
than 5.6 million are infected with HIV. As a result of this 26-percent adult infection rate and the inability to pay for
costly retroviral drugs needed to treat those with the disease, Zimbabwe is expected to reach population stability in
the year 2002 as death rates climb to offset birth rates. In effect, it will have fallen back into stage one, marking a
tragic new development in world demography.
(__) AIDS HAS REVERSED THE INCREASING LIFE EXPECTANCY IN AFRICA

The UN and U.S. Census Bureau projections show declining life expectancy in many countries because of AIDS,
reversing the long-term improvements of the past 50 years. In Botswana, for example, the UN shows life
expectancy at birth falling from about 61 years in the late 1980s to 50 years in the late 1990s.43 The U.S. Census
Bureau projects more dramatic declines, with life expectancy falling to 33 years in Botswana by the year 2010.44
Over the next decade, 5 percent, 10 percent, or even 20 percent of adults will die from AIDS in many sub-Saharan
African countries. Hundreds of thousands of additional adults and children will become infected with HIV,
ensuring high levels of AIDS mortality well into the 21st century.
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LINKS – AIDS
(__) THE AIDS EPIDEMIC IN AFRICA HAS REVERSED DECLINING CHILD AND MOTHER
MORTALITY RATES
UNION FOR AFRICAN POPULATION STUDIES 2006 [“Conference Theme: The emerging issues on
Population and Development in Africa”, January 20, http://uaps.org/] / ttate
High mortality especially of children and mothers has been a characteristic of the African continent for decades.
While the continent saw almost universal decline in child mortality rates between the 1970s and early 1990s, there
is now evidence of reversal of this trend especially in countries that have been worst hit by HIV and AIDS and
where health systems remain inadequate. Endemic diseases such as malaria and re-emergence of tuberculosis have
compounded the challenges of halting the spread of HIV and mitigating the impact of AIDS. More than 20 million
Africans are living with the HIV virus and only a small fraction of these are able to access antiretroviral therapies
(ART). Even where access to ART has improved, hunger and widespread poverty continue to make HIV and AIDS
the biggest challenge to Africa to date. Sub-Saharan Africa also continues to face new threats from non-
communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and diabetes.
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LINKS – ARVS
(__) ARVS MEANS MILLIONS ARE ADDED TO THE POPULATION PRESSURE COOKER
News-Medical ’06 (Clinton's deal with drug companies will save millions of lives and millions of dollars,
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=15375, 1/16/06) / rice
Clinton's deal with drug companies will save millions of lives and millions of dollars
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has struck a deal with nine drug companies to reduce the cost of the second-line
AIDS drugs.
The drugs are needed to keep people alive once resistance to the medicines now being doled out in Africa has
developed, and also for rapid HIV tests.
The William J. Clinton Foundation has already helped drive down the price of the basic three-drug cocktail that is
now keeping more than a million people in Africa well.
Last week he announced an initiative with nine drug companies which he says will cut the cost of HIV/AIDS
testing and treatment in 50 developing countries and help save hundreds of thousands of lives.
The agreement between the Clinton Foundation and the drug companies aims to halve the cost of HIV/AIDS
diagnosis and lower the cost of second-line anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs by 30 percent or more.
It is estimated that as many as five million people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries are in urgent need of
treatment.
MORE EVIDENCE
PAHO ’03 (Pan American Health Organization, WHO, World AIDS Day: Fighting HIV Discrimination in the
Health Sector, http://www.paho.org/english/dd/pin/hiv_factsheet.htm) / rice
ARV medicines have dramatically reduced death rates, prolonged lives, improved quality of life, revitalized
communities and, to a large extent, transformed HIV/AIDS from a fatal condition to a manageable illness;
While there is still no cure for HIV/AIDS, ARV treatment can add many years of healthy life to an infected person.
In high-income countries, an estimated 1.5 million people currently live with HIV/AIDS. Most of them lead
productive lives, largely due to ARV therapy. In the US, for example, the introduction of triple combination ARV
therapy in 1996 led to a 70 percent decline in deaths attributable to HIV/AIDS;
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AIDS ≠ EXTINCTION
(__) The AIDS epidemic has been over-estimated

Washington Post, 2006 ( Craig Timberg, staff writer, “How AIDS in Africa was Overstated: Reliance on Data From Urban Prenatal
Clinics Skewed Early Projections” Washington Post April 6, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502517.html, accessed 7/18/07) / vinay
The United Nations started to revise its estimates in light of the new studies in its 2004 report, reducing the number of infections in Africa
by 4.4 million, back to the total four years earlier of 25 million. It also gradually decreased the overall infection rate for working-age
adults in sub-Saharan Africa, from 9 percent in a 2002 report to 7.2 percent in its latest report, released in November. Peter Ghys, an
epidemiologist who has worked for UNAIDS since 1999, acknowledged in an interview from his office in Geneva that HIV projections
several years ago were too high because they relied on data from prenatal clinics.But Ghys said the agency made the best estimates
possible with the information available. As better data emerged, such as the new wave of national population studies, it has made
revisions where necessary, he said. "What has happened is we have come to realize that indeed we have overestimated the epidemic a bit,"
he said.
(__) The number of people with AIDS has stabilized – the infected population is not rapidly increasing
Washington Post, 2006 ( Craig Timberg, staff writer, “How AIDS in Africa was Overstated: Reliance on Data From Urban Prenatal
Clinics Skewed Early Projections” Washington Post April 6, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2006/04/05/AR2006040502517.html, accessed 7/18/07) / vinay
Ghys added that studies now show that the overall percentage of Africans with HIV has stabilized, though U.N. models still show
increasing numbers of people with the virus because of burgeoning populations.Many other researchers, including Wilson from the World
Bank and two epidemiologists from the U.S. Agency for International Development who wrote a study published last week in the Lancet,
a British medical journal, dispute that conclusion, saying that the number of new cases in Africa peaked several years ago.
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LINKS – CONTRACEPTIVES
(__) Modern contraceptives upset traditional practices raising the fertility rate
The switch to fertility control through contraception may not be made because of information lag. Alternately, forest
and peasant peoples acquire rising expectations because modernity is often introduced with a message that the new ways
will make their lives easier and better. The message undercuts former incentives to live within the bounds of a known
environment. Small family .size, even if once valued, becomes irrelevant. Even in countries where extensive efforts are
underway to spread the use of modern contraception, the abandonment of traditional practices appears to offset, even
overwhelm, the effects of new technology. Hern and Chaudry assert that in South America and India ground can
still be lost. Those who would modernize and develop may work at cross-purposes with their own goals,
tampering with traditional culture to the peril of humanity.
The conclusion, that modernization initially raises the fertility rate, is a discouragement. No one will hazard to guess how
long the unwanted effect on fertility will last. Presumably, it lasts for some time after the most traditional elements of
society abandon their ancient practices and assumptions. Since modernization promises affluence, the first exposed
generation has little incentive to adopt modern contraception. As Charles Westoff and others can show, contraception is
accepted only after family size is large—larger than might formerly have been desired. The most prolonged adjustment
problem is likely to be just what George Borgstrum said: Traditional communities fully understood the limits of their
environment; but the introduction of new crops, technologies, and job opportunities destroyed their vision of limits.
Modernization brought rising expectations. This will be a long-lasting destabilizing factor.
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LINKS – TB
(__) SOLVING TB REDUCES A DEATH CHECK BY MILLIONS OF LIVES

Reuters ’04 (TB Care Will Save 500,000 Lives in Africa – Experts,
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/27296/newsDate/23-Sep-2004/story.htm, 9/23/04) / rice
As many as half a million lives could be saved every year in Africa if governments combine their approach to
tackle a rampant AIDS epidemic with measures to treat tuberculosis, health experts said.
Campaigners meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa this week said tuberculosis is a major killer for people
living with the HIV virus that causes AIDS, but few people on the continent are receiving the care they need to
treat the illness.
"If we jointly tackle TB and HIV, we can be much more effective in controlling both diseases," said Peter Piot,
executive director of the United Nations AIDS body, UNAIDS, in a joint statement issued with the World Health
Organization.
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LINKS – MALARIA
Disease, specifically Malaria, acts as a population check.

Greenhart ’07 (Ethan, eco-analyst, What is the most ethical way to fight Malaria?, http://www.spiked-
online.com/index.php?/site/article/3347/, 5/11/07) / RICE
This is exactly right. It doesn’t matter a damn what ‘advantages’ the GM mosquito will have in combating malaria
and saving human lives – instead we must think of the ecosystem, the food chain, the natural environment. It
makes me feel warm inside to know there are people like Matthews who will say what others dare not: the planet is
more important than the people who live on it, and protecting Mosquito Rights – their right to fly from plant to
plant and to lay down their lives for bats – is more important than enabling some African family to believe it can
protect itself from disease. Africans are becoming just as arrogant as we Westerners, so thank God there are people
like Matthews to bring them back to their senses.
Africans should be grateful for their diseased existence instead of dumbly thinking they can make their lives better
with technology. In fact, all this technology has been a disaster. As I have pointed out many times before, there are
simply too many people on the planet. Nature’s control mechanism has always been disease. At a time when
people are growing too old, too healthily in the ‘developed’ world, surely there should still be one place on the
planet where sickness can keep population in check?
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LINKS – LANDMINES
(__) DEMINING COULD PUT MILLIONS BACK INTO THE POPULATION CRUNCH
LSN ’07 (Landmine Survivors Network, co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize,
http://www.landminesurvivors.org/news_feature.php?id=31) / rice
RAND Report on De-mining Makes Recommendations That Could Save Millions of Survivors’ Lives
As of May 2003, 91 countries have a problem with landmines. Seventy of those countries reported mine casualties
since January 2001. People continue to be injured and killed at the rate of approximately 20,000 a year. There are
more than 350,000 people living with landmine injuries. That number is only going to go up. Getting the mines out
of the ground is crucial to saving the lives of people in those countries before they become casualties.
Approximately 100,000 mines are cleared each year. The number of existing mines currently deployed stands at
45-50 million, and more mines go into the ground every day. RAND estimates that clearing the existing mines, at
the current rate, would take about 450 years. Not factored in to this estimate are the mines that are being laid today
and in the future. On the Pakistani/Indian border, for instance, over 300,000 mines were laid in 2001. Obviously,
more needs to be done in the field of de-mining to save lives and limbs. But what?
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LINKS – DEVELOPMENT
(__) Development causes higher fertility by giving the appearance of greater opportunity
Abernethy, ’93 (Virginia, an American professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine,
Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our Future, 1993) / rosenberg
Some African countries that had very high fertility in the 1960s and 70s are now seeing declines. For example, Sudan's
fertility rate dropped by 17 percent (to 5.0 births per woman) (luring the 1980s. This trend could have many
explanations, but prosperity and modern family planning are nonstarters. A 1991 Newsletter of the Demographic and
Health Surveys states: "The use of contraception, although increasing, is still very low (6 percent of couples) and
probably has had little impact on fertility" (Fertility, 1991). Instead, the decline is attributed mainly to later ages of marriage and
first birth among the population at large. Believers in,'a benign, orderly transition would have one look for socioeconomic
development and modernization as the underlying causes of later childbearing. But in reality, the Sudanese economy
deteriorated markedly during the 1980s, people lost hope, and famine was widespread. Worse conditions should lead to
lower fertility? Read on.
East Africa experienced both buoyant optimism and rising fertility in the 1960s. Conversely, deteriorating
economic conditions and the AIDS epidemic devastated morale in the 1980s, and fertility fell between 14 and 20
percent in every country of the region. Also in the 1980s, Indonesia saw fertility decline and decline most among
people on the worst crowded islands and farmers who live on the most eroded slopes, that is, among the most
impoverished. Likewise, the worsening conditions of the fall
1980s coincided in Brazil with a 50 percent fain the fertility rate. Observers attribute the drop in fertility to economic
stagnation and rising infant mortality. Tibet is another country experiencing economic decline where childbearing is being
discouraged: In a departure from earlier practice, mothers are not given rest from their ordinary labors during pregnancy
or for care of a sick child, and while nursing, they are not given the extra foods believed to enhance milk production. Both
fertility and child survival are headed down.
So much for needing development and prosperity in order to lower family size. Instead we see fertility decline as
times get harder.
(__) Fertility rises with anticipated opportunity and falls with increased hardship
Abernethy, ’93 (Virginia, an American professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University School of
Medicine, Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our Future, 1993) / rosenberg
Optimism quite out of proportion to actual prospects often overrides present and past experience. Subsequent events
usually prove that forecasts were overly optimistic. But hope is a constant Aspect of the human disposition. During periods
of favorable change—or even rising expectations—couples appear to adjust family-size targets upward. Thus, contrary
to the predictions arising from assumptions about the demographic transition in I"Airope, various examples suggest that
a sense of expanding economic opportunity increases family size. Fertility rises along with actual and anticipated
prosperity
Conversely, unemployment, underemployment, and rising child mortality appear to signal shrinking resources and to
promote lower fertility In Egypt, fertility began to fall when grounds lor optimism dissipated. Rising infant mortality has
coincided with recent fertility declines in the Sudan, East Africa, and Brazil. The historical data of John Knodel and
Catherine Rollet-Echalier show that infant mortality remained high while fertility fell in Germany and France. One will
guess that, in China, rural resistance to small family size dissipate as soon as farmers feel the pinch of restrictive
migration policies, which force them to keep their unemployed at home.
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LINKS – POVERTY REDUCTION
(__) POVERTY REDUCTION  INFANT MORTALITY DECLINE

p. 179] / ttate
Life expectancy in Kenya has attained virtually the highest level in all of Africa – fifty-nine – up from a mere
thirty-five in 1948 – and the infant mortality rate (IMR) is less than seventy per thousand, as compared with 262 in
1962. But these figures are also bound to slip downward as the economic crisis continues to worsen. Already, the
IMR appears to be going up in the slums and poorest provinces.
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LINKS – FOOD AID

(__) Water and food aid do more harm than good by advancing population growth
Wells, irrigation, a dam, and the green revolution have not brought unalloyed good. Indeed, the minuses probably
outweigh the pluses. Altogether, they make a bad record for international aid. Nations gave out of a combination of
competitive self-interest and desire to do good; but no one making policy or in the scientific community
expected to be doing harm. The poor results were as unforeseen as they are horrifying to environmentalists and
humanitarians alike.
Even food aid given without thought to global realpolitik has its critics. Ethicist Joseph Fletcher (1991) and
biologist Garrett Hardin (1968) concur that, when populations exceed the carrying capacity of their lands,
famine aid may exacerbate long-term I shortages by keeping the starving alive long enough to add to
overpopulation by their reproduction. Fletcher tempers Hardin's conclusions by urging as an ethical guideline
that relief be withheld in only two kinds of famine situations: (1) when the probable consequences of sharing
would actually endanger the survival of the giver, and (2) when the probable consequences of sharing would
increase rather than decrease the recipients' misery; ... This second principle forbids giving food when it can be
foreseen that the recipients will thereby live on to reproductive years and thus increase the number of starving
people, plus the predictable diseases that go with starvation, because their country has already exceeded its
carrying capacity. Fletcher asserts that it is incumbent upon the giver to know the numbers, so that the
consequences of aid can be estimated realistically.
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LINKS – IMMUNIZATIONS
(__) IMMUNIZATIONS DECREASES DEATH RATE BY MILLIONS

UNICEF ’05 (Immunization could Save Millions of Lives, http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth/2005/12/, 12/9/05)
According to global immunization experts, ten million additional lives could be saved through child and maternal
immunization between 2006-2015 at an average annual cost of US $1 billion, according to a new study by the
World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
The estimated US $2.5 billion current annual spending on immunization in the poorest countries would need to
increase to US $3.5 billion by 2010 and US $4 billion by 2015 to reach this goal.
The study presented today at the GAVI Partners’ Meeting, taking place in New Delhi from 7-9 December, covers
the potential impact that immunization can have over the next decade and outlines the financing requirements
needed to make this a reality in developing countries.
"Immunization is one of the best values for public health investment today: adequate resources and the right
strategies lead to concrete results. We have achieved much progress already through immunization, but much more
can and should be done. WHO, through GAVI and with partners, such as UNICEF, is looking to achieve a massive
impact in lives saved through immunization over the next decade," said Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General,
WHO.
The new study follows on the WHO/UNICEF Global Immunization Vision and Strategy
(http://www.who.int/vaccines/GIVS/), adopted this spring. The document lays out a number of goals such as
raising immunization coverage levels to 90%, and reducing vaccine-preventable illness and deaths by two-thirds
by 2015. It provides strategies that countries and global immunization partners may use to reach such goals.
If countries achieve these goals, by 2015, more than 70 million children who live in the world’s poorest countries
will receive each year life-saving vaccines against the following diseases: tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus,
pertussis, measles, rubella, yellow fever, haemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis B, polio, rotavirus,
pneumococcus, meningococcus, and Japanese encephalitis.
Immunization is essential to achieve the Millennium Development Goals of substantially reducing the child and
maternal mortality rates.
The study examined the cost, financing and impact of immunization programmes in the 72 poorest countries,
which have a Gross National Income of less than US $1000 per year . The estimated total price tag for
immunization activities in 2006-2015 in these countries is US $35 billion.
One third of the US $35 billion will be spent on vaccines. The total amount spent on vaccines will rise from about
US $350 million in 2005 to nearly US $1.5 billion per year by 2015, as coverage is expanded with underused
vaccines , and new vaccines are introduced. The remainder will be spent on immunization delivery systems
including shared costs that strengthen the overall health system to improve immunization coverage in the 72 GAVI
supported countries. The objective is to reach 90% coverage by 2015 from less than 70% today. US $2.2 billion
will go towards immunization campaigns, such as those for polio, measles and tetanus.
"Immunization is critical in reducing overall child deaths. This new study shows that we can achieve a significant
reduction in deaths due to vaccine-preventable diseases with a modest increase in funds," said UNICEF Executive
Director Ann M. Veneman.
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LINKS – DESALINATION
(__) DESALINATION SAVES MILLIONS

Elimelech ’05 (Menachem, Roberto C. Goizueta Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale
University, Clarke Award Lecture, The Global Challenge for Adequate and Safe Water, http://www.nwri-
usa.org/uploads/2005%20Clarke%20Lecture.pdf) / rice
In the previous examples, the focus of the discussion was on water scarcity. It was shown that technological
solutions, such as wastewater reuse and desalination, can ameliorate the problem to some extent, even in countries
with modest economical means. However, the problem of water quality, namely the lack of clean, safe drinking
water, even in countries where water is abundant, is one of the most serious challenges of our time. According to
the World Health Organization, approximately 1.1-billion people (in other words, one-sixth of the current world’s
population) lack access to safe water, and 2.4 billion are without adequate sanitation. Over 2-million deaths a year
are attributed to unsafe water, mostly due to waterborne diarrheal diseases. Ninety percent of those who die from
diarrheal diseases are children in developing countries. Thus, the provision of safe drinking water and proper
sanitation will have a dramatic impact on public health and the lives of millions all over the world.
AND, IT IS A DOUBLE-WHAMMY – IT ALSO CONSUMES A MASS AMOUNT OF ENERGY

RESOURCES
Prado ’07 (Marin Independent Journal, http://www.marinij.com/fastsearchresults//ci_5306189, 2/25/07) / rice
But as the district tries to power down, it will be faced with finding ways to fuel a proposed desalination plant with
clean energy.
The water district is now responsible for 1.7 percent of all energy use in Marin. If a desalination plant - which
would use - is built and used, power consumption could jump as high as 4.7 percent during times of drought.
The desalination plant's use of energy could be equivalent to 60,000 service connections, or customers,
continuously burning a 100-watt light bulb around the clock, every day, consultants estimated.
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LINKS – PRE-NATAL CARE
(__) PRE-NATAL CARE SAVES MILLIONS OF LIVES

Darmstadt ’06 (Gary L, (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Investing to Save Newborn Lives,
http://www.coregroup.org/resources/Newborn_costing_report_2006.pdf, May 2006) / rice
Each year, 4 million babies die in the first 28 days of life—the neonatal period. Most of these deaths occur in
developing countries from causes that are rare in wealthier countries. Approximately 2.5 million newborn deaths
could be prevented annually by improving access to low-cost, low-tech interventions that are not currently
reaching those most in need. The greatest risk of death is at the very beginning of life: Three-quarters of all
neonatal deaths (3 million) occur within one week of birth, and at least 1 million babies die on their first day of
life.Many of the world’s 3 million stillbirths and 500,000 maternal deaths also occur close to the time of birth.More
than half of newborns who die were born at home and died before receiving any quality health care services. The
UN’s Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG-4), which aims for a two-thirds reduction in under-5 child mortality
from the base year 1990 to 2015, will depend on substantially reducing newborn deaths, especially in sub- Saharan
Africa and South Asia, where two-thirds of all neonatal deaths occur and the least progress has been made in
reducing these deaths in recent years.
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LINKS – BREASTFEEDING
(__) BREASTFEEDING  POPULATION INCREASE

p. 412] / ttate
UNICEF says that breastfeeding could save 1.5 million lives a year, as well as sparing the 250,000 children who
are permanently blinded from vitamin A deficiency disease. Yet, few hospitals or doctors normally advocate
breastfeeding as a form of contraception.
MORE EVIDENCE – BREASTFEEDING DOES NOT LEAD TO POPULATION CONTROLS

p. 416] / ttate
And yet, despite forty years of concentrated family planning worldwide, neither breastfeeding (which of course
requires no genius, no literacy, no technology whatsoever, just Mom) nor the other natural methods have exerted
the kind of population controls that many have hoped for.
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LINKS – WATER WARS
(__) Water wars check overpopulation – must bring our population in check in order to prevent
Brown ’06 (Paul, Phd, “Notes from a Dying Planet, 2004-2006, p 10-11) / rice
The geographic distribution of the world’s water and of people are not well matched. Millions of people live in
arid places and have too little water. Water wars have been with us for millennia, and won’t go away until we
learn to distribute our populations in accord with available resources.
[continued…]
If the world’s population increases by 2050 as expected by most experts, the destruction of aquifiers and conflicts
over water will become far more serious. Those conflicts can be eliminated only if we bring our population down
to a sustainable size and geographic distribution.
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LINKS – GLOBALIZATION
(__) US involvement in Africa causes an irreversible population boom.

Brown ’06 (Paul, Phd, “Notes from a Dying Planet, 2004-2006, p 25-26) / rice
In the worst case, globalization will accelerate the growth of social and economic inequities already in progress. The World
Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund already anticipate increased unrest in nations whose wealth is being extracted by the “structural
adjustments” they impose as conditions for loans. These adjustments already include privatizing utilities and transportation, selling them off to multinational corporations at
Structural adjustments also include forced belt-tightening,
fire-sale prices. The privatization of public lands is accelerating in the US as well.
cutting into recipient countries’ education and public health systems so they can pay interest on their mounting
national debts. This too is happening in the US as we go deeper in debt from war expenditures and tax cuts for the wealthy. Third world countries are
forced to lift protective tarrifs on locally produced goods including food, leaving them without protection from
lower-cost, subsidized imports. Development contracts are awarded to international corporations, so that much of the loan money ends up back in the
countries it came from. As a result, the recipient countries’ economies “race to the bottom” as economists say. Governments fail
and anarchy rules. People in underdeveloped countries understand what is being done to them, and they learn to despise the developed countries, especially the
U.S.
Poorer nations will be less able to control population growth, stave off starvation, dehydration, and disease like diarrhea, AIDS, malaria and
tuburculosis, preserve their environment, or provide the basic needs of life – as is happening now. Terrorism will continue to increase as the task of education is delegated to
fundamentalist religions. Suicides among the hopeless will continue to increase. Logically, suicide bombings will go up.
In the worst case but not unlikely case, the U.S. will continue to oppose family planning, and world population will reach eight
to ten billion by 2050. We will run out of cheap oil before then, but let’s assume that somehow the developed world manages to keep going with natural gas, nuclear
power, and coal. We’ll accelerate the destruction of the forests and degradation of the land and water in our quest for
wood, fuel, and arable land.
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AT: FAMILY PLANNING LINK TURNS
FIRST, FAMILY PLANNING INITIATIVES CAN NOT SUCCEED TO CHECK POPULATION IN

COUNTRIES WHERE LIFE EXPECTANCY IS LONG – CONTINUED MORTALITY RATE
INCREASES HAVE TO HAPPEN BEFORE YOUR LINK TURNS ARE EFFECTIVE
GOLIBER 1997 [Thomas, PhD, “Population and Reproductive Health in sub-Saharan Africa”, POPULATION BULLETIN,
December, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3761/is_199712/ai_n8764393] / ttate]
Population policy analysts sometimes use a general rule that life expectancy at birth must be above 50 years for
family planning programs to succeed, and consequently, for fertility to fall. Much of Asia and Latin America passed this threshold in
the early 1960s. Life expectancy is also above 50 in the sub-Saharan African countries that have shown the most fertility decline. In Zimbabwe and Kenya, for example, life
expectancy passed the 50-year mark during the 1970s. Elsewhere in
sub-Saharan Africa, however, only a handful of countries have life
expectancies over 50 years, and most of these crossed this threshold only in recent years.18
Unfortunately, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has likely reversed longstanding increases in life expectancy in Botswana,
Zimbabwe, and some other sub-Saharan countries. There is no evidence yet as to whether these declines might affect contraceptive use or fertility,
and thus might slow Africa's transition to lower fertility.
(__) MANY BARRIERS TO DECREASING FERTILITY RATES IN AFRICA

Why has fertility remained so high in sub-Saharan Africa? Some of the cultural and economic factors that have
kept African fertility high are common to much of the developing world, while others are unique to Africa. Africa's
low level of economic development and heavy reliance on agriculture has perpetuated several factors that
encourage high fertility. In most countries, fertility is higher, for example, among rural than among urban residents,
and among less-educated than among more-educated women. In addition, religious and cultural traditions favor
large families, because children are expected to help their parents financially and to help ensure a kind of familial
immortality.
(__) AFRICAN CULTURES VALUE AND RELY ON LARGE FAMILIES – FERTILITY RATES
DIFFICULT TO REDUCE
This system supports high fertility in many ways. Hand tillage rewards families with a large number of wives and children because
they provide most of the labor. Also, when land is held communally, the way to gain access to agricultural
resources is to have sizable families. Finally, because land is held in perpetuity by extended families or clans within
the tribal area this system emphasizes the importance of ancestry and descent.l7
Nearly all women in sub-Saharan Africa marry, often at a very young age. The idea of voluntarily
Marriage and Family
remaining single or childless is foreign to most African cultures. Involuntary infertility is regarded with disdain and
can be considered punishment for transgressions. It is often a legitimate grounds for divorce. Divorced and widowed women tend to remarry quickly, a custom facilitated by
the practice of polygyny throughout much of the region.
Childbearing often starts soon after, or even before, marriage. Traditionally, large extended families help care for
the children. In some countries, especially in western Africa, child fostering-a practice whereby children live with a grandparent, another relative, or even someone
outside the family for at least part of their childhood-is still common.
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AT: CONTRACEPTIVES LINK TURN

(__) Modern contraceptives do not decrease fertility – they simply justify attacking traditional non-western practices that may be
necessary to limit fertility
Abernethy, ’93 (Virginia, an American professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine,
Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our Future, 1993) / rosenberg
Men, women, and sometimes their families make the decisions affecting pregnancy and birth. A woman may have many more
children than she wants, but that usually means someone else is in control. Wanting more children is a principal reason that some
people have large families while others have small ones or voluntarily forgo childbearing altogether. The idea that family size
preference is the most likely determinant of how many children a woman has is not new (see Chapters 5 and 7). The surprise is
how much preferences matter. Wanting fewer or more children matters so much that having modern contraception or not seems to
make rather little difference.
Perhaps because westerners are used to distinguishing between recreational and procreational sex, and to a pattern in which
almost every young person is sexually active, we can hardly envision ways to limit births that do not rely on contraception.
Overreliance on modern biological methods results in overlooking cultural and social patterns that affect a threshold factor: exposure
to the risk of pregnancy.
This western blind spot can have serious consequences. For example, it encourages the assumption that modernizing will help
third-world countries to control their population growth. Traditional beliefs and behaviors may be attacked simply because they are not
modern. The possibility that they have had a part in limiting population growth is quite overlooked.
In fact, undisturbed, intact societies usually do well on their own, thank you very much. Without modern contraception, they still
manage to keep fertility rates low and population size in balance with available resources. Traditional societies do not have natural
fertility, that is, all the children that every woman can bear in her natural lifetime. Moni Nag, Kingsley Davis, and other students of
culture have found many beliefs, rules, and behaviors which depress fertility. Most of them involve limiting women's exposure to
pregnancy, rather than birth control or abortion. A woman who is prevented from being sexually active during most, or even all, of her
adult life will not have a large family.
(__) Contraceptives do not aid in limiting fertility

Demographers can show that (1) modern contraception is not essential to achieving low fertility and (2) women (or families) use
contraception both to space children and to limit births. But people limit births when—and only when —they have reached the
family size they want.
Paul Dement' (1988) takes the historical approach. He points out that the drop to replacement-level fertility in Austria- Hungary
as well as in much of the U.S. urban population by the late nineteenth century cannot be explained by
people's access to some superior contraceptive technology —"modern methods" were yet to be invented—
but was the result of individual motivation to keep fertility low . The experience of Western demographic
history resoundingly demonstrated that, compared to micro-level interest in limiting fertility, "really suitable
technology" was of second-order importance for determining birth rates.
Dement' has little doubt that couples plan family size. He continues: "Lacking such technology, the Mayor of Peipei [in
China] still could have been confidently advised to get fertility incentives right and then sit back and watch the birth rate fall."
(__) Contraceptives are irrelevant - fertility rates are controlled by intention

Abernethy, 2002 (Virginia, an American professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University
School of Medicine, “The Demographic Transition Revisited: Lessons for Foreign Aid and U.S. Immigration
Policy,” http://www.carryingcapacity.org/va2.html) / rosenberg
Charles Westoff also concludes (ruefully) that the family planning concept is widely implemented. His 1988 study of the non-use of
modern contraception shows that "by and large, contraceptive behavior--at least in the four developing countries for which data are
examined--is not grossly inconsistent with reproductive intention" (p. 226). In Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Liberia only
1.0 to 2.0 percent of women were not using or intending2 to use contraception in a manner consistent with their completed family size
preference; the gap approaches zero when contraception is considered as means of spacing children. That is, non-use of contraception
in countries where fertility is high is not explained by informational or attitudinal obstacles. Westoff concludes, "The overwhelming
majority of women who want no more children or who want to postpone fertility, at least in the four countries discussed here, are
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behaving in a manner consistent with that goal" (Westoff, 1988, p. 232). That is, fertility corresponds to family size preferences.
AT: CONTRACEPTIVES LINK TURN
(__) PROVIDING CONTRACEPTIVES IS NOT ENOUGH – CULTURAL INFLUENCES AND FOCUS

ON FEMALE CONTRACEPTIVES MEANS NO EFFECT ON POPULATION GROWTH
THE INTERACADEMY PANEL ON INTERNATIONAL ISSUES 2005
[“Joint Statement by 58 of The World’s Scientific Academies”, http://www.interacademies.net/?id=3547] / ttate
Millions of people still do not have adequate access to family planning services and suitable contraceptives. Only
about one-half of married couples of reproductive age are currently practicing contraception. Yet as the director-general of UNICEF put it, "Family planning could bring
more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race". Existing contraceptive methods could go far toward alleviating
the unmet need if they were available and used in sufficient numbers, through a variety of channels of distribution sensitively adapted to local needs.
But most contraceptives are for use by women, who consequently bear the risks to health. The development of
contraceptives for male use continues to lag. Better contraceptives are needed for both men and women, but developing
new contraceptive approaches is slow and financially unattractive to industry. Further work is needed on an ideal spectrum of contraceptive methods that are safe,
efficacious, easy to use and deliver, reasonably priced, user-controlled and responsive, appropriate for special populations and age cohorts, reversible, and at least some of
which protect against sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
Reducing fertility rates, however, cannot be achieved merely by providing more contraceptives. The demand for
these services has to be addressed. Even when family planning and other reproductive health services are widely available,
the social and economic status of women affects individual decisions to use them. The ability of women to make
decisions about family size is greatly affected by gender roles within society and in sexual relationships. Ensuring
opportunity for women in all aspects of society is crucial.
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AT: WOMEN IN PUBLIC SPHERE LINK TURNS
Educating women does not lower fertility

More problematic is the belief that educating women, per se, lowers fertility. In some parts of Africa, even highly educated
women who are unemployed or marginally employed continue to bear many children. Handwerker (1991) shows that they
get
resources only through men, and that their best economic strategy is to have serial sexual relationships,
strengthening ties to as many men as possible through bearing their children. It might be better to defer education and
use the money to create jobs. Simple tasks (repetitively assembling electronic parts, operating a sewing machine,
working as a chambermaid) do not depend on literacy but are associated with declining fertility.
Studies linking women's education to declining fertility are largely correlational, and one learns to distrust those. Faith in
education may be part of the unfounded myth that modernization, development, lower infant mortality, and a general level
of rising prosperity cause lower fertility. But it is seen repeatedly that declining fertility accompanies economic gain only
when one's own effort and savings are demonstrably necessary to eventual success.
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MORTALITY RATES KEY
(__) MORTALITY RATES ARE KEY TO POPULATION STABILIZATION
The world is in the midst of an unprecedented expansion of human numbers. It took hundreds of thousands of
years for our species to reach a population level of 10 million, only 10,000 years ago. This number grew to 100
million people about 2,000 years ago and to 2.5 billion by 1950. Within less than the span of a single lifetime, it
has more than doubled to 5.5 billion in 1993.
This accelerated population growth resulted from rapidly lowered death rates (particularly infant and child
mortality rates), combined with sustained high birth rates. Success in reducing death rates is attributable to several
factors: increases in food production and distribution, improvements in public health (water and sanitation) and in
medical technology (vaccines and antibiotics), along with gains in education and standards of living within many
developing nations.
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AFRICA KEY
(__) POPULATION EXPANSION WILL CONTINUE TO OCCUR IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

We use the medium-level projections to give an idea of the strain this “most likely” outcome would place on
ecosystems and governments, and the urgent need to break from the business-as-usual scenario. The mid-level
projected growth in population of 3.3 billion by 2050 is very close to the growth that will have occurred between
1950 and 2000, some 3.6 billion. (See Table 1.) But there is one difference.
During the half-century now ending, the growth occurred in both industrial and developing countries. During the
next half-century, the entire burden of the projected increase of 3.3 billion will be in developing countries, many of
which are hard-pressed to satisfy even existing demands on resources. In fact, the population of the industrial
world is expected to decline slightly.5
(__) MANY AFRICAN NATIONS ARE EXPECTED TO TRIPLE THEIR POPULATION BY 2050
In contrast to this group, some countries are projected to triple their populations over the next half-century. (See
Table 2.) For example, Ethiopia’s current population of 62 million will more than triple, as it climbs to 213 million
in 2050. Pakistan’s population is projected to go from 148 million to 357 million, surpassing that of the United
States before 2050. Nigeria, meanwhile, is projected to go from 122 million today to 339 million, giving it more
people in 2050 than there were in all of Africa in 1950. From an environmental vantage point, considering
particularly the availability of water and cropland, it is unlikely that the projected population increases for these
three countries, and other countries with similar projected gains, will materialize.9
(__) THE POPULATION EXPLOSION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA IS SLOWING DUE TO

INCREASING MORTALITY RATES – THIS REGION IS KEY BECAUSE GROWTH NEEDS TO BE
FURTHER CHECKED
The pace of population growth is expected to slow in sub-Saharan Africa, either through lower birth rates or-
tragically-through higher death rates. Fertility has declined already in a handful of African countries, but an
increasing number of countries face an HIV/AIDS epidemic that is reversing hard-won gains in life expectancy.
Even so, sub-Saharan Africa, which includes many of the poorest countries in the world, is likely to more than
double in population size by 2050. The nations are struggling to provide education, housing,jobs, and health care
for their burgeoning populations, while trying to compete in the world economy, cope with internal and
international political conflicts, and contain epidemics.
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AFRICA KEY
(__) SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA POPULATION CONTINUES TO CLIMB – HUGE GAP BETWEEN

BIRTH RATES AND DEATH RATES
The region's population was growing by about 2.7 percent per year in the mid-1990s. At this rate, the population
would double in just 25 years. The sub-Saharan population is growing faster than that of any other major world
region because of the vast gap between birth rates and death rates. Death rates in sub-Saharan Africa fell
significantly in past decades, although they are still high by world standards. At the same time, birth rates remained
high and the population surged as more people survived to have their own children.
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DISAD OUTWEIGHS THE CASE
(__) SHORT-TERM QUICK FIXES IN AFRICAN HEALTH CARE  POPULATION OVERSHOOT

AND MASSIVE SUFFERING IN THE LONG-TERM
p. 417] / ttate
But the shadows of Africa’s epidemiology remain: do away with the tsetse fly, AIDS, and malaria in Africa, and
there is no question that the continent’s population will increase inviting more suffering, hunger; brain damage,
more poverty, more, more biodiversity loss and animal pain. In Pakistan, medical advances have pushed the crude
death rate down by 50 percent since that country’s independence in 1947. Yet the birth rate has remained
stubbornly at nearly 45 per thousand, creating an enormous net population gain. Hence, in one sense, medical
progress-like technology in general-may serve to exacerbate the population debacle. As Norman Myers has
written, an “operational evaluation of Pakistan’s carrying capacity becomes, in essence, a matter of judgment.
(__) Population growth is the root cause for all of the problems in developing countries
Abernethy, ’93 (Virginia, an American professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University School of
Medicine, Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our Future, 1993) / rosenberg
The large array of problems in poor countries has, of course, more than one cause. Corruption and mismanagement in
government, capital flight, foreign intervention, armed conflict (civil or foreign), and so-called capitalist agriculture
may all contribute to poverty. Solutions in each of these areas might help to overcome present suffering. Nevertheless,
third-world population growth, with its distinctive age structure and built-in momentum for vastly more growth,
arguably is the common underlying cause of misery and a destabilizing force both within and between
countries.
Technologies and social systems which are benign under conditions of low population density become devastating when
numbers grow. Slash-and-burn gardening (swidden agriculture) is one system that has taken a bad rap; but it is, in
fact, among the most ancient of agricultural practices and is a sustainable system when each family can utilize a large
area (see Chapter 12 on conservation). Overpopulation destroys the environment by forcing overuse.
( ) Overpopulation is the world’s greatest problem – it is a real threat that is causing the destruction of
society
Peele 07 (Stanley, Columnist, “Some thoughts on overpopulation,” Chapel Hill Herald, 2/16, l/n, dbm)
Back in 1947, my friend Charlie Wolf and I were sitting on a rock wall near Swain Hall, talking about the most serious problems
of the world. Both of us agreed that overpopulation was the world's greatest problem. If you look at a graph of the population of
the world starting at 10,000 B.C. and going to 2007, our population until 300 B.C. is a thin line. Then the population increases.
Around 1800 there is a dramatic spurt, and the spurt continues today. The amount of increase is so great that it appears on the
graph to go almost perpendicular -- like the side of a cliff. In the United States, it took us 139 years to get to 100 million people,
and then only 52 years to get to 200 million. Now, only 39 years later, we have a population of 300 million. In Orange County,
officials advise us that our solid waste landfill will run out of space within 3 ½ years. Yet we still do not have a definite plan about
how to deal with that situation. The clock is ticking. The clock is ticking on the realization that Orange County is becoming
overpopulated. And this is true about the whole country. Overpopulation feeds the problem of homelessness. In Las Vegas they
have swept away homeless encampments, temporarily closed a city park and made it a crime to feed the homeless. Rapid
population growth promotes poverty by producing a high number of children for each adult. So the income of the adult is spent on
trying to survive. Thus, there is no money left for the improvement of the family, much less the improvement of the community.
As long as we continue on this upward spiral of our population, poverty will continue. In the U.S., we have lost more than half of
our wetlands, 90 percent of the Northwest's old-growth forests and 99 percent of our tall-grass prairies.
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OVERPOP  EXTINCTION
Extinction is inevitable if we don’t change – habitat alteration has put us on the brink
We are now in the early stage of the sixth great extinction. Unlike previous extinction events, which were caused by natural
phenomena, this one is of human origin. For the first time in the earth’s long history, one species has evolved, if that is the right
word, to where it can eradicate much of life. As various life forms disappear, they diminish the services provided by nature, such
as pollination, seed dispersal, insect control, and nutrient cycling. This loss of species is weakening the web of life, and if it
continues it could tear huge gaps in its fabric, leading to irreversible changes in the earth’s ecosystem. Species of all kinds are
threatened by habitat destruction, principally through the loss of tropical rainforests. As we burn off the Amazon rainforest, we are
in effect burning one of the great repositories of genetic information. Our descendents may one day view the wholesale burning of
this genetic library much as we view the burning of the library in Alexandria in 48 BC. Habitat alteration from rising temperatures,
chemical pollution, or the introduction of exotic species can also decimate both plant and animal species. As human population
grows, the number of species with which we share the planet shrinks. We cannot separate our fate from that of all life on the earth.
If the rich diversity of life that we inherited is continually impoverished, eventually we will be impoverished as well.72 The share
of birds, mammals, and fish that are vulnerable or in immediate danger of extinction is now measured in double digits: 12 percent
of the world’s nearly 10,000 bird species; 23 percent of the world’s 4,776 mammal species; and 46 percent of the fish species
analyzed.73 Among mammals, the 240 known species of primates other than humans are most at risk. The World Conservation
Union–IUCN reports that nearly half of these species are threatened with extinction. Some 95 of the world’s primate species live in
Brazil, where habitat destruction poses a particular threat. Hunting, too, is a threat, particularly in West and Central Africa, where
the deteriorating food situation and newly constructed logging roads are combining to create a lively market for “bushmeat.”74
The bonobos of West Africa, great apes that are smaller than the chimpanzees of East Africa, may be our closest living relative
both genetically and in social behavior. But this is not saving them from the bushmeat trade or the destruction of their habitat by
loggers. Concentrated in the dense forest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, their numbers fell from an estimated 100,000
in 1980 to only 3,000 today. In one human generation, 97 percent of the bonobos have disappeared.75 Birds, because of their high
visibility, are a useful indicator of the diversity of life. Of the 9,775 known bird species, roughly 70 percent are declining in
number. Of these, an estimated 1,212 species are in imminent danger of extinction. Habitat loss and degradation affect 86 percent
of all threatened bird species. For example, 61 bird species have become locally extinct with the extensive loss of lowland
rainforest in Singapore. Some once-abundant species may have already dwindled to the point of no return. The great bustard, once
widespread in Pakistan and surrounding countries, is being hunted to extinction. Ten of the world’s 17 species of penguins are
threatened or endangered, potential victims of global warming. Stanford University biologist Çagan Sekercioglu, who led a
separate study on the status of the world’s birds said, “We are changing the world so much that even birds cannot adapt.”76 A
particularly disturbing recent event is the precipitous decline in the populations of Britain’s most popular songbirds. Within the last
30 years the populations of well-known species such as the willow warbler, the song thrush, and the spotted flycatcher have fallen
50–80 percent; no one seems to know why, although there is speculation that habitat destruction and pesticides may be playing a
role. Without knowing the source of the decline, it is difficult to take actions that will arrest the plunge in numbers.77 The threat to
fish may be the greatest of all. The principal causes are overfishing, water pollution, and the excessive extraction of water from
rivers and other freshwater ecosystems. An estimated 37 percent of the fish species that once inhabited the lakes and streams of
North America are either extinct or in jeopardy. Ten North American freshwater fish species have disappeared during the last
decade. In semiarid regions of Mexico, 68 percent of native and endemic fish species have disappeared. The situation may be even
worse in Europe, where some 80 species of freshwater fish out of a total of 193 are threatened, endangered, or of special concern.
Two thirds of the 94 fish species in South Africa need special protection to avoid extinction.78
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( ) Continued overpopulation will result in extinction
Norris 07 (Todd, BC Ministry of Environment, “Overpopulation is leading to a doomsday scenario,” 3/27,
Kingston Whig-Standard, l/n, dbm)
Canada now has approximately 31.6 million people living within its borders. Media coverage has been decidedly positive about
this, but things are not as rosy as many would lead us to believe. Humans are putting extreme pressures on the natural
environment. Far from living in a sustainable fashion, we are now seeing the effects of our spread across the Earth. These effects
include climate change, ozone depletion, species extinctions, pollution and so on. We have inflicted huge problems on the Earth
and we must face and solve them if we, our children and all other creatures are to survive. Canada's growth has resulted mainly from immigration
and it is the fastest growing of the G-8 countries. While I am not anti-immigrant or anti-immigration, it is clear that we must attempt to stabilize or even reduce our population and
resource-consumption rates if we are to reach anything resembling sustainable living. Since 1900, when Canada's population was approximately one million, our lifestyle has changed
dramatically. We consume many more resources per capita than our ancestors did. Our homes are much larger, we use hundreds of electrically powered devices, we depend almost solely
on fossil fuels for heating and transportation, our country is dissected by roads and railway lines, we eat foods from all areas of the globe and we produce more garbage than ever before.
No other large mammal exists in anywhere near the numbers we do. Does this sound like sustainable living? Economists and others say that increasing population means economic growth
and more jobs. However, economic growth means an increasing loss of natural habitats and the species they contain, increased demand for electrical power, ever-growing garbage-
Every time another house, box store, highway or industrial complex
disposal problems and increased infrastructure to build and repair on an ongoing basis.
is built, we sterilize another piece of ground, covering it in cement, asphalt and metal. This acts as a cancer, spreading across the
surface of the Earth and preventing natural functioning between the atmosphere, vegetation and soil. When it rains or the snow
melts, filthy runoff goes directly into drains and neighbouring waterways. Loss of forest and other green cover contributes further
to increased carbon dioxide levels and climate-change impacts. The negative impacts of overpopulation have been predicted for
many years, and yet, for the most part, these warnings have fallen on deaf ears. The current political wrangling, name- calling and a lack of
action on climate change is not promising. I would encourage Canadians to become familiar with the dangers associated with overpopulation and overconsumption
and to let their leaders know how important this issue is to them. If it is not already too late, we might have the collective intellect to figure out a solution, but we
must act quickly. We can no longer keep treating our beautiful planet as a garbage dump and as a kingdom for only humans to exploit. If we do not change our
ways, the Earth's ecology and the children of today will pay a terrible price. As economies crumble, wars will break out over the last remaining
natural resources. The scenario is nothing short of doomsday. I hope we can work out a better solution.
(__) Extinction is inevitable unless we curb overpopulation.

There’s a real possibility that we’re killing ourselves, along with most other species on the planet. We’re seeing
how humans have driven species to extinction and how we’re fueling the Sixth Extinction, the worse one ever,
through overkill, farming and domestication, habitat fragmentation and destruction, pollution, and climate change.
We’re learning how these have all resulted from overpopulation and our inability to live sustainably. We’re
examining the options for averting our own extinction.
(__) Extinction is coming for all the world’s species

The human species rolls on. The more of us, the worse for most others. Extinction is getting serious. Norman Myers (1991) writes in
Science that ecologists are not crying wolf: Just eighteen imminently threatened areas contain 20 percent of the world's plant species
(about 50,000) and each of these is accompanied by twenty to fifty animal species. Myers warns, "So in just these eighteen hot spot
areas, we face the prospect of an extinction spasm to surpass anything that has occurred since the late Cretaceous crash." He refers to
the last curtain for dinosaurs, about 65 million years ago. The comparison is stark. Species extinction hits close to home. Florida has
liquidated 50 percent of its native forest, which continues to disappear at a rate of 1 percent per year. Only 20 percent of the original
hardwoods are left in the Mississippi Valley, and replacement by uniform stands of (less valuable) pine continues. Forests nation-wide
are fragmented, thus not useful for animals needing to maintain genetic diversity and access to seasonal feeding grounds. Whereas we
have plenty of "wildlife," specifically animals that can live in proximity to humans, the United States has lost its vast, former diversity
of fauna.
The smelt extinction represents a larger question, one which may contain the urgency of a constraint. How far do backup systems
compensate for nature? How many, or what percentage, of species can we humans eliminate before the threatened species is us? Who
wants to find out? Some Californians seem readier than others.
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(__) Population growth destroys the planet’s carrying capacity – impacts will only be worse in the future
Explosive population growth means that every human activity puts critical pressure on the environment. Moreover, more
people must take any opportunity to survive that comes to hand. More and more are pushed to marginal niches where their
efforts to extract a living are disproportionately destructive to the environment. Conservation and pollution control are
luxuries that give way to the short-run survival of the individual. But overuse of life-support systems must exact its price
in the end. The scale of human activities is eroding environmental carrying capacity so that fewer persons than before will
find subsistence.
( ) Overshoot precipitates extinction – experiments prove

Ecologists are intimately familiar with the overshoot-and collapse phenomenon. One of their favorite examples began in 1944,
when the Coast Guard introduced 29 reindeer on remote St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea to serve as the backup food source
for the 19 men operating a station there. After World War II ended a year later, the base was closed and the men left the island.
When U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist David Kline visited St. Matthew in 1957, he discovered a thriving population of
1,350 reindeer feeding on the four-inch-thick mat of lichen that covered the 332-square-kilometer (128-square-mile) island. In the
absence of any predators, the population was exploding. By 1963, it had reached 6,000. He returned to St. Matthew in 1966 and
discovered an island strewn with reindeer skeletons and not much lichen. Only 42 of the reindeer survived: 41 females and 1 not
entirely healthy male. There were no fawns. By 1980 or so, the remaining reindeer had died off.4 Like the deer on St. Matthew
Island, we too are overconsuming our natural resources. Overshoot leads sometimes to decline and sometimes to a complete collapse. It is not always
clear which it will be. In the former, a remnant of the population or economic activity survives in a resource-depleted environment. For example, as the
environmental resource base of Easter Island in the South Pacific deteriorated, its population declined from a peak of 20,000 several centuries ago to today’s
population of fewer than 4,000. In contrast, the 500-year-old Norse settlement in Greenland collapsed during the 1400s, disappearing
entirely in the face of environmental adversity.5
Overpopulation destroys the environment and results in mass extinction – By the end of this debate 4 species
will be gone from this earth
Kate, 2004 (Carol A. Kates, Professor of Philosophy, Ithaca College, Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation,
February, 2004, http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/philrel/replib.pdf) / cole
Rates of species extinction, which appear to be accelerating, (UNEP 2002:298) have been
described by leading scientists as “appalling”(WS 1997). On one estimate, one species extinction
occurs every 20 minutes (Levin and Levin 2002:6). The background (“normal”) rate of species
extinction, estimated from fossil records, is thought to be about 1 bird or mammal species lost every 500-
1000 years (UNEP 2002:121). “Estimates of present extinction rates range from 100 to 1,000
times normal, with most estimates at 1,000. The percent of bird (12), mammal (18), fish (5) and flowering plant (8)
species threatened with extinction is consistent with that estimate. And the rates are certain to rise–and to do so
exponentially–as natural habitats continue to dwindle” (Lovejoy 2002:70). The extinction rate for some
organisms may be 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than background rates (Pimentel et al 1999:30). Ecologists estimate that half of all living
bird and mammal species will be gone within 200 or 300 years (Levin and Levin 2002:6).
These exceptional losses
qualify the present as an era of “mass extinction” (Levin and Levin 2002:6). As “vast tracts of wilderness”
vanish in the “not-so-distant future,” the “alteration and fragmentation of existing habitats ensures that any future radiation of
mammals, for instance, will not include large forms such as rhinoceroses, apes and big cats....Human activities will likely
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increase [primate] rates of extinction....Such a wholesale shift in earth’s biota will
impoverish the planet for many millions of years to come” (Levin and Levin 2002:7-8).
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(__) Overpopulation may result in nuclear war and the end of civilization
Ehrlich, ’90 (Paul and Anne Erlich, Population, Growthism, and National Security,
http://www.ditext.com/ehrlich/8.html) / COLE
Most of the world's other rich nations realize that there is now an unparalleled nonmilitary threat to their
security. It has been created by rapid depletion of Earth's nonrenewable resources, deterioration of the global
environment, and the widening of the economic gap between rich nations of the industrialized North and poor
nations of the South -- all contributed to mightily by exploding human populations. That threat not only
portends a continual deterioration of living standards virtually everywhere in time of peace, but also contributes
to conflict between nations38 and thus increases the chances of nuclear war. An end to civilization caused by
overpopulation and environmental collapse would amount to a gigantic "tragedy of the commons" -- to use the
phrase made famous by Garrett Hardin.39 Individuals (or nations) acting independently for their short-term gain
create situations that, in the long term, destroy common resources ("the commons").40 As Hardin wrote, "Ruin is
the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the
freedom of the commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." His reference is to overgrazing of a
village's common pasture; civilization's ruin will stem from treatment of the global ecosystem as a "commons"
that can be exploited by every nation without thought for their common security
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African overpopulation risks continent-wide starvation and biodiversity loss—the timeframe is less than
thirteen years
Ehrlich & Ehrlich & Daily, 95 (Paul R. is professor of population studies @ Stanford and Anne H. is the co-
author of several books on overpopulation and ecology and Gretchen is Professor of biological sciences @
Stanford, The Stork and the Plow, pg. 15) / vinay
If the gap between population growth and food production in Africa continues to widen, as it did during the 1980s, the annual
food deficit around 1990 of about 10 million metric tons (mmt) of grain, some 10 percent of food needs, could mushroom beyond 200 mmt in 2020. In the case,
Africans would have to import up to half the grain needed to feed a population that by then will be more than twice
as large. The question then arises as to whether anything like that much grain would be available on the world
market, even if Africans could pay for it. According to agricultural economist Lester Brown, China alone might by then need to im-port all the
grain available on the international market.
The head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences commented on the consequences of his country’s paving over farmland and diverting scarce water resources to industrial
development, while increasing consumption of animal foods: “China will have to import 400 million tons of grain from the world market. And I am afraid, in that case, that
all the grain output of the United States could not meet China’s needs.” That fear is well justified, since in the early 1990s the entire annual grain production of the U.S. was
roughly 325 million tons. Will Africa in 2020 be able to outbid China for desperately needed food imports?
In Africa, as well as in many developing regions, a task nearly as critical as maintaining food supplies is the finding of fuel to
cook the food. Wood is the primary source of energy for the vast majority of Africans, particularly in the countryside, and many
foods (especially grains) cannot be eaten without cooking. Despite nearly two decades of concern about the fuelwood prob-lem, many
more trees are still being cut down than are being planted. Not only does this cause acute shortages of wood, it is a
major contributor to desertification and loss of biodiversity.
Population Growth has resulted in massive overfishing which is causing ecosystems to collapse
which is a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C, Plan B 2.0, p 92, dbm)
As population grows and as modern food marketing systems give more people access to these products, seafood consumption is
growing. Indeed, the human appetite for seafood is outgrowing the sustainable yield of oceanic fisheries. Today 75 percent of
fisheries are being fished at or beyond their sustainable capacity. As a result, many are in decline and some have collapsed. In
some fisheries, the breeding stocks have been mostly destroyed.57 A 2003 landmark study by a Canadian-German science team,
published in Nature, concluded that 90 percent of the large fish in the oceans had disappeared over the last 50 years. Ransom
Myers, a fisheries biologist at Canada’s Dalhousie University and lead scientist in this study, says: “From giant blue marlin to
mighty blue fin tuna, from tropical groupers to Antarctic cod, industrial fishing has scoured the global ocean. There is no blue
frontier left.”58 Myers goes on to say, “Since 1950, with the onset of industrialized fisheries, we have rapidly reduced the resource
base to less than 10 percent—not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of these large fish species
from the tropics to the poles.”59 Fisheries are collapsing throughout the world. The 500-yearold cod fishery of Canada failed in
the early 1990s, putting some 40,000 fishers and fish processors out of work. Fisheries off the coast of New England were not far
behind. And in Europe, cod fisheries are in decline, approaching a free fall. Like the Canadian cod fishery, the European ones may
have been depleted to the point of no return. Countries that fail to meet nature’s deadlines for halting overfishing face fishery
decline and collapse.60
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OVERPOP  FAMINE
(__) CONTINUED POPULATION EXPANSION  3 BILLION IN STARVATION

PIMENTEL ET AL 1996 [David, professor of agricultural and life sciences @ Cornell, “Impact of Population
Growth on Food Supplies and Environment”, February 09,
http://dieoff.org/page57.htm ] / ttate
As the world population continues to grow geometrically, great pressure is being placed on arable land, water,
energy, and biological resources to provide an adequate supply of food while maintaining the integrity of our
ecosystem. According to the World Bank and the United Nations, from 1 to 2 billion humans are now
malnourished, indicating a combination of insufficient food, low incomes, and inadequate distribution of food.
This is the largest number of hungry humans ever recorded in history. In China about 80 million are now
malnourished and hungry. Based on current rates of increase, the world population is projected to double from
roughly 6 billion to more than 12 billion in less than 50 years (Pimentel et al., 1994). As the world population
expands, the food problem will become increasingly severe, conceivably with the numbers of malnourished
reaching 3 billion.
(__) POPULATION GROWTH IS A DOUBLE-WHAMMY ON FOOD SUPPLY – MORE PEOPLE

NEED TO BE FED ON LESS AVAILABLE LAND TO GROW IT – SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY VOTES
NEG
Based on their evaluations of available natural resources, scientists of the Royal Society and the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences have issued a joint statement reinforcing the concern about the growing imbalance between
the world's population and the resources that support human lives (RS and NAS, 1992).
Reports from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, numerous other international
organizations, and scientific research also confirm the existence of this serious food problem. For example, the per
capita availability of world grains, which make up 80 per cent of the world's food, has been declining for the past
15 years (Kendall and Pimentel, 1994). Certainly with a quarter million people being added to the world
population each day, the need for grains and all other food will reach unprecedented levels.
More than 99 per cent of the world's food supply comes from the land, while less than 1 per cent is from oceans
and other aquatic habitats (Pimentel et al., 1994). The continued production of an adequate food supply is directly
dependent on ample fertile land, fresh water, energy, plus the maintenance of biodiversity. As the human
population grows, the requirements for these resources also grow. Even if these resources are never depleted, on a
per capita basis they will decline significantly because they must be divided among more people.
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(__) FERTILE, AVAILABLE CROPLAND SHRINKING

At present, fertile cropland, is being lost at an alarming rate. For instance, nearly one-third of the world's cropland
(1.5 billion hectares) has been abandoned during the past 40 years because erosion has made it unproductive
(Pimentel et al., 1995). Solving erosion losses is a long-term problem: it takes 500 years to form 25 mm of soil
under agricultural conditions.
Most replacement of eroded agricultural land is now coming from marginal and forest land. The pressure for
agricultural land accounts for 60 to 80 percent of the world's deforestation. Despite such land replacement
strategies, world cropland per capita has been declining and is now only 0.27 ha per capita; in China only 0.08 ha
now is available. This is only 15 per cent of the 0.5 ha per capita considered minimal for a diverse diet similar to
that of the U.S. and Europe. The shortage of productive cropland combined with decreasing land productivity is, in
part, the cause of current food shortages and associated human malnutrition. Other factors such as political unrest,
economic insecurity, and unequal food distribution patterns also contribute to food shortages.
AND, COMPETITION INCREASING OVER SHRINKING WATER SUPPLIES

Water is critical for all crops which require and transpire massive amounts of water during the growing season. For
example, a hectare of corn will transpire more than 5 million liters of water during one growing season. This
means that more than 8 million liters of water per hectare must reach the crop. In total, agricultural production
consumes more fresh water than any other human activity. Specifically, about 87 per cent of the world's fresh
water is consumed or used up by agriculture and, thus, is not recoverable (Pimentel et al., 1996).
Competition for water resources among individuals, regions, and countries and associated human activities is
already occurring with the current world population. About 40 percent of the world's people live in regions that
directly compete for shared water resources. In China where more than 300 cities already are short of water, these
shortages are intensifying. Worldwide, water shortages are reflected in the per capita decline in irrigation used for
food production in all regions of the world during the past twenty years. Water resources, critical for irrigation, are
under great stress as populous cities, states, and countries require and withdraw more water from rivers, lakes, and
aquifers every year. A major threat to maintaining future water supplies is the continuing over-draft of surface and
ground water resources.
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Overpopulation leads to the exhaustion of resources
Kate, 2004 (Carol A. Kates, Professor of Philosophy, Ithaca College, Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation,
February, 2004, http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/philrel/replib.pdf) / cole
While scientists debate the precise carrying capacity of the planet, the accelerating risk of ecosystem collapse
urgently requires our species to resolve a dilemma which Garrett Hardin called “the tragedy of the
commons”(Hardin 1968). The environment, with its ultimately limited resources of land, clean air and water,
food, and so on, is treated as a ‘commons’ when it is viewed as an unpriced asset which may be freely used by
all (Costanza et al1997). The inevitable result of this laissez-faire approach is the eventual exhaustion of shared
resources, as each individual acts to maximize his gain. Hardin applied this analysis to population (“freedom to
[over] breed”), though it is easily generalized to include a system of production and consumption which in a
similar way exploits the environment as a “free good.” The solution is an enforceable rational agreement to
regulate the commons, that is, “mutual coercion mutually agreed upon” to limit reproduction and, by extension,
the unsustainable use of environmental resources in production and consumption.
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(__) INCREASING POPULATION GROWTH  INABILITY FOR COUNTRIES TO FEED

THEMSELVES
ps 31-32, http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
Since mid-century, global
population has grown much faster than the cropland area. The trend is likely to continue in the
next century, dropping cropland per person to historically low levels. The ever smaller per capita cropland base
will make food self-sufficiency impossible for many countries, and will test the capacity of international markets to
meet a growing demand for imported food.65 For millennia, farmers satisfied rising food demand by bringing new land under the plow. But by mid-
century cropland expansion could no longer meet the food needs of an increasingly populous and prosperous world. The 10,000- year era of steady expansion was over, and
a new era began that stressed raising land productivity. As this high-yielding era shows signs of faltering, concern over the shrinking supply of cropland per person looms
ever larger.66
Since mid-century,
grain area—which serves as a proxy for cropland in general—has increased by some 19 percent, but global population
has grown 132 percent, seven times faster. Largely as a result, grain area per person has fallen by half since 1950,
from 0.24 to 0.12 hectares—about one sixth the size of a soccer field. (See Figure 6.) Assuming that grain area remains constant, grain area per person will fall to 0.07
hectares by 2050. In crowded industrial countries such as Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, grain area per capita today is smaller than the area of a tennis court.67
As grain area per person falls, more and more nations risk losing the capacity to feed themselves. The trend is
illustrated starkly in the world’s four fastest-growing large countries. Having already seen per capita grain area shrink by 40–50 percent
between 1960 and 1998, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Iran can expect a further 60–70 percent loss by 2050—a conservative projection that assumes no further losses of
agricultural land. The result will be four countries with a combined population of more than 1 billion whose grain area per person will be only 300–600 square meters, less
than a quarter of the area in 1950.
(__) OVERPOPULATION  REDUCTION OF CROPLAND USAGE

ps 33, http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
In addition to per capita losses, population growth can lead to degradation of cropland, reducing its productivity or
even eliminating it from production. As a country’s population density increases and good farmland becomes
scarce, poor farmers are forced onto ecologically vulnerable land such as hillsides and tropical forest. In the
Philippines, for example, hillside agriculture accounted for only 10 percent of all agricultural land in 1960, but 30
percent in 1987.
Because it is highly erodible, hillside land is easily damaged; worldwide, some 160 million hectares of hillside
farmland— 11 percent of cropland—were characterized in 1989 as “severely eroded.” Similarly, population
pressure can force peasants to overfarm the poor soils of tropical forests. After being cleared and farmed for a few
years, these soils typically require fallow periods of 20–25 years, but population pressures keep poor farmers on
the same land for far longer than the soil can support, cutting fallow periods to just a few years in some areas of
tropical Africa and Asia.
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(__) WE HAVE PUSHED OCEANIC FISHERIES TO THEIR SUSTAINABLE LIMITS NOW

From 1950 until 1988, the oceanic fish catch soared from 19 million to 88 million tons, expanding much faster
than population. The per capita catch increased from less than 8 kilograms in 1950 to the historical peak of just over 17 kilograms in 1988, more than doubling. (See
Figure 5.)
Since 1988, however, growth in the catch has slowed, falling behind that of population. Between 1988 and 1996, the catch per person declined to less than 16 kilograms, a
drop of some 9 percent.46
This fivefold growth in the human appetite for seafood since 1950 has pushed the catch of most oceanic fisheries
to their sustainable limits or beyond. Marine biologists believe that the oceans cannot sustain an annual catch of
much more than 93 million tons, the current take.47
(__) FISH STOCKS ARE IN DECLINE – WE ARE LOSING MANY SPECIES – WILL LEAD TO WARS
OVER RESOURCES
As we near the end of the twentieth century,
overfishing has become the rule, not the exception. Of the 15 major oceanic
fisheries, 11 are in decline. The catch of Atlantic cod—long a dietary mainstay for West Europeans—has fallen by some 70 percent since peaking in 1968.
Since 1970, bluefin tuna stocks in the West Atlantic have dropped 80 percent.48
The next half-century is likely to be marked by the disappearance of some species from markets, a decline in the
quality of seafood caught, higher prices, and more conflicts among countries over access to fisheries. Over the last two
decades, a growing share of the catch has consisted of inferior species, some of which were not even considered edible in times past.49
Bluefin tuna and Caspian Sea sturgeon prove

Atlantic stocks of the heavily fished bluefin tuna, where a large specimen headed for Tokyo’s sushi restaurants can bring $50,000,
have been cut by a staggering 94 percent. It will take years for such long-lived species to recover, even if fishing were to stop
altogether. The harvest of the Caspian Sea sturgeon, source of the world’s most prized caviar, has fallen from a record 27,700 tons
in 1977 to 461 tons in 2000. Overfishing, much of it illegal, is responsible for the dramatic drop.61
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RESOURCE SHORTAGES IMPACTS
(__) RESOURCE SHORTAGES LEADS TO INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS – WATER WARS WILL

ENSUE
pgs 69-70, http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
As pressures on the Earth’s resources build, they may also lead to international conflicts over shared water
resources, oceanic fisheries, or other scarce resources. Nowhere is the potential conflict over scarce water more
stark than among the three principal countries of the Nile River valley—Egypt, the Sudan, and Ethiopia. In Egypt,
where it rarely rains, agriculture is almost wholly dependent on water from the Nile. Egypt now gets the lion’s
share of the Nile’s water, but its current population of 66 million is projected to reach 115 million by 2050, thus
greatly boosting the demand for grain, even without any gains in per capita consumption. The Sudan, whose
population is projected to double from 29 million today to 60 million by 2050, also depends heavily on the Nile.
The population of Ethiopia, the country that controls 85 percent of the headwaters of the Nile, is projected to
expand from 62 million to 213 million. With little Nile water now reaching the Mediterranean, if either of the two
upstream countries, Sudan or Ethiopia, use more water, Egypt will get less.
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FAMINE IMPACTS
(__) RESOURCE SHORTAGES  WARS

This growing competition for limited resources has led to ongoing conflicts among countries. The United Nations
recorded more than 100 such disputes in 1997. These are evident in the cod wars between Norwegian and Icelandic
ships, between Canada and Spain over turbot off Canada’s eastern coast, between China and the Marshall Islands
in Micronesia, between Argentina and Taiwan over Falkland island fisheries, and between Indonesia and the
Philippines in the Celebes. A Greenpeace spokesperson notes there are “tuna wars in the northeast Atlantic, crab
wars in the North Pacific, squid wars in the southwest Atlantic, salmon wars in the North Pacific, and pollock wars
in the Sea of Okhotsk.”
Although these disputes make it into the world news only rarely, they are now an almost daily occurrence. Indeed,
historians may record more fishery conflicts during one year in the 1990s than during the entire nineteenth
century.51
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OVERPOP  ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION
(__) OVERPOPULATION DRAINS ALL ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

Just as water depletion is increasing faster than population increases, population growth will cause a
disproportionate increase in the rate of depletion of other natural resources. Worldwide demand for energy is
growing much faster than population, not only for development but also just to maintain the status quo in a
deteriorating environment. Our vessel has sprung an entropy leak, and we need ever-increasing amounts of fuel for
our entropy pumps. Overpopulation has already caused desertification of arable land due to increased erosion,
salinity, and overgrazing; massive deforestation; depletion of marine food supplies; and mass extinctions due to
loss of habitat, pollution, climate change, and water depletion. Further population growth will accelerate these rates
of depletion at a time when increases in these resources will be desperately needed, because these disintegrative
processes have now become mutually reinforcing. We have triggered a set of interlocking positive feedback loops
in which even zero population growth could no longer halt the runaway processes of environmental degradation.
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ENVIRONMENTAL DEVASTATION IMPACTS
( ) Environmental destruction makes poverty eradication impossible

which is a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C, Plan B 2.0, http://www.earth-
policy.org/Books/PB2/PB2preface.htm, dbm)
In the original Plan B, we had a budget for eradicating poverty, but if the economy’s environmental support systems are collapsing,
poverty eradication will not be possible. If croplands are eroding and harvests are shrinking, if water tables are falling and wells
are going dry, if rangelands are turning to desert and livestock are dying, if fisheries are collapsing, if forests are shrinking, and if
rising temperatures are scorching crops, a poverty eradication program—no matter how carefully crafted and well implemented—
will not succeed.
( ) Environmental destruction ensures economic collapse

Our twenty-first century civilization is not the first to move onto an economic path that was environmentally unsustainable. Many
earlier civilizations also found themselves in environmental trouble. As Jared Diamond notes in Collapse: How Societies Entering a New World Choose to Fail or Succeed, some were able
We study the archeological sites of Sumerians, the Mayans, Easter Islanders, and
to change course and avoid economic decline. Others were not.
other early civilizations that were not able to make the needed adjustments in time.1 Fortunately, there is a consensus emerging among scientists on the
broad outlines of the changes needed. If economic progress is to be sustained, we need to replace the fossil-fuelbased, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic
model. Instead of being based on fossil fuels, the new economy will be powered by abundant sources of renewable energy: wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and biofuels. Instead of
being centered around automobiles, future transportation systems will be far more diverse, widely employing light rail, buses, and bicycles as well as cars. The goal will be to maximize
mobility, not automobile ownership. The throwaway economy will be replaced by a comprehensive reuse/recycle economy. Consumer products from cars to computers will be designed so
that they can be disassembled into their component parts and completely recycled. Throwaway products such as single-use beverage containers will be phased out. The good news is that
we can already see glimpses here and there of what this new economy looks like. We have the technologies to build it—including, for example, gas-electric hybrid cars, advanced-design
wind turbines, highly efficient refrigerators, and water-efficient irrigation systems. We can see how to build the new economy brick by brick. With each wind farm, rooftop solar panel,
paper recycling facility, bicycle path, and reforestation program, we move closer to an economy that can sustain economic progress. If, instead, we continue on the current economic path,
the question is not whether environmental deterioration will lead to economic decline, but when. No
economy, however technologically advanced, can survive
the collapse of its environmental support systems. We recently entered a new century, but we are also entering a new world, one where the collisions between our
demands and the earth’s capacity to satisfy them are becoming daily events. It may be another crop-withering heat wave, another village abandoned because of invading sand dunes, or
another aquifer pumped dry. If we do not act quickly to reverse the trends, these seemingly isolated events will come more and more frequently, accumulating and combining to determine
our future. Resources that accumulated over eons of geological time are being consumed in a single human lifespan. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating
deadlines that we do not recognize. These deadlines, determined by nature, are not politically negotiable. Nature has many thresholds that we discover only when it is too late. In our fast-
forward world, we learn that we have crossed them only after the fact, leaving little time to adjust. For example, when we exceed the sustainable catch of a fishery, the stocks begin to
shrink. Once this threshold is crossed, we have a limited time in which to back off and lighten the catch. If we fail to meet this deadline, breeding populations shrink to where the fishery is
We know from earlier civilizations that the lead indicators of economic decline were environmental, not
no longer viable, and it collapses.
economic. The trees went first, then the soil, and finally the civilization itself. To archeologists, the sequence is all too familiar.
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OVERPOP  GLOBAL WARMING
(__) OVERPOP  INCREASED EMISSIONS OF GREENHOUSE GASES

Fossil fuel use accounts for roughly three quarters of world carbon emissions. As a result, regional growth in carbon
emissions tend to occur where economic activity, and related energy use, is projected to grow most rapidly.
Emissions in China are projected to grow over three times faster than population in the next half-century, as emissions per person soar from 0.77 tons of carbon to 2.81 tons
due to a booming economy that is heavily reliant on coal and other carbon-rich energy sources. In Africa, in contrast, emissions per person are expected to scarcely change
—growing from the current level of 0.30 tons to 0.33 tons in 2050, despite a threefold increase in total emissions.43
The effects of population growth are most profound in countries where people are heavy emitters. For example, the
115 million people added to the population of the United States between 1950 and 1998—an increase of nearly 75
percent in just 45 years—account for more than one tenth of current global emissions. And the carbon emissions of
the 75 million people who will be added to the U.S. population in the next 50 years roughly equal the emissions of
the 1.3 billion people who will be added to Africa during that period.44
(__) Overpopulation accelerates global warming.

As population continues to grow, people are burning more carbon fuels, increasing the rate of human CO^2
production, speeding warming. Forests are vanishing due to logging and settlement, decreasing the rate at which
CO^2 is converted to living matter and oxygen. Consequently, CO^2 is building up faster in the air, speeding
warming. The warming oceans are speeding up oxygen consumption by algae, lowering oxygen levels to the point
where enormous dead zones are developing in which plankton die, slowly removing of CO^2 and replenishment of
oxygen.
(__) The population must be dramatically decreased to prevent extinction through greenhouse gases
The mid-20th century view that technology would enable unfettered population growth (for example, the
development of unlimited risk-free energy or mass space travel and the colonisation of other planets) proved a
chimera. Yet some international agencies and many national governments still share a comprehensive vision of
global sustainable development and poverty alleviation that centres on unlimited consumption-based economic
expansion. There are still people who believe that Earth can support another three billion people (three times the
population of India), with all enjoying a 'sustainable' standard of living. Others believe an irreversible mass
extinction is already under way. The uncomfortable truth is that the impact on Earth's biosphere of a projected 9
billion people living at a desired higher standard of living in 2050 would be fatal for the planet in terms of
greenhouse gas emissions alone. See Climate change. OPT's view is an optimistic one: that an environmentally
sustainable population can be achieved. But in the absence of real, radical and rapid change to low-carbon energy
systems, that population could be as low as two to three billion people.
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OVERPOP  GLOBAL WARMING
(__) EXPANDING POPULATION  CLIMATE CHANGE

UK Government Chief Scientist Sir David King acknowledged to the All Party Parliamentary Group on
Population, Development and Reproductive Health earlier this year that ‘population change is linked directly to
climate change’.(3)
Extravagant consumption patterns in industrialised nations are the biggest contributors to pollution and carbon
dioxide emissions. However, with 95 per cent of population increase set to occur among less developed countries,
as they understandably seek to achieve a higher standard of living they will also contribute more to accelerating
climate change. In Indonesia, India and China fossil fuel consumption has increased by 50-65 per cent just in the
last decade.
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GLOBAL WARMING IMPACTS

(__) WARMING  EXTINCTION
BROWN 2006 [Paul, PhD, NOTES FROM A DYING PLANET, pages 202-203] / ttate
The evidence for global warming is all around us. Most chapters in this book mention news reports of record-breaking heat waves; melting ice caps and glaciers; droughts and famines;
violent weather; die-offs, overpopulation and migrations of species; and rising ocean levels. There is no longer any doubt that the principal cause is human combustion
of fossil fuels. We’re producing CO2 faster than it could be removed from the atmosphere even if we had not reduced the world’s photosynthetic capacity through
forest destruction.
Global warming is caused by a greenhouse effect, in which solar light passes through the atmosphere and that portion that is not reflected warms the surface of the globe. In the recent past, enough of that heat was radiated back into
space in the form of infrared (IR) light so the Earth didn’t heat up. However, CO, absorbs IR, trapping some of the heat in the atmosphere. It acts just like the glass in a greenhouse, which passes visible light but not IR.
That’s why CO2 is referred to as a greenhouse gas. Atmospheric CO2 has gone from 280 parts per million (ppm), a level that had remained much the same for the previous 10,000 years, to 360 ppm in 1998. Scientists project that
the concentration will reach 560 ppm by 2050, and average global temperature will increase by 3-7°F. There’s a
very real danger that a positive feedback loop wall be (or already has been) initial in which rising temperatures will decrease
reflectivity due to ice melting; atmospheric water vapor concentration will go up because warmer air can hold more water (and water’s a greenhouse gas too);
methane will be released from thawing tundra, swamps, and undersea deposits (yes, methane’s a greenhouse gas too) because warm water can’t hold as
much gas as ice or cold water; and CO2 will be released from rocks, water and ice. This will cause global warming to skyrocket far faster than would be caused by
our increased CO2 production alone. If that happens, drastic temperature shifts could take place in just a few years. New scientific evidence
suggests that just such drastic temperature shifts have occurred in the past. If that were to happen, there would be nothing we could do, and our ecosystem
would collapse. We would go with it.
(__) Global warming will cause extinction and is the most probable impact – prefer our evidence because it
cites the experts
Henzell 04 (John, “Human extinction within 100 years warns scientist,” Nov 17, www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0,1478,3099128a10,00.html, dbm)
A top New Zealand researcher is using a prestigious award ceremony in Christchurch to warn that humans face extinction by the end
of the century. Professor Peter Barrett will be presented with the Marsden Medal tonight for his 40-year contribution to Antarctic research, latterly focusing on climate change. The director of Victoria
University's Antarctic Research Centre expects to use his acceptance speech to warn climate change was a major threat to the planet. "After 40 years, I'm part of a huge community of
scientists who have become alarmed with our discovery, that we know from our knowledge of the ancient past, that if we continue
our present growth path, we are facing extinction," Barrett said. "Not in millions of years, or even millennia, but by the end of this century." Barrett won the award – designed to mark
lifetime achievement in the sciences – for his research into Antarctica, which began with helping prove New Zealand was once part of the Gondwanaland supercontinent. He then changed disciplines, to predicting the
impact of climate change. The result was a body of research on Antarctic ice sheets "which to our surprise is becoming increasingly relevant to the world as a consequence of global warming". Barrett's warning
underlines comments he made last year that even the Kyoto Protocol on global warming would not be enough to avert a climate disaster. The United States and Australia have refused to adopt Kyoto protocol measures.
"Research on the past Antarctic climate has an ominous warning for the future ..." he said. "We need an international commitment to an effective solution, if we are to survive the worst consequences of this grandest of
"we are facing the end of civilisation as we know it ... by the
all human experiments." Marsden Medal 2004 - Background comments by Peter Barrett The basis for the claim that
end of the century" follows: The rise in global temperature over the last few decades (thus far just 0.6°C) is already being felt through
increased storminess, loss of species, spread of deserts and tropical diseases, and disturbed ecological balance from excess CO2, an
example being the Amazon rain forest. The effects will vary widely from place to place, with some areas little affected but others much more so. Why do most scientists
see this as human-induced, and with huge consequences for the insurance, transport and agricultural sectors of every economy, not to mention massive loss of life and property, if this
The scientific basis for the earth’s climate warming beyond the variations of the last 1,000 years is set out in the
trend continues?
assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, Cambridge University Press). See also the IPCC website for the
2001 report, especially its 20 page plain-language Executive Summary on the science from Working Party I). IPCC is a joint UNEP-World Meteorological
Organisation body that involves over 1000 climate scientists from 100 countries and has based its 3 reports (1990, 1995 and 2001) solely on data from peer-
reviewed scientific publications. It reaches its conclusions by debate and consensus, noting the level of uncertainty in its key statements.
It is therefore the most authoritative source of information on earth on global warming. A key finding of IPCC 2001 was that by
the end of this century if we continue our present path CO2 levels will have doubled and global average temperature will have
risen between 1.4 and 5.8°C (95% probability). Or put another way there is roughly a 50:50 chance that global average temperature will have risen by more than 3.4°C. A more recent
study, published in Nature in August, narrowed the uncertainty and upped the figure to ~4°C.This represents a huge shift in climate - the earth last had this temperature was around 35 million
years ago, before big ice sheets formed on Antarctica. Recent scientific articles on climate change published in leading scientific journals, even in the last 3
months, show that the effects of global warming are likely to be worse, not better, than predicted. For example: the Arctic is warming
faster than previously predicted (Journal of Climate, October) acidity of the oceans (already more acid than 100 years ago by 0.1 Ph units) is projected to
increase by >0.3 overall (and by >0.5 in the surface layers) by the end of this century, making carbonate-secreting marine life increasingly
more difficult (EOS, September) West Antarctic ice streams have begun to speed up, increasing sea level rise (Science, September) On top of these
projections there are two more risk elements with catastrophic consequences: Runaway release of gigatonnes of methane from the
huge reservoir of solid methane hydrate beneath the ocean floor (and this has triggered super-warmings in the ancient past) – read
Professor Jim Kennett’s Methane Hydrates in Quaternary Climate Change: The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis, published by the American Geophysical Union. Sudden lurches in temperature in the
North Atlantic region, which in the prehistoric past have dropped temperatures in Western Europe and the east coast of North
America by 6°C in a few years. These are documented in US National Academy of Sciences 2001 report “Abrupt Climate Change – inevitable surprises”, and are summarized in Professor Richard
Alley’s article in the November issue of Scientific American.
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OVERPOP  BIODIVERSITY LOSS
Biodiversity loss is caused primarily by the explosion of the human population—stabilizing the population is
key to protecting the planet
Simon, 1998 (Julian L., Business Administration @ the University of Maryland and Senior Fellow @ the Cato
Institute, The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment, Online Text, February 16, Chapter 1,
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/lec01/b65lec01.htm, Accessed 7/15/07.) / vinay
We live at a critical time for the conservation of biological resources on earth. The Living Planet Index, a measure reflecting the
state of the world's forests, freshwater and marine ecosystems, fell by 37% between 1970 and 2000 according to the Living Planet 2002 Report.
In the recent past, the level of biological diversity was the highest the world has ever seen. However, the number of species is not known, even to the nearest order of
magnitude. The number of described species is about 1.4 million; but the total is estimated at about 5 million. It has taken 3.5 billion years for this biodiversity to evolve,
Whereas the natural rate of extinction is estimated at about one species per year, the present
and we are rapidly destroying it.
rate is estimated at 10,000 times that - about one per hour - and almost all of these losses are caused by human
activities. We probably have already lost 1 million species, and several more million will be lost in the first few decades of the 21st century.
Table 1 gives the number of recorded extinctions between 1600 and 1983. Notice that:
- the total number of recorded extinctions is over 700;
- over half of these are vascular plants;
- a very large fraction are island forms, especially with reptiles and birds.
The data are probably most accurate for birds and mammals since these are the most conspicuous of the types of organisms listed. 113 species of birds and 83 species of
mammals were definitely lost during this period.
Table 2 gives the number of extinct animal species, and also includes counts of the number of animal species considered to be under different degrees of threat. A 1996
study by the World Conservation Union found that 25 percent of mammal and amphibian species, 11 percent of birds, 20 percent of reptiles and 34 percent of fish species
are threatened with extinction. About 10 percent of the world's tree species are in danger of extinction.
The number of inconspicuous forms, like insects, that have gone extinct is probably much higher than the number shown on the list. Many of these species are becoming
extinct before they are even studied or named by scientists.
More up-to-date data are available for the more conspicuous and well-known types of animals. Species are the best-known categories, but subspecies are also counted in the
extinction statistics. Subspecies are distinct groups within a species, and they are important because they would probably evolve into sparate species in the future. The
following are known to have gone extinct in historic times, most of them clearly due to human activities:
Birds (worldwide): 42 species and 44 subspecies
Mammals (worldwide): 73 species and 30 subspecies
Amphibians (worldwide): 122 species (since 1980)
In the U.S., where research is probably more intensive than in many other countries, 631 species are known to have been lost since 1642, and the total is probably well over
a thousand. Hawaii, Alabama, and California lead the nation in number of extinctions.
The reasons for extinction are changing. In prehistoric times, natural disasters and competition with other species were the main causes. In historic times, overexploitation
and exotic species introductions have caused many extinctions. But today, the main problems facing wildlife are destruction of habitat and pollution.
Tropical forest is being destroyed at the rate of 40,000 square miles = an area the size of Ohio, per year. This is mainly due to slash-and-burn agriculture in areas of high
population growth, in which small areas are cleared and used for a few years until they become infertile, and then more acreage is cleared. About 44% of the original
tropical moist forest on the earth is now gone. It has been estimated that 15-20% of all species will become extinct by the year 2000 because of the destruction of tropical
forests. This rate is about 10,000 times as high as the rate prior to the existence of human beings.
Other habitats are also being destroyed - temperate forests, deserts, wetlands, and coral reefs are all being destroyed at
alarming rates, either for profit or to make room for housing, agriculture, ports and other human activities.
Damming of rivers has depleted salmon populations in the American Pacific Northwest to such an extent that many
of the runs are extinct and others have been listed as endangered.
The fundamental reason for the degradation and loss of habitat is the explosive growth of the human population.
Since 1900 the world's population has more than tripled. Since 1950 it has more than doubled, to 6 billion. Every
year 90 million more people (= 3x the population of California) are added to the planet. All of these people need places to
live, work and play, and they all contribute to habitat loss and global pollution.
Our generation is the first one that really became aware of the fact that the human population is causing irreparable
damage to the planet - to the air, water and soil of the planet and to its biological resources. Ours is not the first generation to do damage
to the planet, but we are the first to realize the extent of the problem.
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OVERPOP  BIODIVERSITY LOSS
(__) INCREASING POPULATION DENSITIES  MASSIVES SPECIES LOSS

p 19-20, ,http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
As human population has surged this century, the populations of numerous other species have tumbled, many to
the point of extinction. Indeed, we live amid the greatest extinction of plant and animal life since the dinosaurs
disappeared some 65 million years ago, with species losses at 100 to 1,000 times the natural rate. But humans are not just witnesses to a rare
historic event, we are actually its cause. The leading sources of today’s species loss—habitat alteration, invasions by exotic species,
pollution, and overhunting— are all a function of human activities.
A series of studies over the past decade by the World Conservation Union–IUCN has documented the stresses facing a broad range of species, with disturbing conclusions.
Human activities have pushed the percentage of mammals, amphibians, and fish that are in “immediate danger” of
extinction into double digits. (See Table 3.)3
The principal cause of species extinction is habitat loss—the result of encroachment by humans for settlements, for
agriculture, or to claim resources such as timber. A particularly productive but vulnerable habitat is found in coastal areas, home to 60 percent of the world’s
population. Coastal wetlands nurture two thirds of all commercially caught fish, for example. And coral reefs have the second highest concentration of biodiversity in the
world, after tropical rainforests. But human encroachment and pollution are degrading these areas: roughly half of the world’s salt marshes and mangrove swamps have been
eliminated or radically altered, and two thirds of the world’s coral reefs have been degraded, 10 percent of them “beyond recognition.” As coastal migration continues—
coastal dwellers could account for 75 percent of world population within 30 years—the pressures on these productive habitats will likely increase.34
Habitat loss tends to accelerate with an increase in a country’s population density. This is bad news for the world’s
“biodiversity hotspots”—species-rich ecosystems at greatest risk of destruction. Twenty-four of these hotspots, containing half of the planet’s species, have been
identified globally. Some of the most important hotspot countries will reach population densities that have been linked
with very high rates of habitat loss. Five of the six most biologically rich countries (see Table 4) could see more than two thirds of their original habitat
destroyed by 2050 if this historical relationship holds.35
(__) Overpopulation kills biodiversity.

Catton ’98 (William R, Professor Emeritus at Washington State University, Negative Population Growth,
http://billtotten.blogspot.com/2005/03/malthus-more-relevant-than-ever.html, August 1998) / rice
We have trebled the human load upon this planet in my lifetime by using the planet unsustainably and this has
caused a new era of extinction. According to a recent survey, a majority of American biologists regard the mass
extinction of plant and animal species now resulting from human domination of the earth as a grave threat to
humans in the next century (Warrick, 1998). We live in a world losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate
(Koopowitz and Kaye, 1983; Wilson, 1992:215 ff; Tuxill, 1998). It is high time to see that this consequence was
implicit in the 1798 essay by Malthus.
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OVERPOP  DEFO
(__) POPULATION PRESSURES  DEFORESTATION

Global losses of forest area have marched in step with population growth for much of human history. The two trends rose slowly for
millennia, turned upward in recent centuries, and accelerated sharply after 1900. Indeed, 75 percent of the historical growth in global population
and an estimated 75 percent of the loss in global forested area have occurred in the twentieth century. The
correlation makes sense, given the additional need for farmland, pastureland, and forest products as human
numbers expand. But since 1950, the advent of mass consumption of forest products has quickened the pace of
deforestation. (See Table 6.)73
In some cases, population pressure is still closely linked with deforestation. In Latin America, for example, ranching is the single
largest cause of deforestation. Because most meat produced in Latin America is consumed there, and because meat consumption per person has been largely unchanged for
several decades, it is likely that expanding population is the principal reason for ranching-related deforestation. In addition,
analysts at the World Resources
Institute estimate that overgrazing and overcollection of firewood—which are often a function of a growing
population— are degrading some 14 percent of the world’s threatened frontier forests (large areas of virgin forest). In fact, a U.N.
Food and Agriculture Organization study showed a one-to-one correlation between population growth and fuelwood consumption in 16 Asian countries between 1961 and
1994.
AND, POPULATION GROWTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES UNIQUELY KEY

Although consumptionand population growth have operated somewhat independently in the late twentieth century, the two forces could coincide
in the developing world in coming decades, with substantial consequences for forests. Developing-country paper
consumption is less than one tenth the level found in industrial nations, suggesting that large increases in
consumption are likely as these nations prosper. (It also suggests that greater economy is needed in industrial countries.) With 80 percent
of the world’s people, and as home to all of the increase in population in coming decades, even modest growth in
per capita paper and wood consumption in developing countries could place substantial pressure on forests. If paper
were used by the entire world in 2050 at today’s industrial-nation rates, paper production would need to jump more than eightfold over 1996 levels.
AND, CURRENT RATE OF DEFORESTATION IS UNSUSTAINABLE

This projected growth is unsustainable, given that global use of forest products is already near or beyond the limits
of sustainable use. Using data on sustainable forest yields, and assuming that virgin forests are left intact, researchers at Friends of the Earth
UK have determined that production of forest products for the world is 25 percent beyond the most restrictive
estimates for sustainable consumption. (Many forests, of course, are already logged well beyond sustainable levels.) The most optimistic assessment
would allow for a further 35-percent growth in consumption. Even that spells trouble, however, given a projected global population increase
of some 54 percent over the next half-century, and given the likely increase in consumption from rising prosperity.
Lower consumption of forest products and increased recycling in industrial countries can make room for a more prosperous developing world to enjoy the products of the
world’s forests, but the task will be made easier if population growth everywhere is stabilized sooner rather than later.
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OVERPOP  DISEASE SPREAD
(__) Overpopulation kills the quality of life for women increasing diseases.
The costs of overpopulation include deterioration of the nutrition and health of mothers and children as family size
becomes insupportable. In areas of explosive growth, mothers start having children in their mid-teens, and
continue having them, if they live long enough, into their forties and fifties. Mothers at both age extremes are
much more vulnerable to complications. Many or most of these pregnancies are unwanted by the mothers. Causes
of maternal deaths due to undesired pregnancies include hemorrhaging, blood poisoning, and other birth
complications, as well as back-street abortions (either because they’re illegal or the pregnant women can’t afford
legal ones). Survivors of these events have impaired health. Especially where health care is poor, the more
children women have, the worse their health becomes, leading to higher disease and mortality rates in both mothers
and children. Short intervals between births, nutritional deficiencies, lack of hygiene and sanitation, and shorter
breast-feeding periods all stack the odds even more against these mothers and children.
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OVERPOP  POVERTY
(__) RAPIDLY INCREASING POPULATION  EXPANSION OF LABOR SUPPLY – NOT ENOUGH

JOBS FOR EVERYONE
Since mid-century, the world’s labor force has more than doubled—from 1.2 billion people to 2.7 billion,
outstripping the growth in job creation. As a result, the United Nations International Labor Organization estimates
that nearly 1 billion people, approximately 30 percent of the global work force, are unemployed or underemployed
(working but not earning enough to meet basic needs). Over the next half-century, the world will need to create
more than 1.9 billion jobs—all of them in the developing world— just to maintain current levels of employment.55
As economists often note, while population growth may boost labor demand (through economic activity and
demand for goods), it will most definitely boost labor supply. During the next 50 years, almost 40 million people
will enter the global labor force—defined as those between the ages of 15 and 65 seeking work—each year.
Between 1995 and 2050, some 1.9 billion additional jobs will need to be created to absorb these new would-be
workers. (See Table 5.) The most pressing needs will be found in the world’s poorest nations—a sobering example
of the vicious cycle linking poverty and population growth.56
AND, THE LABOR SUPPLY ISSUE IS ESPECIALLY ACUTE IN AFRICA

As the children of today represent the workers of tomorrow, the interaction between population growth and jobs is
most acute in nations with young populations.
Nations such as Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, and Zambia with more than half their population below the age of 25
will feel the burden of this labor flood. In the Middle East and Africa, 40 percent of the population is under the age
of 15. Since new entrants into the labor force were born at least 15 years ago, measures to reduce population
growth have a delayed effect on the growth of the labor force, highlighting the urgency of taking action on
population.57
MORE EVIDENCE
p 28-29 ,http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
Nowhere is the employment challenge greater than in Africa, where at least 40 percent of the population lives in
absolute poverty. Although 8 million people entered the sub- Saharan work force in 1997, by 2030 this resource-
scarce region will have to absorb more than 17 million new entrants each year. Over the next half-century,
Nigeria’s labor force is projected to grow by 246 percent and Ethiopia’s will soar by 337 percent—both faster than
growth of the general population. At current growth rates, the size of the labor force in sub-Saharan Africa will
more than triple by 2050.58
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OVERPOP  POVERTY
(__) CONTINUED EXPANSION OF LABOR SUPPLY WILL DECREASE WAGES AND INCREASE
UNEMPLOYMENT – FUELS THE CYCLE OF POVERTY AND LEADS TO POLITICAL INSTABILITY
p 30 ,http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
As the balance between the demand and supply of labor is tipped by population growth, wages—the price of labor
—tend to decrease. And in a situation of labor surplus, the quality of jobs may not improve as fast, for workers will
settle for longer hours, fewer benefits, and less control over work activities.63
Employment is the key to obtaining food, housing, health services, and education, in addition to providing self-
respect and self-fulfillment. Rising numbers of unemployed people could drive global poverty and hunger to
precarious levels, fueling political instability.64
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OVERPOP  TERRORISM
Overpopulation causes global warming and WMD terrorism.

Demeny ’04 (Paul, Distinguished Scholar at the Population Council, POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
REVIEW, http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/councilarticles/pdr/PDR303Demeny.pdf, September 2004) / rice
On this score, calamities of nature come first to mind. The kind of celestial collisions that extinguished the
dinosaurs and could well do the same to humans occur so rarely—apparently there were three such instances in the
last 300 million years—that they perhaps would not deserve even a footnote in an exercise presenting 300-year
projections. But, given its documented past frequency and severity, the possibility of abrupt climate change
certainly would rate a mention in speculating about population trends over three centuries. The major concern here
is not gradual global warming, to which modern industrial societies could adjust at a tolerable cost, and from
which even net benefits for world agriculture might ensue, but possible major temperature drops, such as occurred
some 12,000 and 8,000 years ago, lasting many decades or even centuries. These occurred without the involvement
of human agency. In the future they might, additionally, be triggered by human-induced global warming affecting
oceanic currents and causing a chain reaction of adverse weather changes. This could lead to a major reduction in
carrying capacity through diminished food production, water shortages, disruption of energy supplies, global
conflicts in competition for scarce resources, and ultimately to massive population loss. This last possibility, with
or without climate change, may also be the consequence of unforeseen worsening of the epidemiological
environment—causing peaks analogous to those associated with the Black Death, the Spanish influenza epidemic,
and HIV/AIDS, but writ even larger. Heavy losses of life could also be the result of major disruption of global
trade flows and of wars waged with weapons of mass destruction. The lethality of modern weaponry, nuclear,
chemical, radiological, or biological, may make wars between major countries less likely, as the results would be
correctly perceived as mutually devastating. But technological changes tend to make such weapons potentially
accessible to rogue states and even to small groups of terrorists, creating enormous risks. Research advances may
render synthesizing viruses and creation of enhanced pathogens feasible relatively cheaply. Such work may soon
be carried out by small groups of scientists or even a single curious or disgruntled researcher, amplifying the
danger of accidental or malevolent release of extremely lethal substances, with incalculable consequences.
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OVERPOP  CONFLICT
(__) POPULATION PRESSURES  CIVIL UNREST AND CONFLICT

High levels of unemployment and disaffection consequent on population increase are also linked with unrest.
Recent research has found a ‘striking and consistent’ correlation between countries with high fertility and an
increased likelihood of civil conflict. This was exacerbated where the countries had very high numbers of young
adults (below 29 years) – predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.(2)
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MALTHUS
OVERPOP  WASTE
(__) POPULATION WASTE  INCREASES OF POOR WASTE DISTRIBUTION – LEADS TO

CONTAMINATION OF GROUNDWATER AND CANCER-CAUSING EMISSIONS
A growing population increases society’s disposal headaches—the garbage, sewage, and industrial waste that must
be gotten rid of. Even where population is largely stable—the case in many industrial countries—-the flow of waste products into landfills and waterways generally
continues to increase. Where high rates of economic and population growth coincide in coming decades, as they will in
many developing countries, mountains of waste will likely pose difficult disposal challenges for municipal and
national authorities. (See Table 11.)107 Data for waste generation in the developing world are scarce, but citizens in many of these countries are estimated to
produce roughly half a kilo of municipal waste each day. If this figure is applied to today’s population, a total of 824 million tons of municipal waste is being churned out
annually in developing countries. Population growth alone would boost this number to 1.5 billion tons by 2050. But waste rates tend
to climb with rising incomes; a developing world generating as much waste per capita as industrial countries do today would be producing some 3.6 billion tons of
municipal waste in 2050. Moreover, prosperity boosts the volume of waste as the share of plastics, metal, paper, and other nonorganics rises.108 Local
and global
environmental effects of waste disposal will likely worsen as 3.4 billion people are added to global population over
the next half-century. Acids from organic wastes, for example, and poisons from hazardous wastes often leach from
landfills, polluting local groundwater supplies. And rotting organic matter generates methane, a greenhouse gas. If
the waste is incinerated rather than thrown into landfills, cities will have to worry about increases in cancer-causing
dioxin emissions, one of the byproducts of burning garbage.
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OVERPOP  OIL SHORTAGES
(__) Increased overpopulation means exhausting oil resulting in massive death.

Hoff ’07 (Brishen, Oil: The Fuel of Population Growth,
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=401&action=viewThread&forum_thread_id=1788
&forum_id=41, 7/9/07) rice
But wait, even under conservative estimates, world oil supplies will be exhausted by 2047. Suppose that if by following David Suzuki's and
Elizabeth May's advice of installing CFL lights, putting in more windmills, etc we are able to make oil last longer than 40 years. This would
mean that we could maybe reach more than 10 billion people before the die-off from oil supplies drying up. Perhaps
we could reach 12 billion globally. Notice how David Suzuki and Elizabeth May don't say anything about the need to reduce human population and stop population growth?
Of course, that would be too unpopular with the catholics against birth control and the elite CEOs who rely on population growth for their revenue. It would also be
unpopular with the Stephen Lewis's who think that Canadians have a moral obligation not to the native wildlife or current residents, but to the billions of people who would
love to immigrate here and turn Canada into a crowded, polluted quagmire like China or India. These people believe Canada is a vast empty space that could double its
population and still be able to feed its people. However, they don't realize that Canada doesn't have the growing season of China or India. 95% of Canada is not arable land.
Much of the arable land is already covered in buildings, sewer pipes, roads, parking lots, highways, industrial sites, etc. Canada's average climate makes places like Norway,
Sweden, Iceland or Finland seem balmy. Saying Canada can absorb millions of more immigrants and refugees without having to import its food and without pushing more
of its native wildlife into extinction would be like saying we could move China's population to Antarctica, where they could all live out happy and productive lives since
Antarctica (4.5 million square miles) is bigger than China (3.7 million square miles).
If we reach 12 billion people globally, that would be a bad thing even by the standards of anthropocentric human-rights activists like Stephen Lewis, because
that would mean 11 billion people will starve to death when food production falls from lack of oil.
( ) No new oil will be found

Closely related to this behavior is the lack of any substantial increases in exploration and development in 2005 even though oil
prices are well above $50 a barrel. This suggests that the companies agree with petroleum geologists who say that 95 percent of all
the oil in the world has already been discovered. “The whole world has now been seismically searched and picked over,” says
independent geologist Colin Campbell. “Geological knowledge has improved enormously in the past 30 years and it is almost
inconceivable now that major fields remain to be found.” This also implies that it may take a lot of costly exploration and drilling
to find that remaining 5 percent.8
( ) Oil production is unsustainable

The geological evidence suggests that world oil production will be peaking sooner rather than later. Matt Simmons, head of the oil
investment bank Simmons and Company International and an industry leader, says in reference to new oil fields: “We’ve run out
of good projects. This is not a money issue…if these oil companies had fantastic projects, they’d be out there [developing new
fields].” Kenneth Deffeyes, a highly respected geologist and former oil industry employee now at Princeton University, says in his
2005 book, Beyond Oil, “It is my opinion that the peak will occur in late 2005 or in the first few months of 2006.” Walter
Youngquist and A.M. Samsan Bakhtiari of the Iranian National Oil Company both project that oil will peak in 2007.10 Sadad al-
Husseini, recently retired as head of exploration and production at Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, discussed the world oil
prospect with Peter Maass for the New York Times. His basic point was that new oil output coming online had to be sufficient to
cover both annual growth in world demand of at least 2 million barrels a day and the annual decline in production from existing
fields of over 4 million barrels a day. “That’s like a whole new Saudi Arabia every couple of years,” Husseini said. “It’s not
sustainable.”11
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OVERPOP  OIL SHORTAGES
( ) Timeframe – tar sands and oil shale will slow the decline of oil production
Thus although these reserves of oil in tar sands and shale may be vast, gearing up for production is a costly, time-consuming process. At best, the development
of tar sands and oil shale is likely only to slow the decline in world oil production.15
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OIL SHORTAGES IMPACTS
( ) Oil insecurity leads to food insecurity

As the demand for farm commodities climbs, it is shifting the focus of international trade concerns from the traditional goal of
assured access to markets to one of assured access to supplies. Countries heavily dependent on imported grain for food are
beginning to worry that buyers for fuel distilleries may outbid them for supplies. As oil security deteriorates, so, too, will food
security.
( ) High oil prices devastate the impoverished

In this new world, the price of oil begins to set the price of food, not so much because of rising fuel costs for farmers and food
processors but more because almost everything we eat can be converted into fuel for cars. In this new world of high oil prices,
supermarkets and service stations will compete in commodity markets for basic food commodities such as wheat, corn, soybeans,
and sugarcane. Wheat going into the market can be converted into bread for supermarkets or ethanol for service stations. Soybean
oil can go onto supermarket shelves or it can go to service stations to be used as diesel fuel. In effect, owners of the world’s 800
million cars will be competing for food resources with the 1.2 billion people living on less than $1 a day.9
( ) Rising oil prices will destroy biodiversity

Faced with a seemingly insatiable demand for automotive fuel, farmers will want to clear more and more of the remaining tropical
forests to produce sugarcane, oil palms, and other highyielding fuel crops. Already, billions of dollars of private capital are moving
into this effort. In effect, the rising price of oil is generating a massive new threat to the earth’s biological diversity.
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OIL SHORTAGES IMPACTS
INCREASING OIL PRICES BAD – SEVERAL REASONS:
( ) Drive up food prices

The food sector will be affected in two ways. Food will become more costly as higher oil prices drive up production costs. As oil
costs rise, diets will be altered as people move down the food chain and as they consume more local, seasonally produced food. Diets will thus become more
closely attuned to local products and more seasonal in nature.
( ) Recreates us/them dichotomies

At the same time, rising oil prices will also be drawing agricultural resources into the production of fuel crops, either ethanol or
biodiesel. Higher oil prices are thus setting up competition between affluent motorists and low-income food consumers for food
resources, presenting the world with a complex new ethical issue.
( ) Jacks the airline industry

Airlines, both passenger travel and freight, will continue to suffer as jet fuel prices climb, simply because fuel is their biggest
operating expense. Although industry projections show air passenger travel growing by some 5 percent a year for the next decade,
this seems highly unlikely. Cheap airfares may soon become history.62
( ) Cripples the air freight market

Air freight may be hit even harder, perhaps leading to an absolute decline. One of the early casualties of rising oil prices could be
the use of jumbo jets to transport fresh produce from the southern hemisphere to industrial countries during the northern winter.
The price of fresh produce out of season may simply become prohibitive.
( ) Destroys our ability to maintain roads

During the century of cheap oil, an enormous automobile infrastructure was built in industrial countries that requires large amounts
of energy to maintain. The United States, for example, has 2.6 million miles of paved roads, covered mostly with asphalt, and 1.4
million miles of unpaved roads to maintain even if world oil production is falling. Higher energy prices may create a maintenance
crisis.63
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MALTHUS
OVERPOP  POOR WATER QUALITY

(__) Overpopulation causes water scarcity and increases water-borne diseases.
Water is scarce in the most overpopulated regions: Africa, northern China, and parts of India, Mexico, and the
Middle East. Water is also scarce in thinly populated regions, as we would expect. How could water-poor regions
have become overpopulated? There’s no single answer, but we can be certain that scarce water doesn’t cause
overpopulation. Can it be that overpopulation causes scarce water? You bet.
Overpopulated areas aren’t the only places where demand for water will increase, but they will need still more
water in coming decades because these regions will see the fastest growth of population. Leisinger et al. (2002)
explain what happens next: “Wherever water is scarce, its quality deteriorates first, and eventually even the
available quality shrinks.” They report that more than five million people a year die now from a lack of clean water
for drinking, sanitation, and hygiene. About half the inhabitants of underdeveloped countries have illnesses related
to inadequate water stocks. This can only get worse as their populations continue to grow.
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AT: MALTHUS FALSE
(__) Malthus’s theory is empirically proven – Easter Island.

Peacock ’04 (Kent A, philosopher of science at the University of Toronto,
http://people.uleth.ca/~kent.peacock/Why%20Malthus%20Was%20Wrong%202004.pdf) / rice
The classic example is the tragic story of Easter Island. This lush semi-tropical paradise, only a total of 64 square
miles in area, was invaded by Polynesian peoples about 400 AD. (Contrary to the supermarket tabloids, the giant
statues on Easter were not erected by aliens.) Their population expanded over a period of about a thousand years
from (probably) a few hundreds to as many as 20,000, and then suddenly crashed back to a couple thousand or so.
The island was denuded of almost all plant life and game that had made it such a good place for people to live.
The Easter Islanders simply ate themselves out of house and home, and in the process crippled the very ability of
their island’s ecosystem to regenerate itself.
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MALTHUS
AT: RESOURCES INFINITE – THE 2NC RUN
AND, Simon’s argument about the infinitude of resources is wrong
Daly 91 (Herman, ecological economist and professor at the School of Public Policy of University of Maryland,
College Park, “A review of Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource,’ Steady State Economics, Island Press, pp282-
289, http://dieoff.org/page27.htm, dbm)
Simon's theoretical argument against the finitude of resources is that: "The word "finite" originates in mathematics, in which
context we all learn it as schoolchildren. But even in mathematics the word's meaning is far from unambiguous. It can have two
principal meanings, sometimes with an apparent contradiction between them. For example, the length of a one-inch line is finite in
the sense that it bounded at both ends. But the line within the endpoints contains an infinite number of points; these points cannot
be counted, because they have no defined size. Therefore the number of points in that one-inch segment is not finite. Similarly, the
quantity of copper that will ever be available to us is not finite, because there is no method (even in principle) of making an
appropriate count of it, given the problem of the economic definition of "copper," the possibility of creating copper or its economic
equivalent from other materials, and thus the lack of boundaries to the sources from which copper might be drawn." Two pages
later he drives home the main point in connection with oil: "Our energy supply is non-finite, and oil is an important example . . .
the number of oil wells that will eventually produce oil, and in what quantities, is not known or measurable at present and probably
never will be, and hence is not meaningfully finite." The fallacy in the last sentence quoted is evident. If I have seven gallons of
oil in seven one gallon cans, then it is countable and finite. If I dump one gallon of oil into each of the seven seas and let it mix for
a year, those seven gallons would no longer be countable, and hence not "meaningfully finite, " therefore infinite. This is
straightforward nonsense.
AND, Entropy law proves scarcity not infinitude of resources

If, Simon notwithstanding, resources are indeed finite, then the other premises of the neomalthusians remain in vigor. The entropy
law tells us not only that coal is finite, but that you can't burn the same lump twice. When burned, available energy is irreversibly
depleted and unavailable energy is increased along with the dissipation of materials. If nature's sources and sinks were truly
infinite, the fact that the flow between them was entropic would hardly matter. But with finite sources and sinks, the entropy law
greatly increases the force of scarcity. Although the words "entropy" or "second law of thermodynamics" remarkably do not occur
once in a 400-page book on The Ultimate Resource, the concept is occasionally touched upon. There is a comment made in
passing that marble and copper can be recycled, whereas energy cannot. This raises hopes that Simon may not be ignorant of the
entropy law. These hopes are soon dashed when he softens the statement to "energy cannot be easily recycled." Later he tells us
that "man's activities tend to increase the order and decrease the homogeneity of nature. Man tends to bring like elements together,
to concentrate them." That is the only part of the picture that Simon knows about. But the entropy law tells us there is another part
—that to increase order in one part of the system requires the increase of disorder elsewhere, and that in net terms for the system as
a whole the movement is toward disorder. In other words, more order and more matter and energy devoted to human bodies and
artifacts mean less matter and energy and less order for the rest of the system, which includes all the other species on whose life-
support services we and our economy depend. Simon is quite prepared to ruin the habitats of all other species by letting them (and
future generations) bear the entropic costs of disorders that our own continuing growth entails. For Simon, however, this problem
cannot exist because he believes resources and absorption capacities are infinite. But after he has once mastered the paradox of
Achilles and the tortoise concerning infinity, his next homework assignment should be to find out about entropy. Until he has done
these two things he should stop trying to write books for grownups about resources and population.
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AT: DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION TURN
(__) DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION THEORY FLAWED – FOUR REASONS

Although there was no reason to assume that this was universally applicable, the assumption that improving the
quality of life would stabilize population levels strongly influenced population policies. Unfortunately, four facts
ruined that prospect. First, many “pre-modern” societies were already devastated by overpopulation. Second, the
increased quality of life in Europe was maintained partly by exporting its surplus population to colonies around the
world, and exploiting the natives and their resources. Third, left to itself an overpopulated, underdeveloped country
can neither support its existing population nor slow its growth, so its quality of life can only decline. Fourth, if
outside assistance takes the form currently called “free trade” or “globalization” the country loses the last of its
self-sufficiency, its economy collapses and its population continues to explode.
AND, EMPIRICALLY, DEVELOPMENT HAS NOT DECREASED FERTILITY RATES

Hopes of finding a simple and consistent explanation for the demographic transition 4 have been repeatedly dashed
by the realities of data on local experiences.5 In fact, there is no tight statistical link between development
indicators and fertility rates, and the reasons for fertility decline are widely debated by demographers, economists
and policy makers. While development is still considered an important factor, it remains unclear why fertility
transitions occur earlier in some places than others. The pace of development does not appear to affect the
initiation or the rate of fertility transition. However, once a transition has begun, fertility declines more rapidly in
countries with higher levels of development.6
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AT: CONTRADICTION BETWEEN UNIQUENESS AND STATUS QUO

DEATH CHECKS
(__) AIDS EPIDEMIC IN AFRICA HAS NOT PEAKED YET – TWO REASONS THAT AIDS EPIDEMIC
WILL CONTINUE TO CAUSE MORTALITY RATES TO CLIMB
First, the epidemic has not yet peaked in Africa, with the possible exception of Uganda. Experts do not know how long it will take the HIV/ AIDS
epidemic to reach its highest prevalence in a given country because they have no historical evidence about the course of the disease. There are only a few areas
where prevalence appears to have leveled off. Many countries have introduced intervention programs, but they
vary in effectiveness and in the populations they reach. An epidemic that started in the early 1980s is not likely to peak until the late 1990s or
early 2000s, delaying the most devastating mortality effects.
there is a long lag time between HIV infection and the development of AIDS. On average, a person is
Second,
infected with HIV for three to 10 years before exhibiting signs of AIDS. Sub-Saharan Africa in the late 1990s is just
beginning to feel the full mortality effects from the epidemic, and mortality is expected to increase over the next
decade. For example, about 200,000 people died from the disease in Zimbabwe from the beginning of the epidemic to 1995. However, another 1.7 million Zimbabweans
are projected to die from AIDS between 1995 and 2005.4'
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AT: TECH SOLVES
(__) New technology gives the false impression that we can forever live past the carrying capacity. It only
pushes us past the brink.
Catton ’98 (William R, Professor Emeritus at Washington State University, Negative Population Growth,
http://billtotten.blogspot.com/2005/03/malthus-more-relevant-than-ever.html, August 1998) / rice
Malthus was not wrong in the ways commonly supposed. From his 18th century perspective he simply had no
basis for seeing the human ability to "overshoot" carrying capacity. It was inconceivable to Malthus that human
societies could, by taking advantage of favorable conditions (new technology, abundant fossil fuels), temporarily
increase human numbers and appetites above the long-term capacity of environments to provide needed resources
and services. But it is inexcusable today not to recognize the way populations can sometimes overshoot sustainable
carrying capacity and what happens to them after they have done it.
Human economic growth and technology have only created the appearance that Malthus was wrong (in the way we
used to learn in school). What our technological advances have actually done was to allow human loads to grow
precariously beyond the earth's long-term carrying capacity by drawing down the planet's stocks of key resources
accumulated over four billion years of evolution.
(__) Tech improvements have limited benefits and significant drawbacks

The green revolution is a different sort of case. World food supplies could never have kept pace with population
growth (which they did up to 1984) without it. Plant physiologist Norman Borlaug deserves his Nobel Prize. He
knew as well as any, however, that his research breakthroughs were only buying time. The third world had
gained a decade or so to reverse its population growth humanely, before the fat was in the fire again.
Balancing even this limited benefit are costs: The new varieties of grain grow only with ample water and
fertilizer applications, so manufactured fertilizers and irrigation are often essential. Both of these use up
nonrenewable petrochemical resources. Also, land is salinized by irrigation, and much of it is ruined already
Acre upon acre is being pulled out of production in Pakistan, for example. In addition, the new methods
selectively benefit large landholders because of their cost for pesticides, fertilizer, and dependable water. Thus,
many small farmers and agricultural laborers have been displaced to urban slums, hardly an improvement in
their lives. The food crop, moreover, is often destined for export. Even if available to the local population, it is
often less nutritious as a single staple than was the mix of the traditional subsistence diet. Environmentalists
David Durham and James Fandrem (1988) point out that "The new varieties have themselves contributed to
poverty and malnutrition in third world populations through changing labor and landholding patterns." Further,
they warn that "The crop monoculture associated with new varieties is not without risk."
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AT: TECH SOLVES
(__) Tech innovation alone is not enough - must be combined with population limits
Conventional economic 'laws' such as that of supply and demand, however, are ill-equipped to deal with the
biggest of all environmental problems - no level of demand can bring another Earth into being. Technological
innovation is vital but will not, in our view, alone be able to provide solutions in time: environmental policies
cannot succeed without parallel action on overpopulation. For the sake of future generations, OPT maintains that
present generations need to limit their numbers. For full tables showing possible sustainable population sizes for
different countries and for explanations of OPT's eco-footprinting and emissions calculations see the Eco
footprinting and Sustainable numbers sections of the OPT website.
AND, THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY CONCLUDES NEGATIVE

Representatives of national academies of science from throughout the world met in New Delhi, India, from October 24-27, 1993, in
a "Science Summit" on World Population. The conference grew out of two earlier meetings, one of the Royal Society of London and the United States National Academy of
Statements published by both groups* expressed a
Sciences, and the other and international conference organized by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
sense of urgent concern about the expansion of the world's population and concluded that if current predictions of
population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity of the planet remain unchanged, science and
technology may not be able to prevent irreversible degradation of the natural environment and continued poverty
for much of the world.
The New Delhi conference, organized by a group of fifteen academies, was convened to explore in greater detail the complex and interrelated issues of
population growth, resource consumption, socioeconomic development, and environmental protection. We believe it to be the first large-scale collaborative
activity undertaken by the world's scientific academies.
(__) Expansion of carrying capacity was only possible by using finite fossil fuels
Abernethy, 2002 (Virginia, professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, “Carrying capacity: the
tradition and policy implications of limits,” ETHICS IN SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS, Jan 23
2001, p. 9-18, http://www.int-res.com/articles/esep/2001/article1.pdf) / rosenberg
Since mid-century (Cottrell, 1955), growing numbers of scientists have tried to make the public aware
that the large increase in carrying capacity has been possible only because of readily
available fossil fuels, especially oil. Walter Youngquist (1997), Colin Campbell, L.F. Ivanhoe, Richard Duncan and others suggest
that a peak in oil production in the vicinity of 2005 to 2015 A.D. will be followed by steady decline. Natural
gas is expected to be plentiful for about 40 years after the peak in oil production, and new processes are likely to increase its versatility.
Without fossil fuels, it would probably be impossible to farm the vast acreage that has
made possible the present population size. In November, 2000, geologist Richard Duncan addressed a Geological
Society of America "summit” held in Reno, Nevada. Citing historical data, Duncan shows that world energy production per capita grew by
3.45 percent annually between 1945 and 1973; growth slowed to 0.64 percent annually from 1973 to 1979; then growth ended and
began to decline at the rate of 0.33 annually from 1979 to 1999. Fitting a mathematical equation to data points on this curve, Duncan
derives projections which suggest that,
by 2030, energy production per capita will fall back to its 1930
value. This scenario envisions rolling, then permanent, blackouts of high-voltage electric
power networks, worldwide.
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103
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AT: MORE LAND PRODUCTIVITY
(__) WE HAVE SQUEEZED EVERYTHING OUT OF THE LAND WE CAN – WE WILL NOT BE ABLE
TO INCREASE OUR PRODUCTIVITY FROM THE AVAILABLE LAND
As noted earlier, the unprecedented worldwide rise in land productivity that began at mid-century has slowed
dramatically since 1990, with no foreseeable prospect of a rapid rise being restored. In some of the more
agriculturally advanced countries, yields are showing signs of plateauing.
A lack of new technologies to raise land productivity is not the only constraint. As noted earlier, the world’s
farmers now face a continuing shrinkage in the cropland area per person, a steady shrinkage in irrigation water per
person, and a diminishing crop yield response to the use of additional fertilizer.137
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AT: DENSITY
Density is irrelevant – questions of overpopulation should be judged according to carrying capacity – thus
the entire world is overpopulated
Ehrlich & Ehrlich 90 (Paul, Bing Professor of Population Studies @ Stanford U, and Anne, associate director and
policy coordinator of the Center for Conservation Biology @ Stanford U, The Population Explosion,
http://dieoff.org/page27.htm, p 37-40, dbm)
Having considered some of the ways that humanity is destroying its inheritance, we can look more closely at the concept of
"overpopulation." All too often, overpopulation is thought of simply as crowding: too many people in a given area, too high a
population density. For instance, the deputy editor in chief of Forbes magazine pointed out recently, in connection with a plea for more population growth in
the United States: "If all the people from China and India lived in the continental U.S. (excluding Alaska), this country would still have a smaller population density
than England, Holland, or Belgium." *31 The appropriate response is "So what?" Density is generally irrelevant to questions of overpopulation.
For instance, if brute density were the criterion, one would have to conclude that Africa is "underpopulated," because it has only 55
people per square mile, while Europe (excluding the USSR) has 261 and Japan 857. *32 A more sophisticated measure would take into consideration the amount of
Africa not covered by desert or "impenetrable" forest. *33 This more habitable portion is just a little over half the continent's area, giving an effective population
density of 117 per square mile. That's still only about a fifth of that in the United Kingdom. Even by 2020, Africa's effective density is projected to grow to only
about that of France today (266), and few people would consider France excessively crowded or overpopulated. When people think of crowded countries, they
usually contemplate places like the Netherlands (1,031 per square mile), Taiwan (1,604), or Hong Kong (14,218). Even those don't necessarily signal
overpopulation—after all, the Dutch seem to be thriving, and doesn't Hong Kong have a booming economy and fancy hotels? In short, if density were the
standard of overpopulation, few nations (and certainly not Earth itself) would be likely to be considered overpopulated in the near
future. The error, we repeat, lies in trying to define overpopulation in terms of density; it has long been recognized that density per
se means very little. *34 The key to understanding overpopulation is not population density but the numbers of people in an area
relative to its resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities; that is, to the area's carrying capacity.
When is an area overpopulated? When its population can't be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources (or
converting renewable resources into nonrenewable ones) and without degrading the capacity of the environment to support the
population. In short, if the long-term carrying capacity of an area is clearly being degraded by its current human occupants, that
area is overpopulated. *35 By this standard, the entire planet and virtually every nation is already vastly overpopulated. Africa is
overpopulated now because, among other indications, its soils and forests are rapidly being depleted—and that implies that its
carrying capacity for human beings will be lower in the future than it is now. The United States is overpopulated because it is
depleting its soil and water resources and contributing mightily to the destruction of global environmental systems. Europe, Japan,
the Soviet Union, and other rich nations are overpopulated because of their massive contributions to the carbon dioxide buildup in
the atmosphere, among many other reasons. Almost all the rich nations are overpopulated because they are rapidly drawing down
stocks of resources around the world. They don't live solely on the land in their own nations. Like the profligate son of our earlier
analogy, they are spending their capital with no thought for the future.
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AT: NETHERLANDS FALLACY
Even if the Netherlands is thriving with a high density level, this is unsustainable because they are far
exceeding their carrying capacity
Ehrlich & Ehrlich 90 (Paul, Bing Professor of Population Studies @ Stanford U, and Anne, associate director and
policy coordinator of the Center for Conservation Biology @ Stanford U, The Population Explosion,
http://dieoff.org/page27.htm, p 37-40, dbm)
It is especially ironic that Forbes considered the Netherlands not to be overpopulated. This is such a common error that it has been
known for two decades as the "Netherlands Fallacy." *36 The Netherlands can support 1,031 people per square mile only because
the rest of the world does not. In 1984-86, the Netherlands imported almost 4 million tons of cereals, 130,000 tons of oils, and 480,000 tons of pulses (peas,
beans, lentils). It took some of these relatively inexpensive imports and used them to boost their production of expensive exports—330,000 tons of milk and 1.2
million tons of meat. The-Netherlands also extracted about a half-million tons of fishes from the sea during this period, and imported more in the form of fish meal.
*37 The Netherlands is also a major importer of minerals, bringing in virtually all the iron, antimony, bauxite, copper, tin, etc., that it requires. Most of its fresh
water is "imported" from upstream nations via the Rhine River. The Dutch built their wealth using imported energy. Then, in the 1970s, the discovery of a large gas
field in the northern part of the nation allowed the Netherlands temporarily to export as gas roughly the equivalent in energy of the petroleum it continued to
import. But when the gas fields (which represent about twenty years' worth of Dutch energy consumption at current rates) are
exhausted, Holland will once again depend heavily on the rest of the world for fossil fuels or uranium. *38 In short, the people of
the Netherlands didn't build their prosperity on the bounty of the Netherlands, and are not living on it now. Before World War II,
they drew raw materials from their colonies; today they still depend on the resources of much of the world. Saying that the
Netherlands is thriving with a density of 1,031 people per square mile simply ignores that those 1,031 Dutch people far exceed
the carrying capacity of that square mile.
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AT: AFRICANS DON’T CONSUME
(__) THE DEVELOPING WORLD CONSUMES AS WELL

ABERNETHY 1993 [Virginia, professor (emerita) of psychiatry and anthropology @ Vanderbilt University
School of Medicine, Population Politics: The Choices that Shape Our Future, pages 26-27] / ttate
Environmental concerns add to the humanitarian imperative. Family-planning dollars are environmentally cost-
effective because, even though third-world citizens do not consume or pollute very much per capita, the total
environmental impact of so many people is awesome. Whether industrial or agricultural, the sheer scale of human
activities is at issue. The poor (even conservationists) pollute and consume. Thus every birth avoided, anywhere,
helps the global environment.
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2NC ETHICS RUN
Our ethic values life – buying in to their ethical claims gets you no where, your ethical action today means
nothing if we are dead tomorrow – only our ethic values all lives including future ones
Hardin 91 (Garret- Prof. Emeritus Human Ecology @ U.C.S.B., “From Shortage to Longage: Forty”,
http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_from_shortage_to_longage.html, dbm)
With a few or no exceptions close examination of the economy of nations that chronically suffer from starvation reveals that the
production factors are already severely over-stressed. In Ethiopia, land that should not be farmed is farmed, with a resultant loss of
soil; too many animals are kept on the pasture lands, leading to the loss of soil and the replacement of "sweet grass" by weeds; and
bushes and trees are removed from steep slopes resulting in a loss of soil that ultimately makes the reestablishment of woody
plants impossible. (Internationalists should note that soil lost from the mountains of Ethiopia becomes silt in Egypt's Lake Nasser,
thus shortening the useful lifetime of the High Aswam Dam.) When a country is overpopulated-when its population is greater than
the carrying capacity of its land, whatever standard of living is used in reaching a judgement saving lives today by direct gifts of
food ensures that more lives will be lost tomorrow because of the increased environmental destruction made possible by the
encouragement of population growth. The time-blind ideal, "Human life is sacred," is counterproductive. "'Sacred," like all old
words, has many meanings and connotations. What we are concerned with here is its related meaning of sacrosanct or inviolable.
When disputants say that human life is sacred they clearly mean that we should preserve every human being now living regardless
of the cost, either now or in the future. Though not given to using emotionally charged words, an ecologist would be more inclined
to say that the environment, not human beings, is sacrosanct. The moment this proposition is advanced the conventional moralist
expostulates: "Oh! You mean you prefer the life of dickey-birds to human beings? You prefer redwood trees to people?" We have
all heard such contemptuous questions. The questioner misses the point. Ecologists confer sacrosanctity on the carrying capacity of
the environment in order to better the condition of men and women in the continuing future. When an ecological moralist proposes
an Eleventh Commandment, "Thou shalt not transgress the carrying capacity," he is trying to improve the quality of life over a
long period of time. Redwood trees and dickey-birds are seen as the symbols of the good life for human beings. Environmental
extremists may talk of an undefined intrinsic value of the environment, but we need not follow them down this dubious rhetorical
path. When we recommend that Ethiopians refrain from overgrazing their pastures and overharvesting their woody mountains we
need not demand that they worship the landscape, merely that they take thought of what the environment will have to offer their
descendants. A time-sensitive system of ethics cannot be blind to environmental values.
Valuing future generations is crucial to valuing life – this also answers your ethnocentrism argument
Hardin 01 (Garett-, Prof. of Human Ecology Emeritus, Fall, The Social Contract, “Living on a Lifeboat”,
http://www.thesocialcontract.com/ cgi-bin/showarticle.pl?articleID=1025&terms=%20, dbm)
To be generous with one's own possessions is one thing; to be generous with posterity's is quite another. This, I think, is the point
that must be gotten across to those who would, from a commendable love of distributive justice, institute a ruinous system of the
commons, either in the form of a world food bank or that of unrestricted immigration. Since every speaker is a member of some
ethnic group it is always possible to charge him with ethnocentrism. But even after purging an argument of ethnocentrism the
rejection of the commons is still valid and necessary if we are to save at least some parts of the world from Environmental ruin. Is
it not desirable that at least some of the grandchildren of people now living should have a decent place in which to live?
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Reject their ethics – they lead to extinction

Elliot 97 (Herschel, Emeritus Prof of Philosophy @ U of Florida, “A General Statement of the Tragedy of the
Commons,” http://dieoff.org/page121.htm, dbm)
Bolstered by the a priori, human-centered ethical doctrines of the monotheistic religions, everything that directs human behavior --
cultural and legal traditions, genetic determinants, the free-market economic system, and the material demands of industrial
production -- all reinforce each other in producing a steady growth in population and consumption. Indeed as people all around the world
go about the business of daily life, they demand more land, fuel, water, timber, and food. It is possible, however, that significant changes can be made in the
complex of causes presently directing human activity which can put an end to the steady growth in population and to the constant increase in the production and
consumption of goods and services. Nevertheless, if appropriate causal forces cannot be found to maintain human environmental demands in a sustainable
equilibrium, then the step-by-step destruction of the Earth's ecosystems will remain the persisting -- and eventually tragic -- characteristic of human activity.
Ecosystems have their own dynamic structure. Feedback mechanisms have evolved to maintain their stability. For example, one species may become dominant and
take over much of the land and most of the biological resources in some ecosystem. And continued growth may have no destabilizing effects for quite some time.
But as more and more of the system's biological wealth is concentrated in the bodies and artifacts of an exuberant species, other species evolve the means to utilize
the abundant food source. Then as the newly adapted predators increase in number, they reduce the population of the prolific species. If, however, such controls
should fail, the continued growth of any organism at some point will begin to stress the ecosystem which sustains that organism.
Finally the additional stress of continued growth will make the system collapse, suddenly and apparently without warning. Nature
does control any exuberant species either by drastically reducing its population or by its extinction. This sequence of biological
events is of decisive importance for ethics. It proves that the two opposing theories of ethics which presently vie for acceptance
both lead to tragedy. Both an ethics grounded in a self-centered individualism and an ethics which builds on the need for a self-
sacrificing altruism have the same inherent defects. Both have inbuilt, positive feedback mechanisms which cause a steady
increase in the human exploitation of the Earth's biological resources. All such material demands, however, are constrained by the
limited resource use which the biosystem can sustain. Exceeding this carrying capacity will cause that system to collapse into a
simpler state which is incapable of supporting civilization in its present form and perhaps most of the complex forms of
mammalian life as well. This is the tragedy that awaits mankind, if people do not begin to live as responsible members of the
Earth's system of mutually sustaining life forms.
The dismissal of modern ethical systems is crucial act in the world of scarcity – continuing to believe in them
is both vacuous and dangerous
However, avoiding the cruel coercion of nature cannot be achieved as if by miracle or accident. Admittedly, the tendencies which support unlimited growth and
which are built into the patterns of human behavior do not inevitably produce growth. But they will do so unless opposing causes can be made to predominate. By
analogy, the tendencies to growth are like a window opened on a cold winter's day. A comfortable room temperature cannot be maintained by opening more
windows and doors to the cold air outside. Unless more fuel is added to the fire or unless glass traps the sun's heat inside, the room will cool down. Similarly steady
growth cannot be countered by doing more of what has caused the growth in the first place. To avoid the cruel coercion of nature, society must discover
controls which are warranted empirically by their ability to prevent growth in population and to stop the destruction of the Earth's
biosystem by steady increases in the exploitation of biological resources. Learning the effective means for controlling growth
requires the repudiation of important causal misconceptions. (1) People must reject the doctrine that moral behavior can be
justified by a priori thought which requires no knowledge of the causes of growth and no knowledge of its ecological
consequences. (2) People must discard the misconception that yet more economic growth and still greater consumption will cause
a demographic transition in which the human population will become stable at ecologically sustainable levels automatically and
painlessly. (3) They must recognize that the moral obligations to fill all vital human needs can never cause those needs to diminish
and can never cause people to stop their destructive exploitation of the environment. (4) They must reject the notion that exhorting
people voluntarily to protect the environment and to reduce their fertility is not an empirically effective means for accomplishing
these morally necessary goals. (5) They must disabuse themselves of the conviction that, under the conditions of a steadily
increasing population, the enforcement of the presently accepted moral system -- defined by its human-centered ideals, its
unconditional principles and its egalitarian definition of justice and human rights -- can ever reduce human suffering or prevent
environmental disaster. (6) Finally, the belief must be discarded that an ethics of good intentions, especially those intentions
directed to filling individual or human needs, will automatically produce the good of the whole. These misconceptions must be
abandoned, if ever growth in population and in the exploitation of natural resources is to cease to be a persisting -- and eventually
tragic -- characteristic of human activity. Means must never work at cross purposes with the necessary ends. They must be proved
by empirical evidence to be able to attain -- not to thwart -- the necessary holistic goals.
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AND, We must ethically err towards curbing population growth in Africa—our first obligation is to Nature
—it culminates in saving the most lives anyway
Rolston, 98 (Holmes III, University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University, "Feeding People versus
Saving Nature?", Ecocentric, http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/RolstonPeopleVSNature.html, accessed 7/19/07) / vinay
Consider human population growth. Not only have the numbers of persons grown; their expectations have grown, so that we must
superimpose one exploding curve on top of another. A superficial reading of such a graph is that humans really start winning big in the twentieth century. There are lots of them, and they want,
and many get, lots of things. If one is a moral humanist, this can seem a good thing. Wouldn't it be marvelous if all could get what they want, and
none hunger and thirst any more?
But when we come to our senses, we realize that this kind of winning, if it keeps on escalating, is really losing. Humans will lose, and
nature will be destroyed as well. Cultures have become consumptive, with ever escalating insatiable desires overlaid on ever escalating
population growth. Culture does not know how to say “Enough!” and that is not satisfactory. Starkly put, the growth of culture has become cancerous. That
is hardly a metaphor, for a cancer is essentially an explosion of unregulated growth. Feeding people always seems humane, but, when we face up to what is
really going on, by just feeding people, without attention to the larger social results, we could be feeding a kind of cancer.
One can say that where there is a hungry mouth, one should do what it takes to get food into it. But when there are two mouths there the
next day, and four the day after that, and sixteen the day after that, one needs a more complex answer. The population of Egypt was less than 3 million for over five
millennia, fluctuating between 1.5 to 2.5 million, even when Napoleon went there in the early 1800s. Today the population of Egypt is about 55 million. Egypt has to import more than half its food. The effects on nature, both on land
health and on wildlife, have been adversely proportional.

If, in this picture, we look at individual persons, caught up in this uncontrolled growth, and if we try to save nature, some persons will go
hungry. Surely, that is a bad thing. Would anyone want to say that such persons ought not to sacrifice nature, if needs be, to alleviate such harm as
best they can? From their perspective, they are only doing what humans have always done, making a resourceful use of nature to meet their own needs. Isn't that a good thing anymore? Such persons are doomed, unless they can capture natural values.
But here we face a time-bound truth, in which too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. We have to figure in where such persons are located on the
population curve, and realize that a good thing when human numbers are manageable is no longer a good thing when such a person is
really another cell of cancerous growth. That sounds cruel, and it is tragic, but it does not cease to be true for these reasons. For a couple to have two children may be a blessing; but the tenth child is a
tragedy. When the child comes, one has to be as humane as possible, but one will only be making the best of a tragic situation, and if the tenth child is reared, and has ten children in turn, that will only multiply the tragedy. The
quality of human lives deteriorates; the poor get poorer. Natural resources are further stressed: ecosystem health and integrity degenerate;
and this compounds the losses again – a lose-lose situation. In a social system misfitted to its landscape, one’s wins can only be temporary in a losing human ecology.
Even if there were an equitable distribution of wealth, the human population cannot go on escalating without people becoming all equally poor. Of the 90 million new people
who will come on board planet Earth this year, 85 million will appear in the Third World, the countries least able to support such population growth. At the same time, each North American will consume 200 times as much energy, and many other resources. The 5 million new
. There are three problems: overpopulation, overconsumption, and underdistribution.

people in the industrial countries will put as much strain on the environment as the 85 million new poor
Sacrificing nature for development does not solve any of these problems, none at all. It only brings further loss. The poor, after a meal for a day or two, perhaps a decade or two, are soon hungry all over again,
only now poorer still because their natural wealth is also gone.
To say that we ought always to feed the poor first commits a good-better-best fallacy. If a little is good, more must be better, most is best. If feeding some
humans is good, feeding more is better. And more. And more! Feeding all of them is best? That sounds right. We can hardly bring ourselves to say that
anyone ought to starve. But we reach a point of diminishing returns, when the goods put at threat lead us to wonder.
Natural values are endangered at every scale: global, regional, and local, at levels of ecosystems, species, organisms, populations, fauna and flora, terrestrial and marine,
charismatic megafauna down to mollusks and beetles. This is true in both developed and developing nations, though we have under discussion here places
where poverty threatens biodiversity.
Humans now control 40 percent of the planet’s land-based primary net productivity, that is, the basic plant growth that captures the energy on which everything else depends.(11) If the human population doubles again, the capture will rise to 60 to 80 percent, and little habitat
will remain for natural forms of life that cannot be accommodated after we have put people first. Humans do not use the lands they have domesticated effectively. A World Bank study found that 35 percent of the Earth’s land has now become degraded.(12) Daniel Hillel, in a
soils study, concludes, “Present yields are extremely low in many of the developing countries, and as they can be boosted substantially and rapidly there should be no need to reclaim new land and to encroach further upon natural habitats.”(13)
Africa is a case in point, and Madagascar epitomizes Africa’s future. Its fauna and flora evolved independently from the mainland continent; there are 30 primates, all femurs; the reptiles and
. Humans came there about 1,500 years
amphibians are 90 percent endemic, including two thirds of all the chameleons of the world, and 10,000 plant species, of which 80 percent are endemic, including a thousand kinds of orchids
ago and lived with the fauna and flora more or less intact unto this century. Now an escalating population of impoverished Malagasy
people rely heavily on slash-and-burn agriculture, and the forest cover is one third of the original (27.6 million acres to 9.1 million acres), most of the loss occurring
since 1950.(14) Madagascar is the most eroded nation on Earth, and little or none of the fauna and flora is safely conserved. Population is expanding at 3.2 percent a year; remaining forest is shrinking at 3 percent,
Are we to say that none ought to be conserved until after no person is hungry?
almost all to provide for the expanding population.
Tigers are sliding toward extinction. Populations have declined 95 percent in this century; the two main factors are loss of habitat and a ferocious black market in bones and other body parts used in traditional medicine and folklore in China,
Taiwan, and Korea, uses that are given no medical credence. Ranthambhore National Park In Rajasthan, India, is a tiger sanctuary; there were 40 tigers during the late 1980s, reduced in a few years by human pressures – illicit cattle grazing and poaching – to 20 to 25 tigers
today. There are 200,000. Indians within three miles of the core of the park – more than double the population when the park was launched, 21 years ago. Most depend on wood from the l50 square miles of park to cook their food. They graze in and around the park some
150,000 head of scrawny cattle, buffalo, goats, and camels. The cattle impoverish habitat and carry diseases to the ungulates that are the tiger's prey base. In May 1993, a young tigress gave birth to four cubs; that month 316 babies were born in the villages surrounding the
park.(15)
The tigers may be doomed, but ought they to be? Consider, for instance. that there are minimal reforestation efforts, or that cattle dung can be used for fuel with
much greater efficiency than is being , done, or that, in an experimental herd of jersey and holstein cattle there, the yield of milk increased ten times that of the gaunt, free ranging local cattle, and that a small group of dairy producers has increased milk production 1,000 percent
. In some moods we may insist that people are more important than tigers. But in other moods these majestic animals seem to be
in just 3 years
casualties of human inabilities to manage themselves and their resources intelligently, a tragic story that leaves us wondering whether the
tigers should always lose and the people win.
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MALTHUS MORAL – FUTURE GENERATIONS
(__) Moral obligations to give aid are limited by natural resources – causing extinction is immoral even if
the intent is “altruistic”
Abernethy, 2002 (Virginia, professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, “Carrying capacity: the
tradition and policy implications of limits,” ETHICS IN SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS, Jan 23
2001, p. 9-18, http://www.int-res.com/articles/esep/2001/article1.pdf) / rosenberg
Ecologists tend to conclude that the physical capabilities of Earth and the moral capabilities
of mankind are equally constrained by natural law. Humans are not so unlike other species that the
principles of evolutionary biology would not apply to human behavior (Trivers 1971; Dawkins 1976;
Wilson 1975). Survival and reproduction of one’s genes is the de facto evolutionary test of success. Inevitably, behavior is
shaped to increase the probability of survival. By extension, moral codes are subject to the
possibilities inherent in a physically-limited Earth. Ecologists take into account that humans are not
generally altruistic, because altruism like other behavioral traits is to some extent
heritable, and altruists are less likely than others to leave offspring (Hamilton 1964; Trivers 1971;
Wilson 1975). Behavior and culture that lead to extinction of those who practice them cannot be
moral, by definition. For example, if wastefulness in use of resources leads to extinction, then it
cannot be moral. Nor can altruism including the sharing of resources, if it leads to
extinction, be moral (Elliott 1997). Altruism is particularly self-destructive when applied internationally.
Those who advocate altruism must necessarily believe that nature is a cornucopia of
unlimited means. Accepting limits in principle and in fact, ecologists advocate not only prudence in use
of resources but also discovery of motives which induce intrinsically self-interested humans
to conserve. Thus, the moral hazard of the commons is the ultimate, logical reason why one-
world, a world without borders, will not get one very far into a peaceful and prosperous
future. If no person, and no region or country, can say, "Keep out; it’s mine,” then no one
and no community or country has the incentive to conserve. And that, simply, is because there is
almost no realistic hope of future benefit in proportion to one’s effort and selfrestraint. To sum
up the ecologist perspective, given the probability of coming scarcity, a multiplicity of logistic problems in increasing efficiency, and the
realities of human nature - including political and ethnic loyalties - many ecologists suspect that the only practicable solutions to most
environmental problems will be local.
Your ethical systems are flawed– ours are necessary to ensure the possibility of future ethical actions
Although "The Tragedy of the Commons" is widely acclaimed, activists in environmental causes as well as professionals in ethics
continue to act as if the essay had never been written. They ignore the central thesis that traditional, a priori thinking in ethics is
mistaken and must be discarded. Hence the need remains to give the tragedy of the commons a more general statement--one
which can convince a wide public of the correctness of its method and principles. In essence Hardin's essay is a thought
experiment. Its purpose is not to make a historical statement but rather to demonstrate that tragic consequences can follow from
practicing mistaken moral theories. Then it proposes a system-sensitive ethics that can prevent tragedy. The general statement of
the tragedy of the commons demonstrates that an a priori ethics constructed on human-centered, moral principles and a definition
of equal justice cannot prevent and indeed always supports growth in population and consumption. Such growth, though not
inevitable, is a constant threat. If continual growth should ever occur, it eventually causes the breakdown of the ecosystems
which support civilization. Henceforth, any viable ethics must satisfy these related requirements: (1) An acceptable system of
ethics is contingent on its ability to preserve the ecosystems which sustain it. (2) Biological necessity has a veto over the behavior
which any set of moral beliefs can allow or require. (3) Biological success is a necessary (though not a sufficient) condition for any
acceptable ethical theory. In summary, no ethics can be grounded in biological impossibility; no ethics can be incoherent in that
it requires ethical behavior that ends all further ethical behavior. Clearly any ethics which tries to do so is mistaken; it is
wrong.
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Prefer our ethics – they maximize life whereas their ethics are impossible and lead to the destruction of the
world
Simon values human life. More people are better than fewer people because each additional person's life has value for that person,
his loved ones, and for society as a whole should he turn out to be a genius: an increase of 4,000 people is more likely to yield
another Einstein, Mozart, or Michelangelo than an increase of only 400 people. While I personally give zero weight to the notion
that more births among today's poor and downtrodden masses will increase the probability of another Einstein or Mozart (or Hitler
or Caligula?), I do agree that, other things equal, more human lives, and more lives of other species, are better than fewer. And I
think that most of my fellow neomalthusians would agree than 10 billion people are better than 2 billion—as long as the 10 billion
are not all alive at the same time! This is the crucial point: neomalthusian policies seek to maximize the cumulative total of lives
ever to be lived over time, at a sufficient per-capita standard for a good life. Simon wants to maximize the number of people
simultaneously alive—and, impossibly, to maximize per-capita consumption at the same time. These two contradictory strategies
are possible only if resources are infinite. If they are finite then maximizing the number of simultaneous lives means a reduction in
carrying capacity, fewer people in future time periods, and a lower cumulative total of lives ever lived at a sufficient standard. The
difference is not, as Simon imagines, that he is "pro-life" and the neomalthusians are "anti-life." Rather it is that neomalthusians
have a basic understanding of the biophysical world, whereas Simon still has not done his homework on Zeno's paradoxes of
infinity, on the entropy law, on the importance of ecological life-support services provided by other species, and on the
impossibility of the double maximization implied in his advocacy of "the greatest good for the greatest number." Simon seems to
believe that an avoided birth today implies the eternal nonexistence of a particular self-conscious person who would have enjoyed
life. But as far as I know, the pairing of a particular self-consciousness with a particular birth is the greatest of mysteries. Perhaps
birth control means that a particular existence is postponed rather than canceled. In other contexts, however, Simon proclaims that
"birth control is simply a human right." When Kingsly Davis, Paul Ehrlich, or Garret Hardin advocate birth control they are
sacrificing the unborn; but when Simon finds it convenient to his argument to endorse birth control, he is proclaiming a human
right.
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MALTHUS MORAL – QUALITY OF LIFE
(__) OVERPOPULATION GUTS THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR EVERY SPECIES ON THE PLANET
p. 417] / ttate
Like economic inflation, such rapid population growth diminishes the quality of Life package” of every living
organism. Competition for life-sustaining resources escalates, more and more deemed a resource. The exploitation
of a resource object, transmogrifying beauty, nuance, uniqueness, and which is necessarily and biologically
separate from ourselves, into a mere utility. Utilitarianism has had its share of economic and ethical ‘advocates, but
in truth, it the world. A child is no blessing when its generation is inadvertently mobilized in fitful opposition to its
surroundings – seeking to exploit, to “combat,” in other words, the very “nature” that has given birth to it in the
first place.
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MALTHUS MORAL – AT: DON’T BLAME THE POOR
Although it may be no fault of the poor, we still must value Nature over their development
Rolston, 98 (Holmes III, University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University, "Feeding
People versus Saving Nature?", Ecocentric, http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/RolstonPeopleVSNature.html, accessed 7/19/07) / VINAY
Ought we to save nature if this results in people going hungry? In people dying? Regrettably, sometimes, the answer is yes. In
20 years Africa's black rhinoceros population declined from 65,000 to 2,500, a loss of 97 percent: the species faces imminent extinction.
Again, as with the tigers. there has been loss of habitat caused by human population growth, an important and indirect cause; but the primary direct cause is poaching, this
time for horns. People cannot eat horns; but they can buy food with the money from selling them. Zimbabwe has a hard-line shoot-to-kill policy for poachers, and over 150
poachers have been killed.(16)
So Zimbabweans do not always put people first; they are willing to kill some, and to let others go hungry rather than
sacrifice the rhino. If we always put people first, there will be no rhinos at all. Always too, we must guard against inhumanity, and
take care, so far as we can, that poachers have other alternatives for overcoming their poverty. Still, if it comes to this, the Zimbabwean policy is right.
Given the fact that rhinos have been so precipitously reduced, given that the Zimbabwean population is escalating
(the average married woman there desires to have six children), (17) one ought to put the black rhino as a species first, even if this costs
human lives.
But the poachers are doing something illegal. What about ordinary people, who are not breaking any laws? The sensitive moralist may object that, even
when the multiple causal factors are known, and lamented, when it comes to dealing with individual persons caught up in these social forces, we should factor out
overpopulation, overconsumption, and maldistribution, none of which are the fault of the particular persons who may wish to develop their lands. “I
did not ask to
be born; I am poor, not overconsuming; I am not the cause but rather the victim of the inequitable distribution of
wealth.” Surely there still remains for such an innocent person a right to use whatever natural resources one has
available, as best one can, under the exigencies of one’s particular life, set though this is in these unfortunate circumstances. “I only want enough to
eat, is that not my right?”
Human rights must include, if anything at all, the right to subsistence. So even if particular persons are located at the wrong point on the global growth graph, even if they
are willy-nilly part of a cancerous and consumptive society, even if there is some better social solution than the wrong one that is in fact happening, have they not a right that
will override the conservation of natural value? Will it not just be a further wrong to them to deprive them of their right to what little they have? Can basic human rights ever
be overridden by a society that wants to do better by conserving natural value?
This requires some weighting of the endangered natural values. Consider the tropical forests. There is more
richness there than in other regions of the planet – half of all known species. In South America, for example, there are one fifth of the planet’s
species of terrestrial mammals (800 species); there are one third of the planet’s flowering plants.(18) The peak of global plant diversity is in the three Andean countries of
Columbia. Ecuador, and Peru, where over 40,000 species occur on just 2 percent of the world’s land surface.(19) But population growth in South America has been as high
as anywhere in the world,(20) and people are flowing into the forests, often crowded off other lands.
What about these hungry people? Consider first people who are not now there but might move there. This is not
good agricultural soil, and such would-be settlers are likely to find only a short-term bargain, a long-term loss.
Consider the people who already live there. If they are indigenous peoples, and wish to continue to live as they have already for hundreds and even thousands of years, there
will be no threat to the forest. If they are cabaclos (of mixed European and native races), they can also continue the lifestyles known for hundreds of years, without serious
destruction of the forests. Such peoples may continue the opportunities that they have long had. Nothing is taken away from them. They have been reasonably well fed,
though often poor.
Can these peoples modernize? Can they multiply? Ought there to be a policy of feeding first all the children they
bear, sacrificing nature as we must to accomplish this goal? Modern medicine and technology have enabled them
to multiply, curing childhood diseases and providing better nutrition, even if these peoples often remain at thresholds of poverty. Do not
such people have the right to develop? A first answer is that they do, but with the qualification that all rights are not absolute, some are weaker,
some stronger, and the exercise of any right has to be balanced against values destroyed in the exercise of that
right.
The qualification brings a second answer. If one concludes that the natural values at stake are quite high, and that the
opportunities for development are low, because the envisioned development is inadvisable, then a possible answer
is: No, there will be no development of these reserved areas, even if people there remain in the relative poverty of
many centuries, or even if, with escalating populations, they become more poor. We are not always obligated to
cover human mistakes with the sacrifice of natural values.
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MALTHUS MORAL – AT: THOU SHALL NOT KILL
The Bible agrees--saving Nature comes first. To prevent murder, we must err towards letting some die to let
Nature live
Rolston, 98 (Holmes III, University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State
University, "Feeding People versus Saving Nature?", Ecocentric,
http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/RolstonPeopleVSNature.html, accessed 7/19/07)
Some will protest that this risks becoming misanthropic and morally callous. The Ten Commandments order us not
to kill, and saving nature can never justify what amounts to killing people. Yes but there is another kind of killing
here, one not envisioned at Sinai where humans are superkilling species. Extinction kills forms (species) – not just
individuals; it kills collectively, not just distributively. Killing a natural kind is the death of birth, not just of an
individual life. The historical lineage is stopped forever. Preceding the Ten Commandments is the Noah myth,
when nature was primordially put at peril as great as the actual threat today. There, God seems more concerned
about species than about the humans who had then gone so far astray. In the covenant re-established with humans
on the promised Earth, the beasts are specifically included. “Keep them alive with you...according to their kinds”
(Genesis 6.19-20). There is something ungodly about an ethic by which the late-coming Homo sapiens arrogantly
regards the welfare of one's own species as absolute, with the welfare of all the other five million species sacrificed
to that. The commandment not to kill is as old as Cain and Abel, but the most archaic commandment of all is the
divine, "Let the earth bring forth (Genesis 1). Stopping that genesis is the most destructive event possible, and we
humans have no right to do that. Saving nature is not always morally naive; it can deepen our understanding of the
human place in the scheme of things entire, and of our duties on this majestic home planet.
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SIMON INDICTS
There is an overwhelming scientific consensus against Simon

Ehrlich & Schneider 95 (Professors in the Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford U, “It’s no time to heed the brownlash,”
http://dieoff.org/page27.htm, dbm)
There is now a campaign of deceptive books and articles designed to persuade people that all is well on the environmental front.
The basic message of this campaign is that some favorable trends show green concerns to be "doomsaying." Our basic message is
that indirect trends such as those listed below are more relevant to human welfare than direct ones such as the prices of metals.
Julian Simon has been a leader in this campaign. He is best known for his belief that resources are infinite (he wrote in 1980 that
the theoretical limit to the amount of copper that might be available to human beings was "the total weight of the universe"!) and
that population can and should grow indefinitely. He's still at it ("Earth's Doomsayers are Wrong," Chronicle, May 12), this time
citing a 1986 report prepared by social scientists for the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that was subsequently protested by
a substantial number of Academy scientists. Somehow he missed the 1994 statement from the NAS and 57 other national
academies of science worldwide that contradicted his position. He also ignored the 1993 "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity,"
signed by some 1700 leading scientists, including over half of all living Nobel Laureates in science, which reads in part: "A great
change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on
this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated....A new ethic is required—a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for
caring for ourselves and for the earth. We must recongize the earth's limited capacity to provide for us. We must recognize its
fragility....The scientists issuing this warning hope that our message will reach and affect people everywhere. We need the help of
many."
Simon’s argument is premised upon a logical fallacy disproving the entirety of his criticism
The fallacy concerning the copper is obscured by the strange fact that Simon begins with a correct distinction regarding infinity of
distance and infinity of divisibility of a finite distance, and then as soon as he moves from one-inch lines to copper with nothing
but the word "similarly" to bridge the gap, he forgets the distinction. It would be a wonderful exercise for a class in freshman logic
to find the parallel between Simon's argument and Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise. Recall that Zeno "proved" that
Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise that had a finite head start on him. While Achilles traverses the distance from his
starting point to that of the tortoise, the tortoise advances a certain distance, and while Achilles advances this distance, the tortoise
makes a further advance, and so on, ad infinitum. Thus Achilles will never catch up. Zeno's paradox confounds an infinity of
subdivisions of a distance, which is finite, with an infinity of distance. This is exactly parallel to what Simon has done. He has
confused an infinity of possible boundary lines between copper and noncopper with an infinity of amount of copper. We cannot, he
says, make an "appropriate count" of copper because the set of all resources can be subdivided in many ways with many possible
boundaries for the subset copper because resources are "infinitely" substitutable. Since copper cannot be simply counted like beans
in a jar, and since what cannot be counted is not finite, it "follows" that copper is not finite, or copper is infinite. Simon has argued
from the premise of an "infinite" substitutability among different elements within a (finite) set to the conclusion of the infinity of
the set itself. But no amount of rearrangement of divisions within a finite set can make the set infinite. His demonstration that
mankind will never exhaust its resource base rests on the same logical fallacy as Zeno's demonstration that Achilles will never
exhaust the distance between himself and the tortoise. Simon's argument therefore fails even if we grant his premise of infinite
substitutability, which gets us rather close to alchemy. Copper is after all an element, and the transmutation of elements is more
difficult than the phrase "infinite substitutability" implies! Indeed, Simon never tells us whether "infinite substitutability" means
infinite substitutability at declining costs, constant costs, increasing costs, or at infinite costs! Of course Simon could simply assert
that the total set of all resources is infinite, but this would be a bald assertion, not a conclusion from an argument based on
substitutability, which is what he has attempted.
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No empirical evidence backs Simon – he selectively picks and chooses from sources which conclude against
his argument
But what about Simon's empirical evidence against resource finitude? It fares no better than his fallacious attempt at logical
refutation. He leans heavily on two expert studies: "The Age of Substitutability" by Weinberg and Goeller (Science, February
20,1976), and Scarcity and Growth by Barnett and Morse.*1 His use of these studies is amazingly selective. From Weinberg and
Goeller he quotes optimistic findings of "infinite" substitutability among resources, assuming a future low-cost, abundant energy
source. This buttresses Simon's earlier premise of "infinite" subdivisibility or substitutability among resources. But it does not lend
support to his fallacious conclusion that resources are infinite and therefore growth forever is possible. More to the point, however,
is that Weinberg and Goeller explicitly rule out any such conclusion by stating in their very first paragraph that their "Age of
Substitutability" is a steady state. It assumes zero growth in population and energy use at the highest level that Weinberg and
Goeller are willing to say is technically feasible. And they express serious reservations about the social and institutional feasibility
of maintaining such a high consumption steady state. Furthermore, the levels envisioned by Weinberg and Goeller, though
cornicopian by general consent, are quite modest by Simon's standards: world population in the Age of Substitutability would be
only 2.5 times the present population, and world energy use would be only 12 times present use. This implies a world per-capita
energy usage of only 70 percent of current U.S. per capita use. The very study that Simon appeals to for empirical support of his
unlimited growth position explicitly rejects the notion of unlimited growth—a fact that Simon fails to mention.
Simon misgauges pollution – under his definition, the smallpox virus is would qualify as a pollutant
First, Simon claims, after warning us to "grab your hat," that pollution has really been decreasing rather than increasing. To test
this hypothesis most investigators would probably look at parts per million of various substances emitted into the air and water by
human activities to see if they have been rising or falling over time. Simon, however, takes life expectancy as his index of
pollution: increasing life expectancy indicates decreasing pollution. If one suggests that the increase in life expectancy mainly
reflects improved control of infectious diseases, Simon redefines "pollutant" to include the smallpox virus and other germs. In this
way an increase in emissions of noxious substances from the economy (what everyone but Simon means by "pollution") would not
register until after it more than offset the improvement in life expectancy brought about by modern medicine. Thus Simon
"measures" pollution by burying it in an aggregate, the other component of which offsets and overwhelms it.
Simon’s argument that there is no pressure on the land is wrong – his assumptions rest on gross statistical
misinterpretation
The second example is the claim (we are again told to grab our hats) that the combined increases of income and population do not
increase "pressure" on the land. His proof: the absolute amount of land per farm worker has been increasing in the United States
and other countries. One might have thought that this was a consequence of mechanization of agriculture and that the increasing
investment per acre in machinery, fertilizer, and pesticides represented pressure on the land, not to mention pressure on mines,
wells, rivers, lakes, and so on. Simon's demonstration that resources are infinite is, in my view, a coarse mixture of simple fallacy,
omission of contrary evidence from his own expert sources and gross statistical misinterpretation. Since everything else hinges
on the now exploded infinite resources proposition, we could well stop here. But there are other considerations less central to the
argument of the book that beg for attention.
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NON-UNIQUE – SEVERAL REASONS:
A. LOWER FERTILITY RATES

EHRLICH AND EHRLICH 2006 [Paul and Anne, professors @ Stanford University,
NEW SCIENTIST, September 30, page lexis] / ttate
It is half a century since demographers realised that humanity will not go on growing indefinitely. Based on changes in industrialising nations in the 19th century,
Better basic sanitation and
they predicted an eventual shift from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates worldwide.
healthcare, reduced infant mortality and improvements to women's education, status and prospects would
combine to decrease birth rates and increase life expectancy. Although on a global scale the population explosion is far from over ,
this so-called "demographic transition" has now happened in many industrialised societies.
In a developed country the break-even point for a population comes at around 2.1 children per couple. This is
the total fertility rate (TFR) at which the number of births just replaces the parent generation. Such levels were achieved several decades ago in much of Europe,
which now has some of the lowest birth rates in the world.
TFR stands at 1.28 in Italy and Spain, and just 1.25 in Poland.
Europe is not alone, though. Japan's TFR is 1.27 and South Korea's 1.25. Australia and Canada come in at
1.76 and 1.61 respectively. Yet despite such low figures, increasing longevity means that the projected population declines in many of these
countries will be less than 10 per cent by 2050. Indeed, countries with relatively high immigration, such as the UK - TFR 1.71 - and Australia, are likely to face a
significant population increase over the next several decades.
In some other parts of the world, however, numbers are falling rapidly. In Russia and several eastern
European nations, fertility rates are similar to the lowest in western Europe, but life expectancies are lower
and emigration outweighs immigration. That translates into projected population declines of between 20 and 35 per cent by 2050. Russia's
faltering national health system and widespread health problems such as alcoholism, poor nutrition and exposure to toxic pollutants mean that infant mortality is
three times as high as in western Europe and the life expectancy for men is just 59 years - 20 years lower than in the west. Meanwhile housing shortages, low
wages and poor job security all discourage couples from having children. With a TFR of 1.28, the population is shrinking by 700,000 each year.
B. STABILIZATION IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD

BROWN, GARDNER AND HALDWELL 1998 [Lester - founder of Worldwatch Institute, Gary - Senior
researcher at Worldwatch Institute, and Brian – Staff researcher, BEYOND
MALTHUS, p 8,http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf]
/ ttate
populations were growing everywhere,
The population projections for individual countries vary more widely than at any time in history. At mid-century,
have stabilized in some 32 countries, while they continue to expand in some countries at 3 percent or more a year. Indeed, the
but today they
world can be divided demographically into two camps: countries that have achieved population stability or
are well on the way to doing so, and those that have not.7
With the exception of Japan, all the nations in the first camp are in Europe. And all are industrial countries. The
populations of some countries, including Russia, Japan, and Germany, are actually projected to decline
somewhat over the next half-century. In addition to the 32 countries, containing 12 percent of world population, that
have stabilized their populations, in another 39 countries fertility has dropped to replacement level (roughly two
children per couple) or below. Among the countries in this category are China and the United States, the first and third largest
countries, which together contain 26 percent of the world’s people.8
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AND, Their inevitability claims are empirically denied – multiple examples prove populations are
sustainable
Narveson 94 (Jan, prof of philosophy @ U of Waterloo in Canada, “A Dissenting Viewpoint: The Overpopulation
Scare,” Free Inquiry, Vol. 14, Spring, dbm)
What about current starvation, you may ask? The answer is that we must carefully distinguish between starvation due to the inhumanity, cruelty, imbecility, and
sheer incompetence of governments, and starvation due to the lack of sufficient resources to sustain life. The former we have in plenty--in Somalia, Ethiopia, and to
varying degrees elsewhere. But Malthus didn't have that in mind. He supposed that even with hard work and reasonable thought for the
morrow, humankind wouldn't be able to survive without severely cutting back on the production of humans. And that situation we
do not have. Consider countries such as the Netherlands, with the densest population on earth. Yet Holland is self-sufficient overall
in food production. India, which in the past has had dreadful famines, is doing just fine. Even China, now that its government has
given up on enforced communism on the farm, is pulling its enormous weight quite well; had it always had a market farm
economy, there would surely have been no need for its high-powered and heavy-handed efforts at population control. Of course
there is the occasional pocket of desperation resulting from local floods, volcanic explosions, and the like. But the world's capacity
to cope with such disasters is beyond doubt. If that were all we had to worry about, concern with starvation in today's world would be of marginal
interest by any reasonable standard. In short, starvation in today's world is almost exclusively political in origin--eliminate all the socialist or other authoritarian
regimes in the third world and you'd eliminate starvation entirely.
AND, YOUR TARGETING OF AFRICA DOOMS US TO EXTINCTION – YOU ARE FOCUSING ON

THE POPULATION THAT CONSUMES THE LEAST
Ashton 07 (Glenn, Cape Times South Africa, “Let meek inherit Earth,” April 10, l/n, dbm)
Schoeman's perspective that overpopulation is the problem - well intentioned as it may be - shifts blame to those least able to
respond to the crisis of excessive consumption. While overpopulation may be a problem, while people are the cancer that destroys
the fabric of our ecosystems, it is not the poor who drive over-con-sumption; it is those who wield economic power. If the solution
is to limit the poor to one child per family - not in itself a bad idea - will we all be better off? The answer is affirmative if the poor
majority continue to use resources at the same rate. But if everyone is "uplifted", as Schoeman suggests, to middle-class status -
then real trouble beckons. If we all lived like the average European or US citizen we would need the resources of at least three
planet Earths. We have only one. Therefore to propose economic upliftment and population control as the solution is at best
simplistic - and at worst omnicidal - dooming not only humans but everything else to certain extinction. We need better solutions
than zero population growth and increased economic prosperity to solve our environmental crisis. The rich must take responsibility
for their role.
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( ) Turn—Malthusian environmental criticism stifles any attempts to create the social change which is
necessary to solve inevitable environmental destruction
Bookchin 88 (Murray, Prof. Emeritus @ Rampo College, July, Green Perspective No. 8, “The Population Myth—
I”, http://anarchism.jesusradicals.com/library/bookchin/perspectives8.html, dbm)
Secondly, by reducing us to studies of line graphs, bar graphs, and statistical tables, the neo-Malthusians literally freeze reality as it is. Their
numerical extrapolations do not construct any reality that is new; they mere extend, statistic by statistic, what is basically old and given. They are "futurists" in the most shallow sense of the
word, not "utopians" in the best sense.
We are taught to accept society, behavior, and values as they are, not as they should be or even could be.
This procedure places us under the tyranny of the status quo and divests us of any ability to think about radically changing the
world. I have encountered very few books or articles written by neo-Malthusians that question whether we should live under any kind of money economy at all, any statist system of society,
or be guided by profit oriented behavior. There are books and articles aplenty that explain "how to" become a "morally responsible" banker, entrepreneur, landowner, "developer," or, for all I
But whether the whole system called capitalism (forgive me!), be it corporate in the west or bureaucratic in the east, must be abandoned if we are
know, arms merchant.
to achieve an ecological society is rarely discussed. Thousands may rally around "Earth First!"'s idiotic slogan -- "Back to the Pleistocene!" -- but few, if they are
conditioned by neo-MaIalthusian thinking, will rally around the cry of the Left Greens -- "Forward to an Ecological Society!" Lastly, neo-
Malthusian thinking is the most backward in thinking out the implications of its demands. If we are concerned, today, and rightly so, about registering AIDS victims, what are the totalitarian
consequences about creating a Bureau of Population Control, as some Zero Population Growth wits suggested in the early 1970s? Imagine what consequences would follow from increasing the
state's power over reproduction? Indeed, what areas of personal life would not be invaded by slowly enlarging the state's authority over our most intimate kinds of human relations? Yet such
demands in one form or another have been raised by neo Malthusians on grounds that hardly require the mental level to examine the Statistical Abstract of the United States. The Social Roots
of Hunger This arithmetic mentality which disregards the social context of demographics is incredibly short-sighted. Once we accept
without any reflection or criticism that we live in a "grow-or-die" capitalistic society in which accumulation is literally a law of economic
survival and competition is the motor of "progress," anything we have to say about population is basically meaningless. The
biosphere will eventually be destroyed whether five billion or fifty million live on the planet. Competing firms in a "dog-eat-dog"
market must outproduce each other if they are to remain in existence. They must plunder the soil, remove the earth's forests, kill off its wildlife, pollute its
air and waterways not because their intentions are necessarily bad, although they usually are -- hence the absurdity of the spiritualistic pablum in which Americans are currently
immersed -- but because they must simply survive. Only a radical restructuring of society as a whole, including its anti-ecological sensibilities, can
remove this all commanding social compulsion -- not rituals, yoga, or encounter groups, valuable as some of these practices may be (including "improving" our earning
capacity and "power" to command). But the most sinister feature about neo-Malthusianism is the extent to which it actively deflects us from dealing with the
social origins of our ecological problems -- indeed, the extent to which it places the blame for them on the victims of hunger rather than
those who victimize them. Presumably, if there is a "population problem" and famine in Africa, it is the ordinary people who are to blame for having
too many children or insisting on living too long-- an argument advanced by Malthus nearly two centuries ago with respect to England's poor. The viewpoint not only justifies
privilege; it fosters brutalization and de grades the neo-Malthusians even more than it degrades the victims of privilege.
AND, INNOVATION DISPROVES

Regis 97 (Ed has written five books, most recently The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project, “The
Doomslayer”, Wired Issue 5.02, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html) / alejandro
The paradox is that those abstract principles and speculative analyses seem so very logical and believable,
whereas the facts themselves, the story of what has happened, appear wholly illogical and impossible to
explain. After all, people are fruitful and they multiply but the stores of raw materials in the earth's crust
certainly don't, so how can it be possible that, as the world's population doubles, the price of raw materials
is cut in half? It makes no sense. Yet it has happened. So there must be an explanation. And there is:
resources, for the most part, don't grow on trees. People produce them, they create them, whether it be food,
factories, machines, new technologies, or stockpiles of mined, refined, and purified raw materials.
"Resources come out of people's minds more than out of the ground or air," says Simon. "Minds matter
economically as much as or more than hands or mouths. Human beings create more than they use, on
average. It had to be so, or we would be an extinct species." The defect of the Malthusian models,
superficially plausible but invariably wrong, is that they leave the human mind out of the equation. "These
models simply do not comprehend key elements of people - the imaginative and creative."
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AND, THE MALTHUSIAN DOOMSDAY SCENARIO IS JUST FEAR-MONGERING – POST 09-11,

THERE HAS BEEN A SCRAMBLE TO LABEL EVERYTHING AS AN APOCALYPTIC THREAT
Furedi, ‘07 (Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at University of Kent, Population Control, June 18 2007,
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3503) / COLE
The new Malthusian security advocates use fear-mongering tactics every bit as shamelessly as those overseeing
the ‘war on terror’. Indeed, in the very process of depicting environmental and health issues as a major threat to
human survival, they actually take the politics of fear far beyond the alarmist scenarios dreamt up by the
architects of the ‘war on terror’. The Malthusian security agenda accepts the ideology of anti-terrorism in order
to draw attention to its claim that there are even graver problems threatening the future and security of
humanity. In one very important sense, however, the Malthusian security agenda is even more retrograde than
the traditionalist security agenda. The traditional variety was usually focused on a specific enemy; in many
instances the enemy was clearly identified – the Russians, the Cubans, or some specific group of subversives.
Today’s security agenda, by contrast, is uncertain about how to distinguish friend from foe and what the
problem really is. According to this view, there are no friends or foes. The new security agenda adopts a fiercely
misanthropic outlook and blames human behaviour in general for threatening security. They believe that our
behaviour – leading to population growth, consumption of oil, environmental degradation – is the real threat.
For them, threats are transnational, global, interconnected; in other words, everything is a potential threat.
Infectious diseases, environmental problems, economic discontent and terrorist violence are seen as being parts
of a broader, generic security problem. In years to come, this approach, which is now institutionalised through
the US Department of Homeland Security, is likely to expand into more and more spheres of human experience.
It is surely only a matter of time before the assumption implicit in the Malthusian security agenda – that we do
not simply need a ‘war on terror’ but a ‘war on everything’ – will be made more explicit.
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2AC FRONTLINE – GAG RULE/FAMILY PLANNING
FIRST, WE WILL CONTROL THE UNIQUENESS TO POPULATION GROWTH – FERTILITY

http://www.asianinvestor.net/article.aspx?CIaNID=56219) / rosenberg
The problem is that the aggregate indicators hide critical differences in regional trends. Though fertility is dropping
everywhere, it remains extraordinarily high in Sub-Saharan Africa and much of the Islamic world – 7.5 in
Afghanistan, 6.0 in Yemen, and 4.9 in Iraq. Nearly all of the global population growth in the coming decades will
occur in the poorest regions of the world. Of the 2.7 billion extra people living in 2050, roughly 40 percent will
live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another 30 percent will live in Muslim-majority countries. Only 1 percent will live in
the world’s most developed regions. By and large, the countries that will remain the youngest and fastest growing
are also the countries with the weakest state institutions, least-adequate infrastructure, and worst-performing
economies.
And, Decreasing fertility rates is key to stabilize populations – mortality’s effect is minimal
Low fertility has been the usual stabilizing factor because, for humans, high mortality is not the norm . Increased
mortality appears mainly in densely settled regions toward the middle and end of a spurt of rapid growth. Paleontologists
studying human remains agree that mortality has had, to date, only a weak effect on population size. Stability or growth
has depended primarily on fertility rates. Human population growth was slow right up to modern times because women
almost never have all the children of which they are biologically capable.
The baseline for the maximum number of children women can have is known as natural fertility, that is, births when no
behavioral, social, or other obstacles stand in the way of conception and carrying a pregnancy to term. Rarely, and for
brief periods, a few societies have reproduced at an average of ten children per woman, a level seemingly close to natural
fertility. Comparing this baseline to actual fertility shows that few women have all the children that they are physically able
to bear.
MORE EVIDENCE – THE AFF IS THE WAY TO CONTROL POPULATION

The single most effective way of reducing population growth is through massive investment in family planning
programmes. Yet international funding and promotion of family planning has severely waned in the past decade –
and at least 150 million couples lack access to family planning information and services.
Governments’ commitments under international treaties must be met and funding increased. As Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan recognised this in
Bangkok in 2003: ‘The Millennium Development Goals, particularly eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, cannot be achieved if questions of population and
reproductive health are not squarely addressed. And that means stronger efforts to promote women's rights, and greater investment in education and health, including
reproductive health and family planning.’
Parliamentary Hearings to assess the impact of population increase were held at Westminster this summer.(3) Taking evidence from nearly 50 organizations worldwide,
these have underlined the gravity of the situation.
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Family planning must become a development issue of the most urgent priority.
2AC FRONTLINE – GAG RULE/FAMILY PLANNING

AND, FAMILY PLANNING FURTHER DECREASES FERTILITY RATES DUE TO SPACING
The unmet need for family planning is high in sub-Saharan Africa, according to survey data. The 1993 Ghana DHS
indicated that 39 percent of currently married women of reproductive age either wanted no more children or
wanted to wait two or more years before having another child, yet they were not using contraception. Unmet need
was calculated at 28 percent in the 1995 Eritrea DHS and a striking 62 percent in the 1997 Senegal DHS.23
Demographers Charles Westoff and Akinrinola Bankole found that a country's fertility rate would drop about one
child per woman on average if part of the unmet need could be satisfied through expanded family planning
services.24 The projected demographic impact is not greater because most of the need for family planning in sub-
Saharan Africa is to space births rather than limit them. Nevertheless, more countries would see lower fertility rates
if women were able to limit or space their children more effectively through family planning.
AND, WE WILL CONTROL THE TIMEFRAME – LONG LIFE EXPECTANCY IS KEY TO

SUCCESSFUL FAMILY PLANNING RATES – DECREASING MORTALITY RATES KEY TO
LOWERING FERTILITY RATES – OUR REVERSAL OF DEATH CHECKS SUPERCHARGES OUR
FERTILITY LINK TURNS
Population policy analysts sometimes use a general rule that life expectancy at birth must be above 50 years for
family planning programs to succeed, and consequently, for fertility to fall. Much of Asia and Latin America
passed this threshold in the early 1960s. Life expectancy is also above 50 in the sub-Saharan African countries that
have shown the most fertility decline. In Zimbabwe and Kenya, for example, life expectancy passed the 50-year
mark during the 1970s. Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, however, only a handful of countries have life
expectancies over 50 years, and most of these crossed this threshold only in recent years.18
Unfortunately, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has likely reversed longstanding increases in life expectancy in Botswana,
Zimbabwe, and some other sub-Saharan countries. There is no evidence yet as to whether these declines might
affect contraceptive use or fertility, and thus might slow Africa's transition to lower fertility.
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2AC RACISM K
(__) YOUR OVERPOPULATION THEORIES IS JUST RACISM IN DISGUISE – THE NEGATIVE’S

LENS IS A DISTORTED VIEW OF THE IMPOVERISHED POPULATIONS OF THE WORLD – YOUR
ARGUMENT IS TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER – LET THE AFRICANS DIE IN THE NAME OF
CONTINUED WESTERN CONSUMPTION AND EXPLOITATION
HARTMANN 2006 [Betsy, “Dangerous Intersections”, COMMITTEE ON WOMEN, POPULATION,
AND THE ENVIRONMENT, July 15, http://cwpe.org/node/69] / ttate
We began the first issue of Political Environments with the image of the Hydra of Fear and Scapegoating in the
U.S., the serpent which sprouts new heads of hate as others are slashed off. A year later, it seems the Hydra is more
powerful than ever. Not only has the crackdown on poor women, immigrants and people of color intensified, but
fundamentalism and fascism pose real threats to the continued existence of the secular democratic state.
To fight back against the Right requires that we not only organize, organize, organize, but also sharpen our analysis
and rid ourselves of conventional wisdoms that are unwise. Neo-Malthusian ideology is one of these, for under the
umbrella of controlling population growth a host of conservative agendas masquerade as liberal, green and even
feminist.
Fear of overpopulation also plays an important role in distorting public consciousness. It is a warped lens through
which to view the lives of poor people. It turns them into faceless numbers, breeds racism and sexism, denies
history, and reinforces Western parochialism about the Third World. In a sense, neo-Malthusianism is a "divide and
conquer" strategy, creating artificial boundaries between people.
"But what about the UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo?" one might
ask. Wasn't the women's movement victorious in transforming population policy to a women's empowerment/
reproductive health approach? While women's groups undoubtedly made important gains at Cairo, the theory and
practice of population control remain as problematic as ever.
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RACISM K HELPERS – JUSTIFIES GENOCIDE
(__) YOUR ARGUMENT JUSTIFIES INACTION IN RWANDA – NEO-MALTHUSIANS BELIEVE THE

POPULATION IN RWANDA WAS STILL TOO HIGH AFTER THE GENOCIDE – YOUR ADVOCACY
TARGETS IMPOVERISHED, VULNERABLE COUNTRIES
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3503) / COLE
The catastrophic imagination in contemporary Western culture has encouraged the Malthusian lobby to target
the very aspiration for procreation. Controlling fertility is now described as a duty rather than a matter of
choice. ‘Couples making decisions about family size do so in the belief that it is a matter for them and their
personal preferences alone’, says the OPT, with incredulity (6). The idea that people should have the right to
make choices about their family size is dismissed as an indefensible outrage against common sense.This assault
on the right to procreate is often intrusive, even coercive. Take the example of Rwanda. The world was horrified
by the mass slaughter in Rwanda in 1994, during which an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed. Yet it
appears that, so far as the population-control lobby is concerned, there are still too many people living in
Rwanda. As one headline earlier this year put it: ‘After so many deaths, too many births.’ Apparently, ‘After the
1994 genocide, in which more than 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered, it seemed difficult to believe that
overpopulation would ever be a problem. Yet Rwanda has long had more people than its meagre resources and
small area can support.’ Now, with the guidance of Western non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the
Rwandan government is planning a sweeping population-control programme. From now on, everyone who
visits a medical centre will be ‘counselled’ about family planning (7). Experience shows that such ‘counselling’
in reality means putting pressure on women to use contraception. It is in poverty-stricken, insecure countries
like Rwanda, where people lack the resources to assume even a modicum of control over their lives, that the
truly inhumane nature of population-control policies becomes clear.
(__) YOUR ADVOCACY OF ALLOWING THE AFRICANS TO BE DEATH CHECKS LEADS TO A

JUSTIFICATION OF EUGENICS
Jalsevac ’04 (Paul, Eugenics analyst, The Inherent Racism of Population Control,
http://www.lifesite.net/waronfamily/Population_Control/Inherentracism.pdf, January 2004) / RICE
After all the pieces of that monolith called Planned Parenthood were in place, its campaign to force eugenics on the
world and rid the world of inferior peoples went into overdrive. Massive resources united under the Planned
Parenthood banner could now be used to create the movement that would fully usher in the deadly population
control programs of the late twentieth century.
The leaders of Planned Parenthood stretched every ounce of their political influence, great wealth, and talent to
bring abortion and contraception to the entire world in order to reduce the number of the “inferior”. They had an
enormous task before them, since almost 70% of the American population fell into the undesirable sections of the
population according to Margaret’s guidelines. Planned Parenthood achieved devastating results using the legal
challenges, protests, civil disobedience, strong-arm tactics, and sophisticated propaganda campaigns that Sanger
and her predecessors had perfected.
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RACISM K HELPERS – BLAMING THE POOR
(__) THE NEG’S ADVOCACY IS TO BLAME THE ILLS ON SOCIETY ON THE POPULATING,
BREEDING AFRICANS – YOU DEEM THE AFRICANS AS BEING UNFIT TO PROPAGATE
http://www.lifesite.net/waronfamily/Population_Control/Inherentracism.pdf, January 2004) / RICE
Allan Chase suggests that Malthus clung to his claims because, born of a well-off family, he had become a sort of
spokesman for the wealthy industrialists and landowners who depended on the urban and rural poor as their labour
force. Malthus’ motive, claims Chase, was not to save mankind from self-destructing through over-breeding, but
to protect this vast reservoir of cheap labour from the charitable attempts that Malthus claimed had the “tendency
to remove the necessary stimulus to industry.” To preserve this “necessary stimulus”, he maintained, all relief or
legislative actions that could possibly diminish poverty by increasing the standard of living of the poor should be
avoided and prevented at all costs.
Regardless of Malthus’ true motivation, he had created a new ideology which presented a serious threat to the well
being of whole classes of people. His “scientific” racism held a strong appeal to “successions of venal men and
pinchpenny governments” by giving them supposedly “scientific excuses to ignore the poor and their plight.
Indeed, Malthus had started an ideological trend that, with the impetus provided by the ideas of a few other notable
men, would sweep through the elite circles of the Western world.
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RACISM K HELPERS – BLAMING THE POOR
(__) THE HYPE OF THE CARRYING CAPACITY RESULTS IN THE GLOBAL POOR BEING
BLAMED FOR OUR RESOURCE CONSUMPTION – YOUR ADVOCACY IS TO ALLOW AFRICANS
TO BECOME OUR DEATH CHECK
MELLO 2006 [Fatima, “Population and International Security in the New World Order”, COMMITTEE
ON WOMEN, POPULATION, AND THE ENVIRONMENT, July 12,
http://www.cwpe.org/resources/popcontrol/newworldorder] / ttate
Conservative environmentalists say that population growth lies at the core of most environmental problems such as
energy use, the depletion of natural resources, and deforestation. The prevalent notion of carrying capacity claims
that population growth inevitably entails increased resource consumption. This lays the groundwork for blaming
the poor for the destruction carried out by big landowners, transnational companies, and mega-projects funded by
multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, whose purpose is to export natural resources to feed consumption
and production in the North. Carrying capacity takes out of the equation the political, economic and social
dynamics which govern the relations between human beings and nature. Blaming powerless poor Southern women
will not stop the negative impacts of unsustainable patterns of production and consumption that feed the dominant
economic development model.
(__) Malthusian arguments mask racist, imperialist motives

Enzensberger, ’74 (Hans Magnus Enzensberger, A Critique of Political Ideology, March-April 1974,
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=431) / cole
Warnings about the consequences of uncontrolled population growth—the so-called population explosion—also
contain ideological motives and behind the demands to contain it are concealed political interests which do not
reveal themselves openly. The neo-Malthusian arguments which authors like Ehrlich and Taylor have been at
pains to popularize found expression at a particular moment in time and in a quite particular political context.
They originate almost exclusively from North American sources and can be dated to the late 1950s and early
1960s—a time, that is to say, when the Liberation movements in the Third World began to become a central
problem for the leading imperialist power. (On the other hand the rate of increase in population had begun to
rise much earlier, in the 1930s and 1940s.)
(__) MALTHUSIAN THEORY IS JUST A RATIONALE TO IGNORE HELPING THE POOR

http://www.lifesite.net/waronfamily/Population_Control/Inherentracism.pdf, January 2004) / rice
Allan Chase suggests that Malthus clung to his claims because, born of a well-off family, he had become a sort of
spokesman for the wealthy industrialists and landowners who depended on the urban and rural poor as their labour
force. Malthus’ motive, claims Chase, was not to save mankind from self-destructing through over-breeding, but
to protect this vast reservoir of cheap labour from the charitable attempts that Malthus claimed had the “tendency
to remove the necessary stimulus to industry.” To preserve this “necessary stimulus”, he maintained, all relief or
legislative actions that could possibly diminish poverty by increasing the standard of living of the poor should be
avoided and prevented at all costs.
Regardless of Malthus’ true motivation, he had created a new ideology which presented a serious threat to the well
being of whole classes of people. His “scientific” racism held a strong appeal to “successions of venal men and
pinchpenny governments” by giving them supposedly “scientific excuses to ignore the poor and their plight.
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Indeed, Malthus had started an ideological trend that, with the impetus provided by the ideas of a few other notable
men, would sweep through the elite circles of the Western world.
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RACISM K HELPERS – HARDIN INDICTS

(__) HARDIN’S WRITINGS ARE JUST NEO-NAZI PROPAGANDA – HE TOUTS OVERPOPULATION
AS A WAY TO ADVANCE HIS EUGENICS MOVEMENT
The role of the Pioneer Fund, the major financier of eugenics research in North America, should not be
underestimated. The Pioneer Fund supports the eugenics journal Mankind Quarterly, a forum for neo-Nazi style
'scholarship'. The journal supplies much of the false documentation for the eugenic conclusions of The Bell
Curve.2 The Pioneer Fund also finances FAIR and the work of Garrett Hardin, the infamous advocate of the worst
kind of population control: lifeboat ethics-better to let the poor die than to sink our privileged lifeboat.3
2. Hardin is a major link between population and environment groups and the anti-immigration movement, serving
as advisor, for example, to Population-Environment Balance, FAIR and Americans for Immigration Control. Other
key links are Paul and Anne Ehrlich, Donald Mann of Negative Population Growth (NPG), and John Tanton, who
founded U.S. English, Zero Population Growth and FAIR (see Common Threads, Common Target). In recent
months NPG has been putting out expensive, virulent anti-immigration adds in major magazines and newspapers.4
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RACISM K HELPERS – ABERNATHY/CCN NETWORK INDICTS
(__) ABERNATHY AND THE CARRYING CAPACITY NETWORK RELY ON FAULTY DATA AND
FOCUS ON RACIST SOLUTIONS
Carrying Capacity Network, with a budget of over a million dollars, sponsored Donald Huddle's widely publicized
studies, based on erroneous data, which claim that immigrants are a net drain on the economy. CCN appears to
have well developed links to the mainstream press and feeds it alarmist articles, such as how the U.S. may run out
of food because of population pressures. Virginia Abernethy of CCN promotes the spurious view that scarcity-not
improvements in basic living standard-is the best way to reduce birth rates, and argues against humanitarian forms
of foreign aid other than family planning.
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CLASSISM K MODULE
Malthusian logic perpetuates class disparities—generates the idea that classism is natural
The Corner House, 2k (The Malthus Factor Poverty, Politics and Population in Capitalist Development,July,
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/pdf/briefing/20malth.pdf, accessed 7/15/07) /vinay
In Malthus’s first Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, population pressure is treated as a “law of nature” which
makespoverty natural and inevitable.2 The “positive checks” of disease and starvation are regarded as the chief routes
through which that pressure can (and even should) be alleviated. Although Malthus was convinced that “the root cause
of pauperism was the excessive procreation of the lower classes”, he nevertheless regarded birth control among the
poor as morally unacceptable.3 Instead, he proposed, at most, delayed marriage or “moral restraint”. His aim was not to reduce
population pressures but to reduce the obligation of the rich to mitigate human misery. In particular, he advocated
abolishing the poor laws, the closest thing that existed in his time to social welfare.4
By suggesting that the fertility of the poor – rather than chronic or periodic unemployment, the fencing of common lands, or high food prices – was
the main source of their poverty and by implying that the poor’s fertility could not be significantly influenced by
human intervention, Malthus acquitted the property-owning class and the political economic system of
accountability for poverty. Indeed, far from wanting to reduce population pressures, Malthus viewed population
growth and poverty as the chief stimuli for the poor to seek work and thus “a necessary stimulus to industry”.5 He was,
after all, primarily an economist, even if today he is considered as one of the “patron saints” of modern demography
Classism dehumanizes
Genovese, 72 (Eugene D., noted historian of the American South and American slavery, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves
Made, http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/resources/lessonplans/amlit_lp_beloved_scriptwriting.htm, accessed 7.16.07) / vinay
Thus, the slaves, by accepting a paternalistic ethos and legitimizing class rule, developed their most powerful defense against the dehumanization implicit in
slavery. Southern paternalism may have reinforced racism as well as class exploitation, but it also unwittingly invited its victims to fashion their own interpretation of the social order it was intended to justify. And the slaves,
drawing on a religion that was supposed to assure their compliance and docility, rejected the essence of slavery by projecting their own rights and value as human beings....
...The South had discovered, as had every previous slave society, that it could not deny the slave's humanity, however many preposterous legal fictions it invented. That discovery ought to have told the slaveholders much more....
Those slaves whose disaffection turned into violence and hatred--those who resisted the regime physically--included slaves who made stealing almost a way of life, killed their overseers and masters, fought back against patrollers,
Class
burned down plantation buildings, and ran away, either to freedom or to the woods for a short while, in order to effect some specific end, as well as those who took the ultimate measures and rose in revolt.
oppression, whether or not reinforced and modified by racism, induces servility and feelings of inferiority in the oppressed. Force alone
usually has not sufficed to keep the lower classes in subjugation. Slavishness constitutes the extreme form of the
psychology of the oppressed, although we may doubt that it ever appears in pure form. It longs for acceptance by the other, perceived
as the epitome of such superior qualities as beauty, goodness, virtue, and, above all, power. But, the inevitable
inability of the lower classes, especially but not uniquely slave classes, to attain that acceptance generates disaffection, hatred,
and violence.
This culminates in genocide

Maiese, 03 (Michelle is a graduate student of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder and is a part of the research staff at the Conflict
Research Consortium., Dehumanization, July, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/dehumanization/, accessed 7/16/07.) / vinay
While deindividuation and the formation of enemy images are very common, they form a dangerous process that becomes especially damaging when it reaches the level of
dehumanization.
Once certain groups are stigmatized as evil, morally inferior, and not fully human, the persecution of those groups
becomes more psychologically acceptable. Restraints against aggression and violence begin to disappear. Not
surprisingly, dehumanization increases the likelihood of violence and may cause a conflict to escalate out of
control. Once a violence break over has occurred, it may seem even more acceptable for people to do things that
they would have regarded as morally unthinkable before.
Parties may come to believe that destruction of the other side is necessary, and pursue an overwhelming victory that will cause one's opponent to simply
disappear. This sort of into-the-sea framing can cause lasting damage to relationships between the conflicting parties, making it more difficult to solve their underlying problems and leading to the loss of more innocent lives.
dehumanization often paves the way for human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide. For example, in WWII,
Indeed,
the dehumanization of the Jews ultimately led to the destruction of millions of people.[9] Similar atrocities have
occurred in Rwanda, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslavia.
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NON-UNIQUE – FERTILITY RATES ↓
(__) Fertility rates are falling and population growth is decelerating

http://www.asianinvestor.net/article.aspx?CIaNID=56219)
Wednesday, July 11, the United Nations’ annual World Population Day, is a time to reflect on the past, present, and
future state of the world’s population. Much attention will no doubt be given to the dangers associated with
runaway population growth, from environmental degradation to unrelenting cycles of poverty. Amidst these
worries, it is important to take note that the high tide of global population growth has peaked and begun to ebb.
The real cause for concern is the sometimes gaping divergence in demographic trends between developed and
developing nations, as well as between the United States and its traditional allies.
The stunning collapse in fertility rates across the world is the biggest – and perhaps least reported – demographic
story of the past few decades. The developed world, of course, is no stranger to falling fertility. With the exception
of the postwar Baby Boom, birthrates have been in almost uninterrupted decline for more than a century. More
recently, however, fertility has also declined throughout the developing world – and at an extremely rapid pace.
Iran, a country that evokes images of religious conservatism and traditional family values, has undergone one of
the fastest fertility declines on record. According to UN estimates, the average number of children born to each
Iranian woman has fallen from 6.6 to 2.1 over the past 25 years. The decline is global in scale, spanning Latin
America, parts of the Islamic Belt, and East and South Asia. Since 1970, fertility in Mexico has fallen from 6.5 to
an estimated 2.4, in China from 4.9 to 1.7, and in India from 5.3 to 3.1.
This decline in global fertility has led directly to slower global population growth. After peaking four decades ago
in the late 1960s, the rate of growth in the world’s population has been steadily decelerating. Because of what
demographers call “demographic momentum,” the world’s population will still grow by about 2.7 billion between
now and 2050. But according to UN projections, it will plateau soon thereafter – and may even enter a gradual
decline. If global population growth is a dangerous trend, the moment of maximum risk appears to have passed.
(__) Fertility rates have fallen by half

Reilly, 2007 (William, UPI U.N. correspondent, United Press International, “Prep for aging population,”
http://www.upi.com/International_Intelligence/Analysis/2007/06/19/analysis_un_prep_for_aging_population/9104
/) / rosenberg
Life expectancy rose globally from 47 years in 1950-1955 to 65 years in 2000-2005 and is expected to reach 75
years in 2045-2050. In the period from 1950-1955 to 2000-2005, total fertility fell from 5.0 to 2.6 children per
woman, and it is expected to continue falling to reach 2.0 children per woman in 2045-2050.
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( ) No overpopulation – fertility rates declining everyone

UN figures show 79 countries that have 40% of the world’s population now have fertility rates too low to prevent population
decline. Worldwide, the number of children a typical woman had fell from 5(1950-55) to less than 3(1990-95), the number
necessary just to ‘replace’. Joseph D’Agostino(VP/ Population Research Institute) admits that Americans’ birthrate is now lower
than even the 1960’s. In the first time since China’s Great Famine, rising death rates are slowing world population growth.
Declining birthrates are resulting from abortion, fertility rates, AIDS, and contraception. In sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV virus, barring a medicinal miracle, will kill
over ¼ of the adult population in the next decade. For instance, in Zimbabwe the life expectancy has fallen from 61 years(1993) to 49 years(2000)
[www.enerspace.com]. Fertility rates have dropped everywhere, and Population Reference Bureau cites South Korea, Japan, Kenya,
and Ghana as some of the worst cases. In addition, many governments sterilize and abort citizens by force. This occurs with assistance of
the UN, US, and government supported agencies(i.e., Planned Parenthood). According to Dr. Jacqueline Kasun, economist and author of The War Against
Population, both the US and UN have promoted sex education in schools. They teach that there are far too many people in the world,
and that abortion, sterilization, and contraception are necessary to reduce excessive population growth. Kasun also reiterates
several ‘alleged’ myths:
(__) Decreasing birth rates means there’s no risk of the impacts.

Deming ’04 (David, scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, Malthus Reconsidered,
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba469/, 3/22/04) / rice
In his memorable 1968 essay Tragedy of the Commons , Garrett Hardin (1968, p. 1,244) noted that "there is no prosperous population in the world today that has, and has
The birthrate necessary for zero population
had for some time, a [population] growth rate of zero." If this was true in 1968, it is no longer true today.
growth is 2.1 births per woman. The birthrate in many developed countries is now substantially lower than the
minimum required to replace the population. For instance:
Japan has a total fertility rate of 1.3 births per woman, and its population is projected to fall 21 percent by 2050.
The total fertility rate for Europe in 2002 was 1.4 births per woman, and the population is projected to fall 11 percent by 2050.
Developed regions of the world — Europe, North America, Australia, Japan and New Zealand — have 19 percent of the world's population and an average fertility rate of
1.6 births per woman.
In less developed areas the fertility rate has also fallen dramatically and continues to decline:
In the 1950s, the average woman in Africa , Asia and Latin America gave birth to 6 children.
By 2002, the average fertility rate in these less developed areas had fallen to 3.1 births per woman.
Among the reasons that have been given for the falling birth rates that accompany economic development:
* In agrarian societies, children are an economic asset, whereas in technological societies they are an economic liability.
* Birth control has become increasingly available and culturally acceptable.
* Infant mortality has fallen.
* Women in technological societies spend more time on education and work, and less time on childbearing and rearing.
a turning point in the history of human population growth took place in the period from 1962 to 1963.
In retrospect, it is now apparent that
In those years,
the Earth's human population reached its highest growth rate — 2.2 percent per year. Since then, the
growth rate has decreased, reaching 1.2 percent in 2001. If this trend continues , the world's population will likely stabilize
and perhaps even begin declining before the end of this century.
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(__) Global fertility rates decreasing
Douglas, 2006 (Trish, senior school geography co-ordinator at Eltham College and one of the authors of VCE
geography text New Perspectives, “The new world is on the ascent,” The Age, http://web.lexis-
zSkVb&_md5=f48db3da0b24100af396b7c3a6576489) / rosenberg
Despite continued global population growth, global fertility rates (the average number of children born per
woman) are declining. The world fertility rate is now 2.7, down from 3.4 children per woman in 1990. Declines in
fertility have coincided with improvements in living conditions, greater access to education, particularly for
women, improved health care and access to contraception.
Women in most regions are choosing to have fewer children but there is a substantial difference between those in
developed and developing countries, with fertility rates of 1.6 and 3.0 children respectively. It is anticipated that
fertility rates in developing regions will continue to fall, particularly with increasing rural-urban migration. In the
cities a child is more likely to be an economic burden than an asset and there is better access to health services and
family planning programs.
( ) Falling fertility rates mean no crisis

But decreases in infant mortality, plus increases in the relative cost of housing which are to be expected in city centers, tend to
reduce family size in such places. Now that the industrial world is largely urbanized, population increases there have everywhere
become negative; only immigration keeps Canada from an outright decline in population. As other countries become wealthier--if
their backward, autocratic regimes will ever let them--there is every reason to expect that they too will become less fertile. Like the
province of Quebec, which has recently begun to subsidize the production of children, rich countries will be faced with the
problem of declining populations, especially at the middle years, and increasing numbers of the old and (consequently) sick.
Overpopulation is not the prospect that looms before us in the modern world.
( ) No population crisis – declining birth rates

Narveson 04 (Jan, prof of philosophy @ U of Waterloo in Canada, “Overpopulation? Fiddlesticks! There Are No
Inherent Limits to Growth,” Free Inquiry, Vol 24, Aug/Sept, dbm)
Most people's vision of burgeoning population in the twentieth Century is distorted. Far from being a problem of people having
more and more children, as most supposed, twentieth-century population growth was driven primarily by a steady increase in
longevity. In the United States, life expectancy almost doubled. Birth rates are on the decline almost everywhere and have been for
decades. Indeed, there is now talk about not only a leveling off in the rate of increase but an actual decline in population as the new
century goes along--hey, if you want something to wring your hands about, try the eventual demise of the human race from
nonreproduction! Reproduction rates rise and fall, and there is no point in trying to predict them for the long term.
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NON-UNIQUE – NO RESOURCE SHORTAGES
( ) No resource shortages – their authors ignore how abundant our supplies are
Those who doubt this have two problems. First, they simply don't realize how much in the way of natural resources, strictly
defined, the earth contains. Second, they don't understand how little that has to do with anything. Regarding the first: the story of
every material resource is that as time goes by, estimates of available quantities increase. In 1950, annual world oil consumption
ran to four billion barrels, and "proven reserves" were approximately ninety billion barrels--enough for twenty-two years. In the
subsequent forty-four years consumption rose to more than 640 billion barrels, yet proven reserves were ten times greater than in
1950! (The current figure is eight hundred years.) The same is true of every material resource. The earth's supply of x is good for
millennia or even millions of years. What's a poor prophet of doom to do?
( ) Humans don’t consume that much

The other point is more basic. How many of the really nice things in your life are hugely consumptive of matter? Buildings,
bridges, roads, ships, ears? They are "all constructed of plentiful materials--no problem there, even if we covered the planet with
them--which, of course, we will not. What about the rest? How much matter goes into a great oil painting by Van Gogh, now worth
fifty million dollars? Or your computer? Or the down-filled parka that keeps us northerners comfy on the coldest winter days? Or
the compact discs that store thousands of hours of beautiful listening on my shelves? Thinking about this will lead you to see that
the whole idea that modern civilization is based on huge "consumption" of "natural resources" is way off base. What it "consumes"
is ingenuity, talent, skill--and the neat thing about their "consumption" is that they don't get consumed. Writing the complete works
of Shakespeare left Shakespeare quite intact, though it enriched the rest of us immeasurably.
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NON-UNIQUE – NO RESOURCE SHORTAGES
(__) FOOD PRODUCTION HAS OUTSTRIPPED POPULATION INCREASES

Ben-Ami, ‘04 (Daniel Ben-Ami, 22 October, 2004, The Dismal Quackery of Eco Economics, http://www.spiked-
online.com/Articles/0000000CA750.htm) / cole
Reverend Robert Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) is in many ways the intellectual godfather of environmentalism. It's striking that the ideas of a long-dead English
Malthus famously argued that the world
country parson have now come back in radical clothes. In his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798),
was doomed to mass starvation since population inevitably grew far more rapidly than food supply. In mathematical
terms, he argued, the population grew geometrically while agricultural production grew arithmetically. Malthus' views led Thomas Carlyle, a nineteenth century
Fortunately Malthus' predictions proved entirely wrong. Food
historian and philosopher, to dub economics 'the dismal science'.
production has easily outstripped population growth. Starvation is mercifully the exception rather than the rule -
when it still exists, it is the result of social inequality rather than an absolute failure to produce food. The
solution to this is more extensive economic growth, to help the poorest parts of the world to reach the living
standards of the richest.
(__) THERE IS NO FOOD CRISIS

Goldberg ’01 (Jonah, National Review, Being and Nothingness,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2QyZmYzZWI3YzBiNDVjNDA2ZTA0NzMxZDhmY2ZiMWY=, 8/13/01) / rice
experts who have almost never been right, like Paul Ehrlich and Jeremy Rifkin, have
Just one other environmental example: Population growth. Noted
predicted that overpopulation will destroy the planet. In 1970, Ehrlich predicted that the United States alone would lose
65 million people during the 1980s, as part of the worldwide "Great Die-Off." The truth is that there is more food available and
consumed by more people today than there has ever been — despite our larger population. In 1949, the percent of
people starving in the world was 45%; today, it is 18%. By the end of this decade it will be 12%, and by 2030 it
will be a mere 6%.
(__) Natural resources are not meaningfully finite – it should be measured in terms of the service it provides
Lambert, 1995 (Thomas, an environmental policy analyst at the Center for the Study of American Business at
Washington University in St. Louis, "What they missed in Cairo: Defusing the population bomb,” USA Today
Magazine, January 1995) / rosenberg
The fundamental assumption underlying pessimistic accounts of future resource depletion--and the concomitant obsession
with limiting population growth and resource use--is that the supply of natural resources is finite. The truth, though, is that natural
resources are not limited in any meaningful sense.
The primary error in the finiteness assumption is a materialistic view of resources. According to this perspective, resources are "stuff." Yet,
resources are really best understood as services. It is, after all, the particular services a material provides--not the physical composition-- that
make it a resource. If crude oil provided no services, it would be a messy nuisance, not a resource. Examples of the services that make materials into resources are a
capacity to conduct electricity, ability to support weight, energy to fuel autos or electrical generators, and food calories.
Empiricaleconomist William Baumol at one time embraced the notion that natural resources are limited. In 1979. he wrote
in Economics, Environmental Policy, and the Quality of Life that "neither reduced demand nor expanded exploration can make our finite resources limitless.." Upon
examination of the data on resource scarcity, though, he changed his mind. By 1989, in Productivity and American Leadership:
The Long View, he maintained that, "[M]easured in terms of their prospective contribution to human welfare, the
available quantity of our exhaustible and unreproducible natural resources may be able to rise unceasingly, year
after year. Rather than approaching exhaustion with continued use, their effective inventories may actually be
growing and may never come anywhere near disappearance." In other words, the service provided is what
should be evaluated as increasing or decreasing. If the price of the service a resource provides is decreasing, the
"effective stock"--or the performance capacity of the unused quantity of the resource--must be increasing.
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1AR EXTS – RESOURCES NOT FINITE
This is the only argument we have to win in the debate

This book is an all-out attack on neomalthusian or limits-to-growth thinking and a plea for more population and economic growth,
both now and into the indefinite future. It is not a shotgun attack. Rather it is an attack with a single-shot rifle aimed at a single
(but critical) premise of the neomalthusian position. If Simon hits the target, then neomalthusian arguments collapse. If Simon
misses the target, then all neomalthusian first principles remain unscathed, and Simon's progrowth arguments collapse. The critical
premise that Simon attacks is that of the finitude of resources, including waste absorption capacities. Other premises from which
neomalthusians argue include the entropy law and the vulnerability of ecological life-support services.
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NON-UNIQUE – CARRYING CAPACITY
(__) The capacity of the earth is not fixed and it is constantly increasing
Hardin, 1992 (Garrett Hardin, Cultural Carrying Capacity: A Biological Approach to Human Problems, 1992,
Carrying Capacity Network, Focus/ Vol.2, No.3 http://dieoff.org/page46.htm) / cole
Suppose resources are not fixed? If by resources we mean natural resources that are available for human use at a particular time, at a particular stage in technological
resources have not been firmly fixed during all of human history. The past two centuries have seen the
development, then
most spectacular increase in the resources actually available for human use. Malthus, because he was not acutely aware of the increase
in carrying capacity going on in his time, was so unlucky as to put forth a theory of population that was too static to suit the economists of subsequent times, who are keenly
aware of the effect of technology on the resources effectively available to the human species.A careful reading of Malthus's work shows that he described what we would
now call a cybernetic system in which negative (or corrective) feedbacks keep the population fluctuating about a relatively fixed set point (Hardin and Bajema 1978). The
set point is, of course, the carrying capacity of the environment. Unfortunately
for Malthus's reputation, the spectacular development of
technology in the years after 1798 moved the set point steadily upward.Biologists find no difficulty in fitting this new fact into the
Malthusian cybernetic scheme, but many economists and other social scientists see the continued increase in available resources
as incompatible with Malthusian theory. The difference in opinion is closely connected with a difference in the perception of time (Hardin 1985b).
Economics, the handmaiden of business, is daily concerned with "discounting the future," a mathematical operation that, under high rates of interest, has the effect of
making the future beyond a very few years essentially disappear from rational calculation. Told that petroleum resources will, for all practical purposes, be exhausted in 20
years, the biologist starts to worry, while the economist merely yawns. For most economic planning, the ultimate horizon of time is only five years away.
The economist can give two rather telling arguments for continuing to refuse to take seriously any predictions of the state of the world more than five years from now. First,
for more than two centuries science has come up with one miracle after another, steadily increasing the functional
carrying capacity of the world.
AND, NEG STUDIES ARE FLAWED

Brookfield, ’92 (Harold Brookfeild, UNESCO Courier, January 1992,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1992_Jan/ai_11921828/pg_4) / cole
Substantial criticism of the whole group of concepts embraced under the notions of "carrying capacity", "critical
population levels" and "population pressure on resources" was, however, already building up. Increasingly it came
to be understood that a static population-resource equation concealed more than it revealed. Technical problems
with early attempts to make carrying capacity an effective, applicable indicator were summarized in 1986 by P.M.
Fearnside. They addressed only one class of agriculture and an essentially subsistence economy. Although some
authors introduced caveats, they nevertheless calculated on the tacit assumption that patterns of consumption,
income and employment, crop and livestock mix and agrotechnology were fixed. Few considered natural resource
degradation or took account of year to year variability in the biophysical conditions of production. Most studies
were based on limited periods of field research and there were deficiencies in the used on yields, the fallow period
and the qualities of land and its resilience under human use. Unfortunately, some of these deficiencies have been
carried forward into more recent work.
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UNIQUENESS OVERWHELMS THE LINK

(__) It’s too late – population reduction will only be successful if each couple has on average less than one
child.
Population reduction, to be of any use, will have to be drastic and quick, because we’ve waited so long to do it.
With an average age of 35 years, uncommonly old even in developed countries, we would have to go to one child
per couple to lower world population far enough, fast enough. For lower average ages, it is worse. The first chart
illustrates three age distributions, with ascending ages along the left axis and number of people at each age on the
bottom axis. This is the reverse of customary graphing convention, but demographers do it this way. For
simplicity of modeling, everyone dies at 70. The dashed line depicts an age distribution of around 100,000,000
people at each level. The dotted line reflects the age distribution for an average age of 27, the current global
average. There are 3-4 times as many 1 year olds as 70 year olds. The solid line is for a population with average
age of 20, characteristic of the most rapidly reproducing people on earth. The ratio of 1-to 70-year olds is 12:1.
For easy comparison, each population distribution is plotted as though it consists of all 6.5 billion people on the
planet.
(___) The time for addressing overpopulation has passed – we will inevitably grow beyond the earth’s
capacity
The United Nations calls the 1990s the last possible decade for bringing fertility rates down so that the human population
will not grow beyond the capacity of the Earth to sustain human life. The U.N. announcement shattered decades of
complacency during which occasional small declines in the fertility rate were hailed as a trend. Professional
demographers assumed that fertility would continue to fall until births, about equaled normal deaths. They put their
faith in economic development, but it backfired.
The U.N.'s conclusion that there is one last chance for a soft landing is optimistic. It portrays a rosier future than other
experts now think likely. Many believe that the window of opportunity has closed and worry that even an immediate
worldwide reduction in fertility cannot avert disasters of some kind. So many women and girls are alive today that, even if
starting now each one limited herself to no more than two births, the number of people dependent on the Earth's
resources would become too great to sustain.
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LINK TURNS – FAMILY PLANNING
(__) Family planning must be implement to curb overpopulation lest the negative impacts are inevitable.
Population growth will reverse, whether we choose it voluntarily, have it regulated by the government, as is the case in China, or have
it imposed upon us by Mother Nature in the form of disease and starvation as is happening in other parts of Africa and Asia. The
only proven voluntary approach anywhere in the world is through family planning, including sex education, contraception, sterilization, and
abortion – as well as abstinence.
Access to family planning services is key to achieve population growth limits

How can people be helped to have smaller families? Firstly, by giving everyone access to family planning and
reproductive health services - in the case of young people, in a moral framework of sex education. In developed
countries research has led to an increasingly wide choice of contraceptive methods. But worldwide, 350 million of
all couples do not have access to this full range. Some still want large families, yet large-scale surveys have shown
at least half wish to prevent another pregnancy. Every minute in the world 380 women become pregnant, and of
those 190 did not plan to do so, according to the UNFPA [2002]. Since every minute a woman dies through unsafe
induced abortion or childbirth (600,000 a year), the same figures suggest that half are being killed by pregnancies
they would have avoided if they only had the contraceptive choices women in developed countries take for
granted. The devastation caused by HIV/AIDS is another central argument for prevention through good,
comprehensive reproductive and sexual health care: which, regardless of the issues of numbers and sustainability,
should be fully funded, as a human right and a key intervention for improving the health of women, their partners
and their children. Condoms and pills are as much an emblem of sustainability as bicycles and windmills. See
Population, fertility and birth planning
(__) Family planning solves population growth

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.earth.html, June 7 2007)
Yes, surprisingly - alongside those who believe that perpetual growth in consumption is possible. To start with, the
80 million unplanned pregnancies a year - the same number by which world population increases annually - could
be prevented by allowing full access to family planning worldwide
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LINK TURNS – FAMILY PLANNING – SPACING
(__) FAMILY PLANNING DECREASES FERTILITY – ALLOWS SPACING OF CHILDREN

The World Health Organization identifies four fundamental strategies that support the safe motherhood initiative:
family planning, antenatal care, clean/safe delivery, and essential obstetric care. Family planning helps women
avoid unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Certain contraceptive methods, condoms for example, also help
prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/ AIDS. Family planning also helps women
avoid high-risk births, usually defined as births to very young women, births spaced less than two years apart, and
births to older women who already have many children. Antenatal and obstetric care help to improve a woman's
overall health and nutrition and prevent complications. Such health care can help identify and treat complications
and risks before and during pregnancy and after delivery. Clean and safe delivery practices can help recognize and
respond to complications during childbirth.73
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LINK TURNS – CONTRACEPTIVES
(__) Contraception solves – Malthus didn’t account for it.

Enright ’05 (Chris, Australian Catholic University, Thomas Robert Malthus: Essay on Population,
http://www.legalskills.com.au/content/02%20Malthus%20-%20Essay%20on%20%20Population.pdf, 4/28/05) /
rice
One might have thought that contraception was in Malthusian terminology a "check" on population, and as such
was an answer to the difficulties which Malthus raised. McCleary, however, argues that by the time he wrote the
second and later editions of the Essay it is clear that Malthus knew of contraception and was opposed to it.74
Hence the population argument, in this regard, is no longer an economic matter, but a moral issue of whether
contraception is acceptable.
Despite difficulties with his theories, Malthus is still referred to in current discussion on population and resources
and to illustrate his influence some comments are appropriate. First, the ready availability of contraception
provides parents with a choice as to the size of their family and an answer to Malthus's population theory. One
explanation for how the decision to have children is taken is the microeconomic theory of fertility.75 It says that in
developed countries at least, children are a consumer good to which the usual microeconomic analysis is
applied.76 In short, people choose to have a child on the same basis that they make any other purchase. It is a
matter of cost, income and taste.77 It is interesting that Demeny suggests that the germ of this theory is in
Malthus's own Principles of Political Economy.78 Yet it has also been suggested that Malthus himself appeared to
argue that children were an outcome of "passion.” That is, children were a by product of lust, and not wanted for
their own sake, although Malthus may not have meant this.79
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LINK TURNS – ABORTIONS
( ) Children are more straining than adults – abortions are a better way to control the population than
killing mothers
Simon points out that children, in their early years, are a cost. Not until they mature to some degree do they become a benefit. A
pair of adults can (and, if you let them, do) produce much more than enough for themselves; but the investment in time, energy,
and resources necessary to raise children to adulthood is considerable, whether for peasant or bourgeois. Yet it is normally a good investment. In
peasant environments, where polluted water and other hazards create high infant mortality rates, the investment takes the form of producing a lot of babies, for it is
certain that only a few will see adulthood.
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LINK TURN HELPERS – FERTILITY RATES HIGH
(__) OUR LINK TURNS ARE SUPERCHARGED – SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA HAS THE HIGHEST
FERTILITY RATE IN THE WORLD
OSTOFF 2004 [Charles, researcher @ Office of Population Research @ Princeton University,
POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, p. 177] / ttate
What do we know about fertility trends in Africa? We know that Africa as a whole has the highest fertility in the
world, with a total fertility rate (TFR) estimated at 4.9 births per woman in the 2000-2005 period.
MORE EVIDENCE
While sub-Saharan Africa has begun a transition to lower mortality, fertility has remained stubbornly high, which
touched off rapid population growth in the region. The total fertility rate (TFR), or total number of births a woman
will have given current birth rates, was about 6.6 in the 1950s. In the 1990s, the region still has the highest birth
rates in the world, with a TFR of about 6.0 children per woman.
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LINK TURN HELPERS – FERTILITY RATES KEY
AND, DECREASING FERTILITY RATES IS THE ONLY WAY TO CURB AFRICAN POPULATION
GROWTH
Given current demographic trends, how large will the sub-Saharan African population become? The answer hinges
on future fertility levels. The United Nations medium projection series assumes that the average fertility rate will
drop from about 6.0 in 1995 to 4.6 in 2010, 3.7 in 2020, and 2.3 in 2040. The population is projected to grow from
588 million in 1995 to 1.1 billion in 2020, and to 1.8 billion in 2050 (see Figure 3). Nigeria would more than
double in size, from about 112 million in 1995 to 238 million by 2050. Over that same 55-year period, Ethiopia
would surge from 56 million to 136 million, and South Africa would grow from 42 million to 92 million (see
Figure 4).
If fertility declines more slowly and falls only as low as 2.8 children per woman by 2040, the sub-Saharan African
population will reach nearly 2.1 billion by 2050, as shown in the top line of Figure 3. The number of Nigerians
would reach 256 million in 2050 under this scenario. Even if fertility falls rapidly-to 4.3 children per woman by
2010 and to 1.8 children per woman by 2040-the population of sub-Saharan Africa would still reach 1.5 billion by
2050.
AND, WE WILL CONTROL THE INTERNAL LINK – DECREASING FERTILITY RATES KEY TO
CHECKING POPULATION GROWTH
p 19-20, ,http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/EWP143.pdf] / ttate
What is needed, to use a basketball term, is a full-court press—an all-out effort to lower fertility, particularly in the
high-fertility countries, while there is still time. We see four key steps in doing this: undertaking national carrying capacity assessments
to help governments and the public at large to better understand the urgency of stabilizing population, filling the family planning gap, educating young
women, and adopting a worldwide campaign to stop at two surviving children. Two hundred years ago, Thomas Malthus could only discuss the population-food relationship
in general terms, but we now have enough information for each country to calculate with some confidence its population carrying capacity—the number of people that can
be supported at the desired level of food consumption. We now know what the cropland area is and roughly what it will be a half-century from now. In most countries there
will be little change. For water, current hydrological data give us a good sense of how much will be available for each country in 2050, assuming no major changes in
climate. We also now can anticipate within a narrow range what grain yield potentials are for each country.
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LINK TURN HELPERS – FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS EFFECTIVE
(__) EMPIRICALLY, FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS CAN OVERCOME CULTURAL BARRIERS –

EFFECTIVE AT REDUCING FERTILITY RATES
It seems clear that the family size desires of men and women are influenced by a variety of factors: mortality
declines; increased social opportunity, especially for women; employment opportunities; incomes; and educational
access. Women and men cannot realize these desires, however, without the means to translate social opportunity
and choice into action. The creation and progressive strengthening of population programmes over the last 30 years
7 — along with the development and distribution of more-effective and safer forms of contraception — has been a
crucial catalyst in reducing fertility rates.8 Population programmes have been given credit for about half the
decline in fertility since 1960. 9 Since the ICPD, they have adopted an approach based on individual rights and
needs.
(__) FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAMS SPUR DISCUSSION AMONGST LOCAL COMMUNITIES,

CHANGING MINDSETS – KEY TO THE FERTILITY TRANSITION
The spread of information about family planning techniques and new ideas about social issues — including the
rights of women to reproductive health and equality of opportunity — facilitates the fertility transition.10
Discussion and debate among relatives, friends and neighbours, the diffusion of ideas between communities, and
mass media images trigger changes in preferences and fertility behaviour. This may explain why fertility changes
often occur more rapidly in countries where various channels connect communities and individuals, and more
slowly where such social interaction is more difficult. If this is the case, improving communications could help to
speed up the fertility transition where it has been slow.11
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LINK TURNS – DEVELOPMENT
The world population is stabilizing because of development—only by developing nation can the fertility
rates be reduced and poverty defeated—History’s on our side
Richman, 95 (Sheldon is Senior Editor @ Cato Institute, The International Population Stabilization and
Reproductive Health Act (S. 1029), July 20, http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-ps720.html, accessed 7/16/07)
Over that same period, the total fertility rate (the average number of children born per woman) fell everywhere. Worldwide, the rate fell from 5 to 3.6.
(The rate that produces population stability, or replacement, is 2.1.) The developing world's rate dropped from 6.2 to 4.1--more than halfway to the replacement rate. East
Asia went from 5.5 to 2.3, South America from 4.9 to 3.6. The laggard, again, is Africa, where the rate fell from 6.5 to only 6.4.
Thus, the world's population has been heading toward stabilization for 30 years. The population controllers will credit that to their
efforts (while complaining that not enough is being done). But there is a simpler explanation: as economies develop and people become
better off materially, they have fewer children. That phenomenon, known as the demographic transition, is well established in demography. It
explains what happened in the West, where today the fertility rate is 2.0 or lower--below replacement rate. The demographic transition makes perfect sense. In
preindustrial, agricultural economies, children provide farm labor and social security (sons care for their elderly parents); children are
wealth. In a developed economy, parents invest resources (for education and the like) in their children; they are an expense. As
societies become Westernized, and as modern consumer goods and services become available, people find sources
of satisfaction other than children. So they have fewer kids. A falling infant-mortality rate also reduces a society's
fertility rate.
Thus, a low fertility rate, writes Peter Bauer, is an effect, not a cause, of development. Arguments for population control programs
in the developing world, which shift child-bearing decisions from couples to the state, are wrong. Those programs are also an affront to human dignity, privacy, and liberty,
whether they compel women to have abortions and to be sterilized (as they do in China) or "merely" deprive people of income and vital services because they want more
children than the government wishes.
The catastrophists' clich that a growing population is an obstacle to development is especially barren. Studies show
a strong correlation between affluence and longevity; as the late Aaron Wildavsky liked to say, wealthier is healthier. The
lengthening life expectancy in the developing world is evidence that population growth cannot be increasing
poverty.
History makes the same point. The West grew rich precisely when its population was increasing at an
unprecedented rate. Between 1776 and 1975, while the world's population increased sixfold, real gross world product rose about 80-fold.
In our own century we have seen a replay of the Industrial Revolution. After World War II the population of Hong Kong grew more quickly than that of 19th-century
England or 20th-century India--at the same time that resource-poor island-colony was growing rich.
The increases in population and wealth have not been merely coincidental. They are causes and effects of each
other. Today, with few exceptions, the most densely populated countries are the richest. Any mystery in that is dispelled by the
realization that people are the source of ideas. The addition of people geometrically increases the potential for combining ideas into newer, better ideas. As the Nobel
laureate and economist Simon Kuznets wrote, "More population means more creators and producers, both of goods along
established production patterns and of new knowledge and inventions." A growing population also allows for a more elaborate division
of labor, which raises incomes. Those who wish to stifle population growth would condemn hundreds of millions of people in
the developing world to the abject deprivation that characterized the West before the Industrial Revolution.
The initially plausible claim that more people deplete resources faster has no more foundation than the
catastrophists' other arguments. Price is the best indication of relative scarcity. For centuries, resources of every
kind, including energy, have been getting cheaper. In 1990 energy on average was 46 percent cheaper that it was in 1950; minerals were 48 percent
cheaper, lumber 41 percent cheaper, food 74 percent cheaper. As Carroll Ann Hodges, of the U.S. Geological Survey, wrote in the June 2, 1995, issue of Science (pp. 1305-
"Yet, despite the specter of scarcity that has prevailed throughout much of this century, no sustained mineral
1312),
shortages have occurred. . . .Minerals essential to industrial economies are not now in short supply, nor are they
likely to be for the next several generations." (The only thing getting more expensive is labor, an indication of the scarcity of people.) Technology
enables us to find more resources and to use them more efficiently. Doubling the efficiency of our use of oil would be equivalent to doubling the available supply of oil.
Natural resources, in other words, do not exist in fixed supplies.
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LINK TURNS – PATRIARCHY
(__) Patriarchy makes overpopulation inevitable.

In traditional male-dominated societies undergoing population explosions, the women often wish to lower their
fertility. But the men consider abundant children to be a testimony to their masculinity. Large extended families
have more social influence. Arranged marriages help consolidate economic and political power. Women are
powerless, so childbearing is coerced. Men block family planning. Social pressure is strong. Childless marriages
can lead to persecution, divorce, or even murder of the wife.
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LINK TURNS – WOMEN IN PUBLIC SPHERE
(__) Getting women into the workforce lowers fertility rates

The relationship between women's work and fertility holds true in many settings. When textile manufacturers
(employing women) in nineteenth-century Europe evolved from a cottage to a factory setting, fertility rates fell
sharply. In recent Taiwanese and Korean experience, women went to work and fertility rates plummeted. Where
Caribbean women found work in the tourist industry during the 1980s, the fertility rate fell below replacement
level. In the 1960s and 1970s, American and European women went to work in very large numbers and fertility
also fell. The connection is clear and the rationale is compelling: Fertility falls when women, or others who
control them, can profit from women's work outside the agricultural sector or home. Childcare acquires an
opportunity cost if the time spent raising children subtracts from the time available to earn money. When the
family standard of living depends partly on women's earnings, husbands also have an incentive to limit family
size. Moreover, a woman with independent income does not have to marry young or barter sex or childbearing
for support.
(__) LACK OF PUBLIC SPHERE OPPORTUNITIES  AFRICAN WOMEN RELY ON

CHILDBEARING FOR SELF-IMPORTANCE AND SOCIETAL STATUS
African women traditionally have had major responsibilities in agricultural production. Nonetheless, their primary
roles are those of wife and mother. Women often have limited legal rights and are expected to be subordinate to
males in household and personal decisionmaking. Their status is sometimes (although not always) further eroded
by the widespread practice of polygyny.l5 Precisely because most women, especially those in the rural areas, have
limited opportunities outside the family, childbearing is an important way for them to gain status.
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LINK TURN HELPERS – QUICK FIX SOLUTIONS
(__) GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES AND ACTS OF INTERVENTION NEEDED TO SOLVE OVERPOP

Chuung, ’00 (Margaret Chuung, Population and Development consultant, Population and Sustainable
Development: The Critical Role of Good Governance, Asia-Pacific Population Journal, June, 2000,
http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/journal/2000/v15n2a2.pdf) / cole
The growth of population and the depletion of resources are often claimed to be principal factors in the growing
incidence of poverty in the world. Again, it can be argued that this connection is not inevitable, but often reflects a
failure or absence of government intervention, since it is possible to eradicate poverty if there is sufficient political
will. Between 1977 and 1991, there was a small trend towards more widespread and deeper poverty in Fiji
(Government of Fiji and UNDP, 1997:45). Since then, no statistical data are available to measure whether or not
this situation has changed, but those involved with welfare programmes believe an increased demand for their
services indicates that it has worsened. While the incidence of poverty only rose slowly over 15 years, the cost of
the government’s lack of intervention increased sharply, both in terms of the social and human costs of living in
poverty and of the monetary costs in closing the poverty gap. Considering only the latter, the cost of closing this
gap escalated from approximately F$11.5 million a year in 1977 to F$45.9 million a year in 1991, representing 1.9
per cent and 5.4 per cent of GDP respectively (Government of Fiji and UNDP, 1997:111).
(__) CHANGES IN INFRASTRUCTURES CAN  POPULATION DECLINES

Chuung, ’00 (Margaret Chuung, Population and Development consultant, Population and Sustainable
Development: The Critical Role of Good Governance, Asia-Pacific Population Journal, June, 2000,
http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/journal/2000/v15n2a2.pdf) / cole
Much of the concern over population growth has been provoked by ecologists or environmentalists, who warn of
the impact of absolute population numbers on environmental sustainability. Although this is indisputable at some
point, beyond that much of the accompanying discussion is sterile, for the momentum of rapid population growth
means that it will be with us for some time, barring some cataclysmic event. The critical question is not whether it
should or should not be accommodated, but how this accommodation can best be done. As the case of Tarawa in
Kiribati demonstrates, links between population growth and ecological stress are affected not only by demographic
and environmental circumstances, but also by social, legal and economic institutions. Modifying these institutions
can open the possibility of a better future.
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NO LINK – AIDS NOT A DEATH CHECK
(__) AIDS EPIDEMIC WILL NOT STABILIZE POPULATION GROWTH – POPULATIONS STILL
PROJECTED TO GROW EVEN WITH AIDS EPIDEMIC
Most recent demographic studies in Africa conclude that AIDS mortality will affect the age structure and growth of
the population but will not cause population decline. For example, Kenya's National Council for Population and
Development and the National AIDS Control Programme project that country's population would grow by 2.5
percent per year in 2010 without AIDS but would still grow by 1.7 percent per annum in 2010 even with the
HIV/AIDS epidemic.45 This pattern is likely to be typical for other African countries where HIV prevalence is
high.
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EXTS - SOCIAL CHANGE TURNS
( ) Turn—Malthusian criticism is wrong and entraps the existing social order guaranteeing environmental
collapse
Bookchin 88 (Murray, Prof. Emeritus @ Rampo College, July, Green Perspective No. 8, “The Population Myth—
I”, http://anarchism.jesusradicals.com/library/bookchin/perspectives8.html, dbm)
And frankly -- they often lie. Consider the issue of population and food supply in terms of mere numbers and we step on a wild
merry-go-round that does not support neo-Malthusian predictions of a decade ago, much less a generation ago. Such typically neo
Malthusian stunts as determining the "per capita consumption" of steel, oil, paper, chemicals, and the like of a nation by
dividing the total tonnage. of the latter by the national population, such that every man, women, and child is said to "consume" a
resultant quantity, gives us a picture that is blatantly false and functions as a sheer apologia for the upper classes. The steel
that goes into a battleship, the oil that is used to fuel a tank, and the paper that is covered by ads hardly depicts the human
consumption of materials. Rather, it is stuff consumed by all the Pentagons of the world that help keep a "grow-or-die" economy in
operation -- goods, I may add, whose function is to destroy and whose destiny is to be destroyed. The shower of such "data" that
descends upon us by neo-Malthusian writers is worse than obscurantist; it is vicious. The same goes for the shopping malls that are
constructed that dump their toxic "consumer goods" on us and the costly highways that converge upon them. To ignore the fact that
we are the victims of a vast, completely entrapping social order which only a few can either control or escape from, is to literally
deaden the political insight of ordinary people -- whose "wants," of course, are always blamed for every dislocation in our
ecological dislocations. On the demographic merry-do-round, the actual facts advanced by many neo-Malthusians is no less
misleading. In the West, particularly in countries like Germany which the neo-Malthusian prophets of the late 1940s warned would
soar in population well beyond food supplies, birth rates have fallen beyond the national replacement rate. This is true of Denmark,
Austria, Hungary, indeed, much of Europe generally, including Catholic Italy and Ireland -- where tradition, one would expect,
would make for huge families. So traditions that foster the emergence of large, predominantly male families by which the high
birth rates of India and China were explained, are not frozen in stone. The U.S., which the more hysterical neo-Malthusians of
some two decades ago predicted would be obliged to live on oceanic rafts, is approaching zero population growth and, by now, it
may be lower.
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TECH SOLVES
( ) Technology solves crisis – agriculture proves

What the doomsday set has failed to appreciate is the role of knowledge, specifically of what is broadly called "technology," in all
this. In the case of agriculture, technology enables you to get more food from less land. In those countries with substantial farm
subsidies on top of market economies, surpluses burgeoning to the point of political embarrassment have been the rule.
Increase the price of crop X, and indicate willingness to buy an unlimited amount of it, and you will soon find yourself, in any
modern country, with a mountain of X on your hands.The minimum amount of land necessary to support one human, I am told, has
lately shrunk to something like the size of an average living room (twenty-seven square meters). There is no reason to doubt
that, as agricultural technology advances, we will be able to do it on much less than that again. Under the circumstances, the idea
that we are "running out" of arable land unless "we do something" is just not sensible.
( ) Tech solves – usage of copper proves

The same goes for other resources. The layman is oddly unused to the idea of technological advance, even though its results are all
around him every day. In the area of material resources, just as in the case of land, what technology does is to show us how to get
more out of less. A lecturer pointed out that the amount of copper it took to make a crude kettle back at the dawn of the Bronze
Age was enormous, the same amount would make a couple of dozen by today's methods. In any case, those kettles would be
mainly made from aluminum or steel, both of which are virtually unlimited in supply. And of course there is recycling, which is
currently uneconomic in most of the politically popular forms (paper, glass, aluminum, etc., all of which typically use many more
resources to recycle than the original products, which are also mostly better made).
(__) POPULATION GROWTH SOLVES ITSELF – MORE HUMANS  MORE INNOVATION

Tarko ’06 (Vlad, Senior Editor of Sci-Tech News, Out of the Malthusian Trap,
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Out-of-the-Malthusian-Trap-20119.shtml, 3/22/06) / RICE
"Adding more people causes problems. But people are also the means to solve these problems," wrote Julian L.
Simon in The State of Humanity. "The main fuel to speed the world progress is our stock of knowledge; the brakes
are our lack of imagination and unsound social regulations of these activities. The ultimate resource is people –
especially skilled, spirited, and hopeful young people endowed with liberty – who will exert their wills and
imaginations for their own benefit, and so inevitably they will benefit the rest of us as well."
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TECH SOLVES
(__) Malthus’s theory fails to take into account new tech and international trade that increase our ability to
provide sustenance.
Enright ’05 (Chris, Australian Catholic University, Thomas Robert Malthus: Essay on Population,
http://www.legalskills.com.au/content/02%20Malthus%20-%20Essay%20on%20%20Population.pdf, 4/28/05) /
rice
It is now widely accepted that Malthus "failed to consider the possibility [which was to come about] that
developments in agricultural technology might permit increases in the supply of food sufficient to feed an
increased population.”59 Moreover, S60 In these lie some of the major flaws in his theory.
AND, MALTHUS WAS WRONG – HE DID NOT ASSUME TECH

OTTAWA CITIZEN 2006 [February 25, page lexis/ttate]
As recently as 1930, our species numbered only 2 billion. It took from the dawn of history to 1830 to reach the first
billion. And for Thomas Malthus, whose Essay on the Principle of Population appeared in 1798, even that first
billion portended eventual human ruin. In his touchstone text, the Englishman expressed what's come to be known
as the Malthusian doctrine: "Population increases in a geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence increases in
an arithmetic ratio." Eventually, Malthus argued, we would outbreed our capacity to feed ourselves and famine
would reduce human population to something more manageable. The problem would be grievous, but at least self-
limiting.
"Of course, we now know Malthus was wrong," Mr. Bongaarts says. "There's no question he ignored the
possibility that improved technology would allow us to feed far more people -- and give them better lives overall --
than he considered possible two centuries ago."
Default to our evidence—Malthusian doomsday predictions haven’t materialized—scientific advancement

checks
Graham, 04 (John ,Ph.D., is Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of
Management and Budget, The Perils of the Precautionary Principle: Lessons from the American and European
Experience, Heritage Foundation, January 15, http://www.heritage.org/Research/Regulation/hl818.cfm, accessed
7/16/07) / vinay
There is no question that postulated hazards sometimes prove more serious and/or widespread than originally
anticipated. Ralph Nader has previously argued that this is the norm in regulatory science, while the European
Commission recently issued a report of case studies where hazards appear to have been underestimated. However,
the dynamics of science are not so easily predicted. Sometimes claims of hazard prove to be exaggerated, and in
fact there are cases of predictions of doom that have simply not materialized.
Consider the "dismal theorem" of the Reverend Thomas Malthus (1798). He hypothesized that population would
grow exponentially while sources of sustenance would only grow arithmetically. The result, he predicted, would be
that living standards would fail to rise beyond subsistence levels. However, history has shown this theorem to be
incorrect. Malthus did not foresee the technological advances that have allowed both population and standard of
living to rise steadily and substantially.
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INSTITUTIONS CHECK
(__) Malthus goes aff – he concludes that the institutions of the status quo solve.
Emmett ’06 (Ross B, PERC Policy Series, PHD tt James Madison College at Michigan State University,
http://www.perc.org/pdf/ps38.pdf, 11/14/06) / rice
Smith, Malthus, and the other economists believed that the potential for changing human nature was small. But
they also thought that more freedom was possible by working within the constraints of human nature than could be
accomplished by attempting to overcome the constraints. They wanted to change the incentives people faced, not
people’s inherent nature. The economists of Malthus’ era, therefore, promoted the expansion of property rights,
free markets, and customs that enabled free choices.
Malthus’ population theory was an important part of the economists’ argument. In their view, human societies will
overrun their natural resources if they do not have the right kind of institutions. But that will not happen in
societies that have property rights, markets, and some means (for example, marriage) of ensuring that fathers are
responsible for the costs of rearing their own children. In such societies, economic growth and moderate
population growth can be sustained indefinitely, bringing steadily rising real incomes to everyone.5 The reasons
why they thought this will become more clear as this essay progresses.
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CAPITALISM CHECKS
(__) Capitalism checks overpopulation – empirically proven.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Out-of-the-Malthusian-Trap-20119.shtml, 3/22/06) / rice
The bottom-line is that capitalist competition leads to an increase in the productivity. This is why in capitalist
countries, instead of starvation, as Malthusians predicted, there is widespread prosperity. And this is why, on the
other hand, socialist countries, such as post-1950s India, had fallen into the Malthusian trap.
So, the point is that in the presence of a free-market system the population does not grow exponentially and the
food supply does not increase linearly – on the contrary, the food supply (as well as everything else) grows faster
than the population growth.
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NON-INTRINSIC MODULE - SPACE
(__) NON-INTRINSIC – WE CAN PREVENT THE MALTHUSIAN NIGHTMARE BY GETTING OFF

THE ROCK
Gruner 04 (Brandon C, J.D. Candidate at Seton Hall University School of Law, “A NEW HOPE FOR INTERNATIONAL SPACE
LAW”, SETON HALL LAW REVIEW Vol. 35:299, http://law.shu.edu/journals/lawreview/lawrev/read/back_issues/35-1/Gruner.pdf) /
Alejandro
Yet, land has become more precious—especially as it has been converted to food-producing land to accommodate a rapidly growing world population. Overgrazing,
deforestation, urbanization, and pollution have severely damaged as much as one-tenth of the world’s fertile soil and depleted its natural resources. Consider that each day,
about 250,000 people are added to the more than 6.2 billion who already exist. Moreover, the world’s population doubled during the past forty-five years, and it is projected
to double again within the next fifty years. Many economic theorists are now worried that if the world population continues to rise, the Earth will be
depleted of all of its resources and the ecosystem will not be able to support the number of people needing supplies. The assumption for many theorists is that the more
heavily populated Earth becomes, the more the Earth’s resources will be depleted, resulting in increased
environmental problems. Essentially, Earth has a limited number of resources, and its population is growing too quickly to sustain current use. It seems
only natural that as Earth’s resources diminish, nations will look elsewhere to meet their needs for food, fresh
water, quality soil, energy, and biodiversity. Luckily, technology has continued to offset resource depletion for the
past century, and the world has never run out of an important commodity because, before it does, a substitute is
found. Where will mankind find a new energy source, a “black gold” to keep modern Malthusian doomsday
scenarios from becoming reality? Within the next half-century, the technological and energy-harvesting innovations that could help slow the dwindling of
Earth’s resources most effectively may exist in the utilization of resources appropriated from outer space. Within the last few years, scientists have discovered
deposits of water ice and other valuable mineral deposits—including helium-3, the ideal fuel for fusion power—on
the Moon and Mars; and whereas Earth has limited resources, outer space, in theory, has an unlimited abundance of
resources that could satisfy supply requirements forever. Naturally, colonization of space will also raise the value of the land that the resources
sit on. And with new land available for acquisition for the first time since the nineteenth century—land with no claims of
sovereignty—it is also natural that questions will arise as to how this extraterrestrial land and its valuable resources will be appropriated amongst the nations of Earth. These
issues will likely materialize very soon, especially in light of President George W. Bush’s new space initiative, set
forth on January 15, 2004. President Bush has set a goal for another manned mission to the Moon for 2020, with a manned mission
to Mars to come in an unspecified time afterwards. NASA officials and other preeminent scientists, however, have often predicted that a manned mission to Mars is feasible
as early as 2020, with these missions laying the foundation for colonization. More importantly, actual NASA documents denote a 2020 launch date
for a manned mission to Mars.
AND, A manned mission is feasible and will only take 10 years.

Gruner 04 (Brandon C, J.D. Candidate at Seton Hall University School of Law, “A NEW HOPE FOR INTERNATIONAL SPACE
LAW”, SETON HALL LAW REVIEW Vol. 35:299, http://law.shu.edu/journals/lawreview/lawrev/read/back_issues/35-1/Gruner.pdf) /
alejandro
Already the United States has developed all of the technologies necessary for commencing an aggressive, ongoing
campaign for human-lead Mars exploration, in which the first manned mission can reach Mars within ten years. A
general plan for Mars exploration shows that the first manned expedition will be performed by only four scientists
who would be given equipment to survive a one-way trip and establish an initial colony. By using a nuclear reactor
and a rover vehicle to gather materials, astronauts could make their own oxygen, grow food, and build new
structures using Martian materials. Pursuant to the plan, the colonists will be sent fresh supplies from the window
opened by Earth and Mars’ overlapping orbits every two years. This early outpost could form the basis for a more
ambitious colonization program in which new astronauts and new equipment would be sent to join the original
pioneers.
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MALTHUS IMMORAL
(__) ONE CAN NOT PLACE THE BLAME ON THOSE THAT ARE STARVING ON THE POOR – WE
ARE THE ONES THAT HAVE DOOMED THEM TO IMPOVERISHMENT BY OUR RESOURCE
EXPLOITATION
HINDS 1976 [Stuart, former Royal Air Force Medical Officer, LIFEBOAT ETHICS, ed. Lucan, Ogletree, p. 45] /
ttate
In my opinion it is no exaggeration to say that the western world, by making the advanced preventive and curative
techniques available to the peoples of the third world without at the same time making the other really vital
twentieth century facilities available to them, must accept much of the responsibility for the present situation.
Now as the “final straw” the world shortage of energy and the dramatic rise in the price of oil has done nothing but harm to the poorer countries, bringing their primitive
agricultural practices, already severely hit by quite unusual weather conditions, to a precipitate end. Shortages of oil and replacement parts for tractors, which were
purchased to replace the beasts which had pulled the ploughs for centuries (and had provided a little manure for fertilizer besides), together with the prohibitive rise in the
cost of artificial fertilizer, water shortages, and lack of good seed, all have reduced the ability of the poor nations even to provide the bare necessities for themselves.
Finally, in relating the problems of population to those of famine there exist certain convincing arguments with a ring of the ironic that has become all too familiar.
Everyone knows just how many pounds of grain are needed to produce one pound of beef. Incredibly this grain is
actually fed to an animal which is already the most efficient producer of beef through the consumption of foods
which are totally inedible to man. Millions of human beings are starving and dying hourly for want of a minimum quantity of the very grain now being fed
uselessly to cattle in the United States. While kine chew a grain cud to provide beef for an already overfed people, others starve to death. In other ways, as has been pointed
out by Miles:
One American consumes some 30 times as much oil and scarce minerals as a Pakistani…and even a comparatively
slow rate of population growth in the United States may have a deleterious a long range effect on man’s total
environment as 10,20, or 30 times faster growth of an equivalent population in low consumption agrarian
economies.
(__) WE HAVE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CRUNCH

HINDS 1976 [Stuart, former Royal Air Force Medical Officer, LIFEBOAT ETHICS, ed. Lucan, Ogletree, pgs. 40-41] / ttate
The present population problem clearly is not due solely to excessive fecundity, but is rather attributable to a number of complex and
highly significant events in history. For this reason it is necessary to preface any further discussion of triage and lifeboat ethics with a very brief review of certain events
during the last three and one-half centuries, with an especially close scrutiny of the past fifty years. To my mind the
findings seem to suggest that the
very nations which are currently entertaining the possibility of withholding food from the starving have themselves played a
large and frequently a crucial part, not only in bringing the population explosion about, but indeed in ensuring that
it would occur.
In nature all living things co-exist in an exquisitely balanced ecological state. The balance, though sensitive and easily upset by an almost limitless number of differing
events, is inherently self-stabilizing (though the new balance well may be quite a different situation from whatever had existed previous to such an upset).
The human population as part of the global ecological system, has always been culled by natural events and disasters-droughts, floods, typhoons, tidal waves, and all manner
of pestilences (including that disease generic to humanity alone; namely, war). In particular there have always been periods of famine as far back as one might care to go in
recorded history, and even before (as the evidence turned up by the archeologists' spades and brushes frequently suggests).
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, the traditional agrarian communities of the western world for the first time gave way extensively to urban and industrial
societies.
This in turn brought immense changes to social and economic patterns of life; on one hand, increased hazards from urban overcrowding and industrial pollution; on the
other hand, increased income, stability, andjob security for laborers, including children, to man the factories. The concomitant industrial and technological revolution
stimulated a rapid increase in the demand for and consumption of all types of manufactured goods.
Against this background the present patterns of western fertility and mortality were formed, and were, as the historical records indicate, accompanied by a population
explosion. During this critical period, for instance, the population of England rose suddenly from nine to thirty-six million persons, two and one half of whom emigrated to
other nations. If all the peoples of the world in the nineteenth century had multiplied at the same rate as did England and Wales, the world population in 1900 would have
been close to four billion; instead, it was only 1.6 billion.l8
The current population explosion in the rest of the developing world likewise has come from the sudden
introduction of certain modern technologies into underdeveloped and frequently unprepared agrarian nations.
These changes often have been accomplished without sufficient "lead time" for cultural readjustment, and without
the equivalent economic and social changes which had taken place in the west during its industrial revolution.
In a sense then the rest of the world is only now beginning to "catch up" with our population explosion. In the west the
changes came about relatively slowly, however (on the order of two hundred years), whereas in the developing nations such changes have been rapid indeed (more on the
order of fifty years).
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MALTHUS IMMORAL – AT: OBLIGATION TO NATURE
Rolston’s wrong—the conservation of nature isn’t mutually exclusive with human development—they can’t
access any offense on why curbing population growth is ethical
Siurua, 06 (Hanna, graduate student in Philosophy at Lancaster University in England, Nature Above People
Rolston and "Fortress" Conservation in The South, Ethics and Environment, Project MUSE) / vinay
The preceding section has argued that the exclusion of people in order to save nature, regardless of its desirability or justification,
raises serious problems of fairness and is generally neither feasible nor successful in the long term. But why should such exclusion be
necessary? Rolston's argument is underpinned by the assumption of a fundamental opposition between the interests
of poor people and those of nature (his cursory acknowledgment of the possibility of win-win scenarios notwithstanding). More people, in Rolston's
depiction, inevitably means less nature; and for nature to flourish, people and their needs in many instances must give way, hence the choice between "feeding people" and
"saving nature." The validity of this assumption, however, hinges on rather questionable definitions of both "feeding
people" and "saving nature."
Rolston equates "feeding people" with "development," a process portrayed as inevitably detrimental to natural
values. This equation is, however, unwarranted: the kind of development which destroys nature often victimizes poor
people also, and is opposed by them. Large-scale development schemes such as mines, hydroelectricity projects, and industrial ranches and plantations
frequently do carry heavy environmental costs, including the disruption of ecological processes and the erosion of biodiversity. In part sparked by a growing
acknowledgment of such environmental costs, a shift—parallel to the change in conservation policies discussed in the previous section—is
taking place in development thinking from advocacy of "mega-projects" to a focus on community-based, small-
scale initiatives (Anderson and Grove 1987, 2). Environmentally harmful development schemes threaten not only nature but
also people, for rural livelihoods generally depend on the non-destructive use of natural resources. The community conservation model is based
on the recognition that "communities down the millennia have developed elaborate rituals and practices to limit
offtake levels, restrict access to critical [End Page 78]resources, and distribute harvests" (Western and Wright 1994, 1). Such
rituals and practices, based on indigenous environmental expertise, are not limited to a few "primitive" hunter-
gatherer societies untouched by modern life, as Rolston appears to suppose (1996, 263). Rather, they are integral to
many evolving, innovative cultural traditions in a variety of social and environmental settings (see, for example, Berkes
1999; Ghai and Vivian 1992a; Oldfield and Alcorn 1991).
As a result, environmentally destructive development projects are on many occasions vehemently opposed by local
people whose livelihoods they threaten. This "environmentalism of the poor" is often invisible to the radar of mainstream conservationism, expressing itself in non-
environmental idioms such as social justice and livelihoods and taking a variety of forms from strikes, demonstrations, and lawsuits to direct action to replace exotic
plantation tree species with native saplings (Martinez-Alier 2002; Guha and Martinez-Alier 1997). Unlike international conservation organizations, campaigns by the poor
tend to have a local focus, being sparked by specific events or threats to the local natural resource base. Although religious beliefs may play a role, as in the maintenance of
sacred groves by villages around the world (Guha 1989b, 29–30; Pimbert and Pretty 1997, 315), these movements are usually motivated primarily by a practical concern for
livelihoods and survival rather than an ideological reverence for nature (much less "wilderness") per se. Kalland and Persoon characterize conflicts over resource use in Asia
as typically taking place "between centre and periphery; between the majority population and minorities; between the authorities in need of foreign exchange and local
people fighting for their physical as well as for their cultural survival" (1998, 9).
So, for example, state promotion and subsidization of vast monocultural eucalyptus plantations in many parts of India has involved the diversion of land and resources from
traditional subsistence use by rural communities to meet the commercial needs of profit-driven industrial enterprises, provoking direct action by peasant movements to
reclaim village forests (Gadgil and Guha 1995, 87). Similarly, pastoralists in Tanzania (as elsewhere in Africa) have seen their communally managed grazing lands
progressively appropriated for state-controlled development projects such as mechanical wheat cultivation and luxury tourism, often leading to environmental degradation as
well as the reduction of [End Page 79]herds below subsistence level (Lane 1992; Neumann 2000). As Martinez-Alier (2002) documents, such struggles by the poor in all
parts of the world to safeguard natural resources against pollution, expropriation, and over-exploitation are increasing in frequency, often pitting (contra Rolston) the poor
and nature against industrial exploitation in the name of "development."
He concedes that many so-called development projects "subvert a larger or
Attfield hints at this fact in his rejoinder to Rolston's article.
smaller segment of nature," but argues that the term "development" ought properly to be used only for genuine
improvements which meet human needs without compromising environmental sustainability. Consequently,
conflicts between "real" development, correctly understood, and conservation are rare (Attfield 1998, 293–96). Of
course, as Rolston points out in his reply to Attfield, the kind of development which continues to destroy biodiversity
worldwide cannot be explained away by simply stripping it of the name (1998a, 352). The point is that it ought not to be equated with meeting
the basic needs of poor people, which, as Attfield argues, need not conflict with the goal of nature conservation.
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MALTHUS IMMORAL - AT: WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO FUTURE

GENERATIONS
(__) LETTING OTHERS DIE FOR THE SAKE OF PRESERVING FUTURE GENERATIONS IS
IMMORAL
SIMON 1996 [Julian, senior fellow @ Cato, “The Ulimate Resource 2”,
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR40.txt]
Yes, there is misery in India. I, too, have witnessed and winced at it. Intestinal disease is everywhere and blindness is not
uncommon. A fourteen-year-old girl catches bricks on a construction job for a dollar a day while her baby, covered
with flies and crying, lies on a burlap sack on the ground below the scaffold on which the young mother works. A toothless crone of indeterminate age, with no
relatives in the world and no home, begins with a cake of wet cow-dung to lay a floor for a new "dwelling" of sticks and rags, by the side of the road. All this I have seen.
And yet these people must think their lives are worth living, or else they would choose to stop living. (Please notice that to
choose death does not require violent suicide. Anthropologists describe individuals - even young people - who decide they want to die and then do so. Frail people
frequently even die on their own schedules, waiting until after weddings or birthdays of relatives.) Because
people continue to live, I assume that
they value their lives positively. And those lives therefore have value in my scheme of things. Hence I do not believe
that the existence of poor people - either in poor countries or, a fortiori in the U.S. - is a sign of "overpopulation."
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MALTHUS IMMORAL - AT: WE HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO FUTURE

GENERATIONS
(__) Generations must concern themselves with sustaining the here and now
Cairns Jr., 2004 (John Cains Jr., The Mankind Quarterly, Sustainability Ethics: World Population Growth and
Migration, pg 76, Winter, 2004, http://www.auburn.edu/~folkegw/icono/cairns.pdf) / cole
Economist Solow (1993) believes that, since present generations have no idea of the choices future generations
will make, present generations cannot plan for future generations. Further, Solow believes that humankind is not
required by the concept of sustainability to leave any object or goal or obligation for posterity. In short, Solow believes
the economic bequest, rather than the environmental one, is most important. Basically, the economic bequest views the
primary obligation as each generation either adding to or protecting the economic capital base it inherited. The
environmentalist's view is that natural capital is the basis of all other capital, and all aspects of nature must be given at
least as much protection as it enjoyed in the present generation (at a minimum) and should be increased at best. The
primary obstacle to a rapprochement between economists and environmentalists is the viewpoint of some economists of
substitutability between natural and human produced resources. The situation is exacerbated because the descriptors
sustainability, sustainable development, and sustainable use of the planet contain, at present, a number of conceptual
ambiguities that need to be resolved. Another major obstacle is the tendency of environmentalists to use
empirical observations of an array of somewhat unique ecosystems that are often site specific (e.g., Ehrenfeld,
1993). Economists frequently use highly aggregated data to develop mathematical models (e.g., Waldrop,
1992). The resemblance of these models to the "real world" may be problematic.
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MALTHUS IMMORAL – ROLSTON INDICTS
Rolston’s approach is ineffective, based on false assumptions, and imperialist

Siurua, 06 (Hanna, graduate student in Philosophy at Lancaster University in England, Nature Above People
Rolston and "Fortress" Conservation in The South, Ethics and Environment, Project MUSE)
In a nutshell, this paper has argued that the approach to conservation in the South advocated by Rolston is
ineffective, based on false assumptions, and ultimately imperialistic. It is ineffective because it calls for the forcible
physical separation of people and nature in the South which cannot be sustained in the long run; it wrongly
assumes that such separation is necessary due to the inability of poor people to coexist with nature; and it
imperialistically seeks to impose a preferred set of values and priorities upon the people of the South while
ignoring and excluding Southern voices and viewpoints. Rolston's selective framing of the dilemma admits only
certain factors, values, and voices into the analysis, thus reducing the immensely complex question of biodiversity
loss and conservation in developing countries to the stark but inaccurate opposition between "people" and "nature."
In spite of his own warnings against oversimplification, Rolston sweeps the relevant complexities out of sight with
brief disclaimers.
While the general concept of spending money on nature conservation instead of poverty eradication may indeed be
defensible in many instances (as are other priorities), using one's position of authority as a member of the
privileged Northern elite in order to promote the exclusion of people in distant countries from environments which
are "theirs" far more than "ours" and upon which they depend for a living is far less obviously so, and should be
approached with extreme care. Above all, "we" in the North should be particularly wary of assuming that we are
automatically [End Page 90]entitled to a say in environmental decision-making in Southern countries. Northern
Greens, to paraphrase Alastair Gunn (1994, 21), do not necessarily have moral standing in respect of tropical rain
forests, much though they may wish it.
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MALTHUSIAN THEORY FALSE
(__) MALTHUS IS WRONG – SEVERAL REASONS

Marks, 04 (Benjamin, hardcore Austro-paleo-libertarian theorist and activist, “The Malthusian Trap,” November
23, http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1675, accessed 7/18/07) / vinay
But whatever may have been the reason for it, it was left to Malthus to teach naturalists the strength of the organic
tendency to increase, and of the resulting pressure of their numbers on their food. And he happened to do so in a book which, for
reasons quite unconnected with evolution, reached an unusually great number of readers.[1]
The Malthusian population principle is always incorrect, but its proximity to the truth varies. It is also an instance where we can appreciate one
of Rothbard's empirical generalizations—of high predictive value, but not apodictically certain—that nonAustrian individuals tend to specialize in the area they are least
competent. As Stove put it:
It is . . . a curious irony that the general biological principle which he put forward comes steadily closer to being true, the further one departs from the human case, and is
a grotesque falsity only in the one case which really interested Malthus: man.
Human populations, once they reach a certain size and complexity, always develop specialized orders, of priests,
doctors, soldiers. To the members of these orders sexual abstinence, either permanent or periodic, or in "business hours" (so to speak), is typically prescribed. Here, then, is
[a] fact about our species which is contrary to what one would expect on the principle that population always increases when, and as fast as, the amount of food available
permits.[2]
Stove talks of many other instances, and not just in our species, where the Malthusian population principle is broken, but the one refutation will suffice for the purposes of
this article. Similarly, Hazlitt wrote,
I am ashamed of wasting the reader's time and my own in thus beating the air. It is not however my fault that Mr Malthus has written nonsense, or that
others have admired it. It is not Mr Malthus's nonsense, but the opinion of the world respecting it, that I would be thought to compliment by this serious refutation of what in
itself neither deserves not (sic) admits of any reasoning upon it.
I encourage readers to devour all of Hazlitt's work on the matter. He even wrote an overview.
The Malthusian law is the basis of the environmental movement. Its application is often masked by the term "carrying capacity," which is
the number of individuals that a unit of area can hold. And, more recently, "ecological footprint," which is a measure of how many units of area an individual uses—literally
an inversion of carrying capacity. In practice, ecological footprints have very amusing results. For example, if we all wanted to live like Bill Gates, at current resource levels
we would need multiple planet Earths.
Subjective individualism is ignored; uncertainty of
These concepts, as they are commonly used, would have to be among the most un-Austrian.
the future is ignored; impossibility of quantification of human action is ignored; and government intervention is
always put forward as the solution. It is nothing more than the flip side of the free-rider problem: we can exclude
others, therefore we should not increase the rate or take more than our fair—i.e., equal—share in which we exclude
others; otherwise there will be nothing left for others.
What Malthus failed to realize is that, as William Godwin nicely pointed out, "possible men do not eat, [whereas] real men do."[3] What they will
eat in the future and exactly how it is grown cannot be deduced, no matter how elaborate the Malthusian equations
are. Arguing that there is already proof of overpopulation by citing a problem, like poverty, is no argument at all: it
is to consider proof of overpopulation as its theorized result.
Any numbskull can find statistics to show that if the resource base stays the same and population increases then all
hell will break loose. This is the Malthusian mirage. Based on this sophisticated doctrine, believers go around telling people that we should desist from further
folly, for the impending threat of doom is ever looming.[4] And government, of course, is our only hope. Another silly use of this method is finding out that the population
of Italy is decreasing, hence, they project that after a while there will be no Italians left.
The predictions based on the Malthusian fallacy are used as indicators of sustainability—i.e., temporal egalitarianism—itself a
nonsensical concept. Things change over time. In any case, as P.A. Yeomans, the Australian agriculture designer said: " conservation is never
enough"; it is not something one can aim toward, and therefore, not something that will solve a problem. An improvement on a previous state of affairs cannot be the same
as them. Therefore nobody would voluntarily act to bring about it about, since no advantage would accrue.
The exception to this is for those who consider knowledge that things are the same as they were before, as being satisfying; they are happy because time has passed. But
asking why they are happy that things are the same as they were before will hopefully lead to a revision of their mindset. There must be something that they do not like
about the past; something they do not want continued.
These
It is from here that we uncover the underlying concern and error of most environmentalists: exploitation of resources, and blaming business, not government.
environmentalists, with their sustainability fetishes, fail to comprehend elementary economics. No sane property
owner would want the capital value of his property diminished, therefore he would do whatever was in his power
to preserve, and even increase, its capital value. Implied in this is that the property owner, whenever he feels it
appropriate, uses his property for current ends. Otherwise what's the point of preserving it?
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( ) Malthus is wrong about the Earth being incapable of increasing agricultural output at more than an
arithmetical rate
In the late twentieth century, it once again became popular to claim that the world is "overpopulated" and that we were headed for
demographic disaster. Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb predicted massive starvation well before the end of the century. It
didn't happen. World population did indeed roughly double in the second half of the twentieth century--but the per capita output
of food (and everything else) increased. Not just in the rich countries either: all the world not under communist control did better
People were--and are--eating better than ever despite phenomenal population growth. Malthus held that the earth is incapable of
increasing agricultural output at more than an "arithmetical" rate, while population expands at a "geometrical" rate. He was wrong.
Food output not only increased at a geometric rate, it actually increased faster than population.
( ) Malthus is wrong about the capabilities of land

How could the population pessimists have been so wrong? To begin with, there never was any real basis for Malthus's conjecture
about the relationship of food supply to population. That he should have thought that there was reflected what we might call the
"materialist fallacy" It consists in thinking that wealth is somehow a pile of stuff or "material" rather than what it really is, the effective human utilization of
our resources. The materialist idea is that we are taking from this pile, diminishing it; as we "consume" more, there is less left. Eventually the pile must shrink to
zero--yikes! But the idea is totally wrong. Consider the most basic "stuff" of all--food. How much food can a given piece of land
produce? Malthus thought the amount was fairly small and could only be improved a little bit. In fact, it is very large; moreover,
there is no real way to say how much food you "can" grow on it using advanced technologies. Farmers all over the world are
becoming more efficient. American Midwestern farmers grow several times as much corn from one acre as they did a hundred
years ago. Improved varieties of grain, better fertilizers, and many other things go into the equation. The idea that eating is a matter
of slowly "using up" something that we must eventually run out of is a sheer misconception.
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AND, MALTHUSIAN LOGIC IS FALSE – THE CARRYING CAPACITY HAS FOREVER BEEN A
“THREAT”
Simon, 1998 (Julian L., Business Administration @ the University of Maryland and Senior Fellow @ the Cato
Institute, The Ultimate Resource II: People, Materials, and Environment, Online Text, February 16, Chapter 22,
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR22.txt, Accessed 7/15/07.) / vinay
Schoolchildren "know" that the world's environment and food situation have been getting worse. And the children's
books leave no doubt that population size and growth are the villains. As the Golden Stamp Book of Earth and Ecology says, "Can the earth survive this
many people?...If the population continues to explode, many people will starve. About half of the world's
population is underfed now, with many approaching starvation.... All of the major environmental problems can be
traced to people - more specifically, to too many people." This child's text distills into simplest form the popular adults' books and articles about population and
resources. And Herbert London's study of schoolbooks shows this text to be representative. Indeed, the National Education Association in 1980 published a guide for
teachers that says "Food production is losing the race with the population explosion, and a massive famine within the next decade seems probable". It then goes on to
forecast across-the-board worsening conditions in natural resources and the environment. But these propositions that are given to children with so much
assurance are either unproven or wrong. (Indeed, the NEA 1980 forecast has already been proven incontrovertibly wrong; it would be interesting to know what the
NEA says now.) This chapter deals with the demographic facts. The next chapter considers various forecasts, and the following chapter examines the dynamics of the
birthrate and of population growth, in order to lay the foundation for the economic discussion of these issues in the rest of Part II. The demographic facts, to the extent that
they are known scientifically, can indeed seem frightening - at first glance. Figure 22-1 is the kind of diagram that, back in 1965, impressed and scared me enough to
What we seem to see here is runaway population growth; the
convince me that helping stop population growth should be my life's work.
human population seems to be expanding with self-generated natural force at an exponential rate, a juggernaut
chained only by starvation and disease. This suggests that unless something unusual comes along to check this
geometric growth, there will soon be "standing room only."
People have, however, long been doing arithmetic that leads to the prediction of one or another version of
"standing room only." In fact, the phrase "standing room only," used so often in recent discussions of population growth, was the title of a book by Edward Ross
in 1927, and the notion is found explicitly in both Malthus and Godwin (whose conclusions differed completely, however). Just one among many such colorful calculations
Brown, who worried that humanity might continue increasing "until the earth is covered completely
is that of Harrison
and to a considerable depth with a writhing mass of human beings, much as a dead cow is covered with a
pulsating mass of maggots." One can get absurd results by simple extrapolation of other trends, too - especially
short-term trends. The rate of construction of university buildings in the 1960s would soon have covered the entire
earth if the trend continued. Or, the growth of inmates of American prisons from 1980 to 1981 was 10 percent (from 315,974 to 353,674) and from 1981 to
1982 it was 11 eleven percent. For amusement, Calvin Beisner extrapolated a 12 percent growth rate the following year, then 13 percent, and so on, and by only the year
2012 the number of inmates would exceed the entire projected population. Nice arithmetic, but so what?
People have worried about population growth since the beginning of recorded time. The Bible gives us this early
story of population exceeding the "carrying capacity" of a particular area: "And the land was not able to carry them...and Abram said
to Lot:...Is not the whole land before thee?...If thou will take the left hand, then I will take the right; or if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left." Euripides wrote
that the Trojan War was due to "an insolent abundance of people." And many
classical philosophers and historians such as Polybius, Plato,
and Tertullian worried about population growth, food shortages, and environmental degradation. The Tiberius Gracchus
about 100 BCE complained that returned Roman soldiers "have no clod of earth to call their own." Early in the 1600s, John Winthrop left England for Massachusetts
because he considered England so crowded. And when England and Wales had fewer than 5 million people, one man expressed the wish for the earlier "times when our
In 1802, when Java had a population of 4 million, a Dutch
Country was not pestered with multitude, not overcharged with swarmes of people."
colonial official wrote that Java was "overcrowded with unemployed." As of 1990, Java had 108 million people
and again it is said to be overcrowded, with too much unemployment.
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(__) The arguments against overpopulation are false threat constructions

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3503)
The distinctive feature of Malthusianism is its profound consciousness of limits. The fatalistic Malthusian
outlook looks upon people as parasitic consumers whose appetites are limited only by the obstacles thrown up
by nature. Malthus’ Essay, which was written in 1798, was a reaction against the optimistic visions of humanity
put forward by Enlightenment thinkers. For Enlightenment thinkers such as Condorcet and Godwin, people
were not simply consumers – they were are also creative actors, innovators, producers. Thankfully, in the
centuries since he wrote Essay and other works, Malthus’ alarmist warnings have proven to be unfounded: food
production has generally increased in line with population growth and there has not been a global famine.
However, the fact that Malthus’ predictions did not come true has not discouraged anti-humanists from pursuing
the population-control project. They simply invent new reasons for why we must control population growth.
Over the past two centuries, a bewildering array of problems has been blamed on population growth. At various
times, famine, poverty, the failure of Third World economies, instability, revolution, the spread of communism
and the subordinate position of women have been linked to population growth (8). The approach of the
population growth lobby is devastatingly simple: they take a problem and argue that it would diminish in
intensity if there were fewer people. Such simplistic methodology is even used to account for the emergence of
new forms of terrorism today.
(__) Malthus’ impacts have been empirically disproven

Stokstad, ’05 (Erik Stokstad, Reporter for the Science, July 1 2005, Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong,
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/309/5731/102)
In 1798, a 32-year-old curate at a small parish church in Albury, England, published a sobering pamphlet entitled
An Essay on the Principle of Population. As a grim rebuttal of the utopian philosophers of his day, Thomas
Malthus argued that human populations will always tend to grow and, eventually, they will always be checked--
either by foresight, such as birth control, or as a result of famine, war, or disease. Those speculations have inspired
many a dire warning from environmentalists. Since Malthus's time, world population has risen sixfold to more than
6 billion. Yet happily, apocalyptic collapses have mostly been prevented by the advent of cheap energy, the rise of
science and technology, and the green revolution. Most demographers predict that by 2100, global population will
level off at about 10 billion.
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CARRYING CAPACITY THEORY FALSE
“Carrying-capacity” is an inaccurate and inapplicable indicator

Brookfield 92 (Harold, professor emeritus @ Australian National U, Population, p 76-77, dbm)
Substantial criticism of the whole group of concepts embraced under the notions of "carrying capacity", "critical population levels"
and "population pressure on resources" was, however, already building up. Increasingly it came to be understood that a static
population-resource equation concealed more than it revealed. Technical problems with early attempts to make carrying capacity
an effective, applicable indicator were summarized in 1986 by P.M. Fearnside. They addressed only one class of agriculture and an
essentially subsistence economy. Although some, authors introduced caveats, they nevertheless calculated on the tacit assumption
that patterns of consumption, income and employment, crop and livestock mix and agrotechnology were fixed. Few considered
natural resource degradation or took account of year to year variability in the biophysical conditions of production. Most studies
were based on limited periods of field research and there were deficiencies in the data used on yields, the fallow period and the
qualities of land and its resilience un human use. Unfortunately, some of these deficiencies have been carried forward into more
recent work.
AND, CARRYING CAPACITY THEORY HAS NOT CHANGED

Brookfield 92 (Harold, professor emeritus @ Australian National U, Population, p 80, dbm)
Despite the great body of data handled and the vast resources employed, the methodology differs little from that of the early
carrying-capacity calculations of the 1960s. On the basis of incomplete environmental data and a uniform set of assumptions about agricultural
technology and basic consumption requirements, a deterministic result is produced. Only food supply is taken into account and industrial and trading capacities are
virtually ignored. Moreover, the necessary assumption of the high input levels case, that the best agrotechnology can be applied everywhere and by everyone,
displays remarkable lack of realism. As a statement about carrying capacity, this one—based on a one-sector, closed-economy model—merely reveals the
impossibility of determining or even conceptualizing what it is in a real, interdependent world.
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CARRYING CAPACITY THEORY FALSE
“Carrying capacity” has proven to be an empirically faulty methodology – reliance upon it guarantees
disaster
Brookfield 92 (Harold, professor emeritus @ Australian National U, Population, p 80-81, dbm)
Part of the damage now being done to more and more of the environment is due not simply to increased numbers, but to the greater
mobility of people and their activities and the enhanced means they have of dealing damage through such simple innovations as
the chain-saw, as well as the tools of modern industry. Growing numbers are certainly a major element, but are not themselves a
sufficient explanation. Setting aside speculation about future global warming, there are already ways in which the environment of the whole planet is
changed by human activity, with growing population pressure as a major element. Even the advances of the green revolution have reached something of a plateau,
though worldwide there is still vast scope for improvement in both production and conservation. To focus only on one element, however, is to ignore
questions of access to resources and capital as causes of poverty and also to disregard the scope for adaptation provided by the
rapidly growing division of labour, with its potential for a more intelligent use of technology. Environmental variability is
increasingly shown to have major effects on human welfare and we must allow for the possibility that it will increase with global
change. To rely for decision-making on carrying capacity determined on the basis of present conditions is a recipe for disaster.
Except for very specific purposes in very small areas, no attempt to determine a population carrying capacity has attained
credence. Repeated predictions have been made concerning the population capacity limits of country after country for at least half
of this century. In almost every significant case these limits have been exceeded, while in most cases the present people are now
better off than their less numerous predecessors. Carrying capacity is an empirical notion and it has been empirically faulted so
many times that it should already have been discarded, at least as a planning tool for local application. It is an impediment to
rational planning for a more sustainable future. Carrying capacity for the whole world may be another matter and on this the last word still seems to be
with Ravenstein and the system he employed in 1891. His limits need expansion in the light of what has transpired since, but his very simple methods, using
quantities that can readily be changed and updated according to circumstances, are all that so transparently simplistic and conditional a notion deserves. The real
problem is much larger; population pressure is as much result as cause, and population numbers, though important, are only one part of the whole.
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DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS FALSE
Empirically proven—dooms-day population predictions are flimsy and inaccurate—we shouldn’t bother
predicting at all
Simon, 1998 (Julian L., Business Administration @ the University of Maryland and Senior Fellow @ the Cato Institute, The Ultimate Resource II:
People, Materials, and Environment, Online Text, February 16, Chapter 23, http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR23.txt,
Accessed 7/15/07.) / vinay
Even as late as the 1970s there were astonishing flip-flops in world population forecasts for the turn of the century - then only
three decades away. As of 1969, the U.S. Department of State Bulletin forecast 7.5 billion people for the year 2000, citing the United Nations.
By 1974, the figure commonly quoted was 7.2 billion. By 1976, Raphael Salas, the executive director of the UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) was forecasting
"nearly 7 billion." Soon Salas was all the way down to "at least 5.8 billion." And as early as 1977, Lester Brown and his Worldwatch Institute
(which has a close relationship to the UN) dropped the estimate again, forecasting 5.4 billion people for the year 2000 - which was
surpassed around 1990 (if the data are sound). This variation in forecasts must be astonishing to laymen - to wit, that a United Nations-
State Department forecast for a date then only twenty-three years away, when a majority of the people who would then be
living were already living, could be later revised by 2 billion people, a change of more than a third of the total forecast. By the
time of this writing in 1992, the latest UN "medium" forecast for the year 2000 was 6.3 million. Does this example of forecasting "science" suggest
that we should give credence to long-run population predictions?
And consider this: In 1972, the President's Commission on Population Growth forecast for the United States that "even if the family
size drops gradually - to the two-child average - there will be no year in the next two decades in which the absolute number of births
will be less than in 1970." How did it turn out? In 1971 - the year before that forecast by the august President's Commission was transmitted to the President
and then published - the absolute number of births (not just the birthrate) was already less than in 1970. By 1975, the absolute number of births was
This
barely higher than in 1920, andthe number of white births was actually lower than in most years between 1914 and 1924 (see figure 23-5).Figure 23-5 (old A-15)
episode shows once again how flimsy are the demographic forecasts upon which arguments about growth policy are
based. In this case the Commission did not even backcast correctly, let alone forecast well. Then in 1989, the U.S. Census Bureau forecast
that U.S. population would peak at 302 million in 2038 and would thenceforward decline. But just five years later in 1992, the Census Bureau forecast 383 million in 2050
with no peaking in sight; one gives the lie to the other by about 50 million people- a sixth of the 1989 forecast. The science of demographic forecasting
clearly has not yet reached perfection. With a track record this poor, one wonders why official agencies should make any such
forecasts at all, especially when they are based on little more than guesses concerning such matters as future immigration policy and people's decisions about how
many children to have. We have no experience to rely on for estimating how people will act under the conditions that will prevail
in the future. In short, this history of population forecasts should make us think twice - or thrice - before crediting doomsday
forecasts of population growth.
( ) Predictions of human behavior are wrong – too many considerations make it impossible
Intercollegiate Studies 00 (“Review of Paul Ehrlich,” May 17, http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/91,
dbm)
Now I know you're expecting me to take the easy route on this one and just pummel the malevolent Dr. Ehrlich on the basis of how profoundly wrong his
predictions in this best-selling polemic proved to be. Well, maybe this once I'll surprise you. I'm actually going to cut the good doctor a little bit of slack (a very
little bit) because I think he merely represents a particularly notorious example of what is actually a pretty common defect of social planners in general--which
means especially of the Left--that is that the contingencies which they plan for never actually had much chance of coming to fruition in the first place. The reason
for this is quite simple; almost all predictions involving human behavior are wrong. As a threshold issue, this is a pretty easy truth to comprehend;
human free will makes it nearly impossible to forecast future behavior based on current trends. Sociology is simply not a science.
Start a bowling ball rolling down a hill and physics tells you that it is likely to keep rolling down hill in a fairly direct fashion.
Start a human walking down that same hill and who knows what pattern he will follow? Not even him. And what if you start
hundreds of bowling balls and hundreds of humans? The bowling balls are all likely to keep following their predicted route, but it
is entirely possible that no two humans will take the same path. But suppose for a moment that the first ten humans all walk straight down the hill.
Are you willing to assume that the rest will? or even that most of the rest will? Probably not, and not just because of the idiosyncrasies of human behavior.
There are also technological considerations--someone is going to find a way to make a sled and slide down the hill and as soon as they do, folks will be
sledding not walking. There are spiritual considerations--some folks are going to prefer the top of the hill to the bottom, some the pretty pond halfway
down, and they just aren't coming down that hill. There are philanthropic considerations--some young folks will carry old folks, parents will carry kids, and
so on. There are political considerations--a leader emerges to convince people that it is their destiny to live at the top of the hill or even to level the hill. Etc.,
etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum... It is obviously foolish to try to predict human behavior given all of these variables.
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OVERPOP HELPS ENVIRONMENT
(__) EMPIRICALLY, AFRICAN POPULATION SPURTS  ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS

COMMITTEE ON WOMEN, POPULATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT 2006
[“Population, Environment, and Security: A New Trinity”, July 15,
http://www.cwpe.org/resources/popcontrol/newtrinity] / ttate
Recent research also challenges the neo-Malthusian assumption that population pressure always negatively affects
the environment. In parts of Africa, increasing population densities combined with sound agricultural practices
have spurred environmental improvements (Tiffen, Mortimore and Gichuki 1994). Similarly, the focus on peasant
populations as the destroyers of the environment neglects the important role of traditional agriculture in preserving
biodiversity (Altieri and Merrick 1987).
(__) Population growth results in a net benefit for the environment

The observation that population growth increases per capita productivity and income may, on first glance, seem to
have little to do with its effects on the environment. However, when one understands the relationship between
wealth and ecological protection, population growth's positive environmental effects become evident.
Individuals concerned with basic survival are extremely unlikely to expend much-needed resources to protect the
environment. In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Princeton University economists Gene
Grossman and Alan Krueger used cross-national data assembled by the Global Environmental Monitoring System
to examine the relationship between various ecological indicators and the level of a country's per capita income.
They found that, while economic growth led to an initial increase in pollution, greater prosperity eventually led to
a net decrease in pollution because of "an increased demand for (and supply or) environmental protection at higher
levels of national inCome."
Contrary to what might be expected, population growth in many developing nations (which typically are the areas
exhibiting high-growth rates) is likely to improve ecological quality in the long run. Because higher per capita
income increases environmental protection efforts, anything that raises productivity and income in these areas will
eventually lead to a cleaner environment. As long as markets are free, relative prices can direct specialization and
benefits from trade can occur. Population growth will lead to higher productivity and per capita income in an
economic setting of increasing specialization, easy information transfer, and a rising stock of scientific and
technical knowledge. It may take some time, but this economic growth eventually should lead to pollution
abatement efforts that leave the environment cleaner than before the growth began.
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OVERPOP GOOD – DIVERSIFICATION
( ) More people is good – diversifies society and creates more goods and services
All told, the "overpopulation" scare may be the biggest single mistake in the history of social science. Theory and common sense
conspired to fail in the grandest possible way, and the only question is how it managed to take so many people in for so long.
Meanwhile humanists, of all people, should recognize that people are inherently a good thing. Having lots of people enables
human society to diversify ever more elaborately, creating more interesting goods and services for all tastes and types. There's
room (and air, and food, and so on) for a lot more of us than there is any reason to expect there ever to be. People claiming to be
humanists should, so to speak, count their blessings and stop deploring the fact of demographic opulence.
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OVERPOP GOOD – ECONOMIC GROWTH
(__) Population growth speeds up economic growth – three reasons

Magazine, January 1995)
Greater population density generally leads to faster economic growth for several reasons. First, a denser
population typically is correlated with enhanced communication and transportation systems that facilitate the
exchange of ideas. This adds to the stock of knowledge, enabling scientific and technological advances that
boost productivity. The more ideas are exchanged, the more innovators can build on past efforts and the less
efforts are duplicated.
A second way population growth increases productivity is by encouraging specialization and trade. When
individuals specialize in the activities they can perform most efficiently and then trade what they produce for
other needed goods and services, society gets the greatest output for the least input and wealth is maximized.
The extent of specialization, or the division of labor, is limited by the size of the market. Hence, as populations
swell, individuals are able to focus their efforts on fewer tasks, and per capita productivity increases. Of course,
population growth will not lead to increased output if markets are not free so that specialization, directed by
relative prices, can occur.
A third way population growth increases per capita productivity and income is by allowing the realization of
economies of scale, which occur when it is less expensive per unit to produce many units of a good than to
produce just a few. The per-unit cost of assembly line production in a factory, for instance, is much lower than
the cost of each worker producing one good at a time. Factories can not be utilized, though, unless there is
sufficient demand for the good produced.
Perhaps population growth's most important contribution to wealth creation comes in the direct relationship
between population density and the increase of scientific and technological knowledge. Each individual has a
mind and is therefore a potential supplier of new knowledge from which all can benefit. Because the human
mind develops innovations that raise living standards for all, it is, as Julian Simon has pointed out, the "ultimate
resource."
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OVERPOP ≠ GENERIC IMPACTS
( ) Overpopulation is not the root cause of all impacts

Albert 04 (Michael, founder and current member of the staff of Z Magazine, Humanity’s Future, p. 151, dbm)
Overpopulation Is Not the Problem Of course population can reach a point where, for a given level of technical know-how, and
with a given social structure, more people means more environmental degradation and a lower standard of living for most. But
there is no evidence that we are near such a population level. And there is no evidence that current poverty, hunger, and tenacity
degradation etc. owe their origins or tenacity in any significant degree to a population problem, but, instead, the evidence is
abundant that these particular crimes against humanity are rooted in oppressive institutional structures and the abhorrent
misallocations of labor and energy and maldistribution of product that they foster.
(__) No impact—wars, famine, or environmental devastation have never been caused because of
overpopulation
Richman, 95 (Sheldon is Senior Editor @ Cato Institute, The International Population Stabilization and
Reproductive Health Act (S. 1029), July 20, http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-ps720.html, accessed 7/16/07)
The prefix "over" implies a standard. For example, "overweight" implies a standard linked to height. By what
standard is the earth overpopulated? Certainly not living space. The world's population could fit into Jacksonville,
Florida, with everyone having standing room. Dense cities are often surrounded by nearly empty countrysides. For
overpopulation to be real, there must be conditions that are undesirable and unmistakably caused by the presence
of a certain number of people. If such indications cannot be found, we are entitled to dismiss the claim of
overpopulation.
In arguing their case, the believers in overpopulation make vague, tautological references to a standard known as
"carrying capacity" colorfully illustrated with stories about gazelle herds and bacteria (anything but human beings).
When the verbiage is cleared away, what are adduced as the symptoms of overpopulation? Famine, deepening
poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and resource depletion. Yet on no count does the evidence support the
anti-population lobby's case. On the contrary, the long-term trend for each factor is positive and points to an even
better future.
The television pictures of starving, emaciated Africans are heartbreaking, but they are not evidence of
overpopulation. Since 1985 we have witnessed famine in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia. Those nations have one
thing in common: they are among the least densely populated areas on earth. Although their populations are
growing, the people there are not hungry because the world can't produce enough food. They are hungry because
civil war keeps food from getting to them. Moreover, the very sparseness of their populations makes them
vulnerable to famine because there are insufficient people to support sophisticated roads and transportation systems
that would facilitate the movement of food.
In the 20th century there has been no famine that has not been caused by civil war, irrational economic policies, or
political retribution. Not one. Moreover, the number of people affected by famine compared to that in the late 19th
century has fallen--not just as a percentage of the world's population but in absolute numbers.
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OVERPOP ≠ GENERIC IMPACTS
(__) No impact – Malthus concludes that there will be no apocalyptic ending – We will not run out of
resources.
Emmett ’06 (Ross B, PERC Policy Series, PHD tt James Madison College at Michigan State University,
http://www.perc.org/pdf/ps38.pdf, 11/14/06) / rice
The population principle is usually assumed to mean that population growth will eventually cause us to run out of
resources to sustain consumption. We hear it all the time from neo-Malthusians: Unless we control population and
curtail our consumption of resource-based goods, we’re going to run out of our scarce resources. But the arithmetic
ratio described above does not necessarily require an ultimate limit to resources, only the current limit.
The fact is that Malthus did not mean that humans would run out of resources at some point in the future. Unlike
the neo-Malthusians, Malthus has no apocalyptic ending embedded in his population principle. Rather, he claimed
that food production “may increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity” (Malthus 1826/1986, 13).
He may have had a constrained vision of human society, but he did not have a limited vision of natural resources.
As Malthus says, his analysis places “no limits whatever” on “the produce of the earth” (Malthus 1826/1986, 13).
(__) Overpopulation impacts are empirically denied.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Out-of-the-Malthusian-Trap-20119.shtml, 3/22/06) / rice
However, more and more empiric evidences show that the Malthusian predictions, at least in some places in the
world, are totally false. For example Europe's population during the 19th century more than doubled and during the
20th century almost doubled again (in the face of two world wars, the Holocaust, and an influenza pandemic which
wiped out millions of people). But despite this population growth Europe isn’t starving at all, on the contrary,
Europeans are increasingly fat.
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OVERPOP ≠ RESOURCE SHORTAGES
(__) The amount of arable land is three times what is farmed

Of course, land provides more than just living space. It also is necessary for food production. Conventional
wisdom holds that there is only a limited amount of arable land in the world and that much of this--the most
fertile part--already is under cultivation. Hence, as population swells, it will become increasingly difficult, and
eventually impossible, to feed everyone.
World agricultural data, however, do not support the claim that humanity has reached the limit on food
production. Since global food data began being collected in the late 1940s, food production has out-paced
population growth by, on average, one percent per year. The world price of food. adjusted for inflation, has
been declining for the last century and probably for much longer, indicating that food output has been increasing
more rapidly than population.
Pessimists insist that humanity can not sustain agricultural production. They assert that, since practically all of
the world's arable land now is under cultivation and because the cost of clearing, draining, and fertilizing
marginal land is proving too costly, continued population growth soon will make it impossible to feed
everyone.
The notion that there is very little land left to bring under cultivation is not true. While potentially arable land--
that which can produce an acceptable level of food crops--comprises only 24% of the total ice-free land mass of
the world, this is more than twice the amount cultivated in recent decades and over three times the amount
cultivated in any single year.
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OVERPOP ≠ FOOD SHORTAGES
(__) HISTORY DISPROVES MALTHUS – RISING POPULATIONS DOES NOT YIELD LESS FOOD
Regis 97 (Ed has written five books, most recently The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project, “The
Doomslayer”, Wired Issue 5.02, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html) / alejandro
The trends were the same for food supply. Rising population did not mean less food, just the opposite: instead of
skyrocketing as predicted by the Malthusian theory, food prices, relative to wages, had declined historically. In the
United States, for example, between 1800 and 1980, the price of wheat plummeted while the population grew from
5 million to 226 million. Accord-ing to Malthus, all those people should have been long dead, the country reduced
to a handful of fur trappers on the brink of starvation. In fact, there was a booming and flourishing populace, one
that was better-fed, taller, healthier, more disease-free, with far less infant mortality and longer life expectancy than
ever before in human history. Obesity, not starvation, was the major American food problem in 1980. Those were
the facts.
( ) Population growth does not lead to starvation – oppressive governments do

The Malthusians didn't know what hit them. Actually, some of them still don't--we still hear them muttering that we have "too
many people." But there comes a time when the facts clobber you in the face with such force that it's impossible not to notice.
Despite all the claims, when starvation occurs, it is due not to agriculture and the limited "carrying capacity" of the planet but to
politics. To be more precise, there are two sorts of starvations: little and big. In the little ones, natural disasters beset a few
thousand unfortunate people, creating short-term emergencies. Then the rest of us rush them supplies. If the local governments are
any good, the supplies actually get to those who need them and lives are saved. If the local governments are corrupt, incompetent,
or inhuman, the supplies are pilfered, and those in need don't receive them. In the big cases, governments actually cause the
starvation. In the twentieth century, government-made starvations were the only kind there were. For example, Maoist China
starved more than thirty million people. When communal agriculture was disassembled and Chinese farmers could work the way
they wanted to, China increased its food output by 50 percent in a single decade and even began exporting food to the USSR in the
1980s. Bad politics is what you need for starvation. For adequate food production, you need free farmers and markets. The earth
isn't the problem. Its political leaders are.
( ) No – food supplies high

Myth #7: “Overpopulation is threatening the world’s food supply.” According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, world
food supplies exceed requirements in all areas.
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OVERPOP ≠ FOOD SHORTAGES
(__) PLENTY OF FOOD

Richman, 95 (Sheldon is Senior Editor @ Cato Institute, The International Population Stabilization and Reproductive
Health Act (S. 1029), July 20, http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-ps720.html, accessed 7/16/07) / vinay
Food is abundant. Since 1948, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, annual world
food production has outpaced the increase in population. Today, per capita production and per-acre yields are at all-time highs. Prices
of agricultural products have been falling for over 100 years. The average inflation-adjusted price of those products, indexed to wages, fell by more than
74 percent between 1950 and 1990. While Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute and the noted butterfly expert Paul Ehrlich predict higher food
prices and increasing scarcity, food is becoming cheaper and more plentiful. That good news is due largely to technological advances (the "green
revolution") that have provided better seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and methods of farming. The only obstacles to agricultural progress are the
impediments created by governments. Imagine what the world would be like today if the fertile farmland of the former Soviet Union or China or India
had been in productive private hands operating in free markets for the past several decades. Since permitting market incentives in agriculture, India has
been come a net food exporter and agricultural production in China has boomed.
Catastrophists argue that the bright past does not imply a bright future; they arbitrarily assert that mankind has crossed some fateful threshold. But the
earth is capable of feeding many more people than are now alive. The late Roger Revelle of Harvard University (whom Gore claims as a mentor)
estimated that Africa, Asia, and Latin America alone, simply by using water more efficiently, could feed 35 to 40 billion people--seven to eight times the
current world population. And that assumes no change in technology--a groundless assumption, to be sure.
Those who annually predict imminent famine (while urging readers to subscribe to next year's publications) seize on any change as evidence that man's
alleged strain on the biosphere is finally beginning to show. Thus, if the price of seafood rises, they announce that the seas are nearing exhaustion. They
never consider the myriad other possibilities, such as the shift in diet from meat to fish, the decline of the Russian fishing industry during the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, or the "tragedy of the commons" associated with the lack of property rights in the oceans and lakes.
The most telling indication of the trend in food production is the presence of a farm lobby in every industrial capital. Those lobbies spend millions of
dollars a year to persuade their governments to hold food prices up and food supplies down. They apparently don't expect help from nature.
( ) Current starvation is a result of oppressive governments NOT resource limitations

What about current starvation, you may ask? The answer is that we must carefully distinguish between starvation due to the
inhumanity, cruelty, imbecility, and sheer incompetence of governments, and starvation due to the lack of sufficient resources to
sustain life. The former we have in plenty--in Somalia, Ethiopia, and to varying degrees elsewhere. But Malthus didn't have that in mind.
He supposed that even with hard work and reasonable thought for the morrow, humankind wouldn't be able to survive without severely cutting back on the
production of humans. And that situation we do not have. Consider countries such as the Netherlands, with the densest population on earth. Yet Holland is self-
sufficient overall in food production. India, which in the past has had dreadful famines, is doing just fine. Even China, now that its government has given up on
enforced communism on the farm, is pulling its enormous weight quite well; had it always had a market farm economy, there would surely have been no need for
its high-powered and heavy-handed efforts at population control. Of course there is the occasional pocket of desperation resulting from local floods, volcanic
explosions, and the like. But the world's capacity to cope with such disasters is beyond doubt. If that were all we had to worry about, concern with starvation in
today's world would be of marginal interest by any reasonable standard. In short, starvation in today's world is almost exclusively political in
origin--eliminate all the socialist or other authoritarian regimes in the third world and you'd eliminate starvation entirely.
(__) ALTERNATE CAUSALITY – MILITARY

Hartmann, 2001 (Betsy, Dir of Hampshire College and Pop Dvpmt Program, Is Limiting Population a Key Factor in Protecting the
Global Environment? 07-05, http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/english/allwrite3/seyler/ssite/seyler/se04/environ3.pdf) / cole
In developing countries, according to USAID, rapid population growth also “renders inadequate or obsolete any
investment in schools, housing, food production capacity and infrastructure.” But are increasing numbers of
poor people really the main drain on national budgets? The UN’s 1993 Human Development Report estimates
that developing countries spend only one-tenth of their national budgets on human development priorities. Their
military expenditures meanwhile soared from 91% of combined health and education expenditures in 1977 to
169% in 1990. And in any case, the social spending that there is often flows to the rich. A disproportionate share
of health budgets frequently goes
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OVERPOP ≠ ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION
(__) ALTERNATE CAUSALITY – MILITARY

Hartmann, 2001 (Betsy Hartmann, Director of the Hampshire College and Population Development Program, Is
Limiting Population a Key Factor in Protecting the Global Environment? July 5 2001,
http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/english/allwrite3/seyler/ssite/seyler/se04/environ3.pdf) / cole
It is true that population growth (which is actually slowing in most areas of the world) can put additional
pressure on resources in specific regions. But the threat to livelihoods, democracy and the global environment
posed by the fertility of poor women is hardly comparable to that posed by the consumption patterns of the rich
or the ravages of militaries. The industrialized nations, home to 22% of the world’s population, consume 60% of
the world’s food, 70% of its energy, 75% of its metals, and 85% of its wood. They generate almost three-
quarters of all carbon dioxide emissions, which in turn comprise nearly half of the manmade greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere, and are responsible for most of the ozone depletion. Militaries are the other big offenders.
The German Research Institute for Peace Policy estimates that one-fifth of all global environmental degradation
is due to military activities. The U.S. military is the largest domestic oil consumer and generates more toxic
waste than the five largest multinational chemical companies combined.
(__) Environmental interdependencies check.

The real flaw in the argument of Malthus is that he made an elementary error in biology. One need not have a PhD
in ecology to see the basic point; indeed, a little common sense shows that Malthus could not possibly have been
right. If populations always explode out of check, the entire global biosphere would have simply eaten itself
billions of years ago. But this has not happened. Instead, throughout nature, we see intricate webs of
interdependencies, in which organisms (by a bewildering variety of mechanisms) moderate their tendencies to
exploit their environments. Biologists call this process mutualism, and there is ever-increasing recognition that it
is a centrally important factor in how ecosystems work, and even in the way evolution occurs.
(__) Population is irrelevant – it is how individuals treat the environment.

Right now, it’s not the sheer numbers of people, or even the human population density as such, that most threatens
the integrity of our supporting ecosystem. Very small human populations have sometimes done great ecological
destruction. Only a few thousand settlers, for instance, nearly wiped out the North American bison. It is our
failure to live in a mutualistic fashion that is the real cause of all the bad things that flow from the population boom
– pollution, exhaustion of resources, and the ever-present threats of war, famine, and disease
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OVERPOP ≠ BIODIVERSITY LOSS
( ) Wrong – recent findings disprove

Myth #6: “Many plants and animals are disappearing because of the growth in human numbers.” This claim has no scientific data
whatsoever to support it. Actually, some species such as blue whales, spotted owls, and black footed ferrets have been found to be
more numerous than was once thought.
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OVERPOP ≠ GLOBAL WARMING
African overpopulation doesn’t cause global warming—and there are enough resources for everyone
Cape Times, 2007(“ Don't blame the world's poor when rich US is biggest culprit”, April 10, p. Lexis) / vinay
Frederick Schoeman ("Overpopulation, not capitalism, prime suspect for planet's ills", April 2) lays the blame for global warming and an
assortment of other sins at the door of "families, religions, ethnic groups or nations (who) breed themselves and the
planet into poverty, global warming and extinction".
He says the blame should be shifted from producers to consumers. And, in part, he is right.
Demand creates supply; producers respond to the needs of consumers.
However, he is wrong in attributing the worldwide growth in demand to the population explosion.
Yes, there are probably too many people in the world. But the world produces enough food to feed every one of
them.
What the world can't do is cope with the demands of wealthy consumers. If all of the world's citizens were to consume as much of the
Earth's resources as the average American, we'd need about nine Earths.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, "the world has enough for everyone's need, but not for their greed".
Yes, demand creates supply, but supply also creates demand - through fancy marketing campaigns.
So it's the old chicken-and-egg situation - wealthy consumers need producers and producers need wealthy consumers. The other half of the world's population, the half
living in poverty, has nothing to do with it.
Blaming the poor for global warming is a particularly surprising move. Global warming is caused by emissions of
greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide) from the burning of fossil fuels during electricity generation and vehicle
use.
How many people in Africa have access to electricity or drive cars?
The United States, with 5% of the world's population, is responsible for 25% of global carbon emissions, drives a
third of the world's cars, and is responsible for nearly half of global automotive carbon emissions.
The whole of Africa produces 3% of global emissions. Blaming the poor for global warming is an argument that
will never quite get off the ground.
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GLOBAL WARMING IMPACT ANSWERS
( ) No scientific consensus exists about warming

Myth #2: “Overpopulation is Causing Global Warming.” In fact, 79 scientists issued the “Leipzig Declaration” saying “…there
does not exist today a general scientific consensus about…greenhouse warming.” It’s interesting that many respected
climatologists vigorously dispute a global warming danger.
( ) Global warming key to extend northern growing seasons

Then there is "global warming," a propagandist's paradise. The gap between confirmed relevant information on the one hand and proposed political responses to it
on the other is mind-boggling--and you aren't going to find the facts on page one. But you will find them in abundance with just a bit of looking. I'll mention just
one point. The Kyoto Accords call for measures that, depending how thoroughly they are implemented, will carry price tags running to trillions. Yet fifty years of
Kyoto-mandated Spartanism will yield an expected reduction in global temperatures of only about 0.1 degree Celsius. What's the point, especially when such
global warming as has been confirmed so far has been good for humanity, for example by extending northern growing seasons?
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OVERPOP ≠ DEFO
( ) Wrong – forest growth now

Myth #4: “The world’s forests are disappearing because of overpopulation”. In fact, annual forest growth today is more than 3.5x
what it was in 1920. Now, trees are growing 33% faster than they are being cut.
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OVERPOP ≠ AIR POLLUTION
( ) No connection between population growth and pollution – sound data and wealth thresholds disprove
Bailey 06 (Ronald, science correspondent for the public policy magazine Reason, “Overpopulation Does Not
Threaten the Environment or Humanity,” Humanity’s Future, 154-155, dbm)
Another environmental problem frequently attributed to population growth is pollution. In 1972 The Limits to Growth computer
model projected that pollution would skyrocket as population increased: "Virtually every pollutant that has been measured as a
function of time appears to be increasing exponentially." But once again, the new Malthusions had things exactly backward.
Since 1972, America's population has risen 26 percent and its economy has more than doubled. Western Europe and Japan have
experienced similar rates of growth. Yet, instead of increasing as predicted, air pollutants have dramatically declined. In fact, a
growing body of literature suggests that in most cases there are thresholds of wealth at which the amount of a pollutant begins to
decline. Department of Interior analyst Indur Goklany calls these thresholds the "environmental transition." What this means is that
when people rise above mere subsistence, they begin demanding amenities such as, clean air and water. The first environmental
transition is clean drinking water. Goklany has found that the level of fecal coliform bacteria in rivers, which is a good measure of
water pollution, peaks when average per capita incomes reach $1,400 per year. The next transition occurs when particulates like
smoke and soot peak at $3,200. And again, levels of sulfur dioxide peak at about $3,700.
( ) Wrong – decline in air pollution now

Myth #5: “Air pollution is the result of overpopulation, and acid rain, a byproduct of air pollution, is destroying lakes, rivers, and
forests.” Actually in the US, air pollution is declining significantly. The National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program recently
reported “no widespread forest or crop damage in the US” related to acid rain.
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OVERPOP ≠ TERRORISM
Links between overpopulation and terrorism are racist and targeted at developing countries
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3503) / cole
Prominent Malthusian organisations such as the Worldwatch Institute and the Population Institute have set out
to repose population control as an effective counter-terrorist measure. Consider the Population Institute’s study
Breeding Insecurity: Global Security Implications Of Rapid Population Growth. It argues that ‘rapid population
growth in developing countries creates national security problems, including civil unrest and terrorism’. The
report cites a study by another Malthusian group, Population Action International, which claims that ‘youth
bulges create instability and increase the likelihood for terrorism and civil unrest by as much as 50 per cent’.
Fifty per cent might sound like a big number – but this is an entirely made-up figure, a figment of the
Malthusian imagination which is obsessed with constructing a relationship between demographic growth and
terrorism. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from the ‘50 per cent’ claim is that the threat of terrorism could
be halved if only we implemented a vigorous programme of population control. Apparently the solution to the
problem of terrorism is to stop ‘them’ breeding. As the Population Institute’s report concludes: ‘While family-
planning programs will not create a more secure world on their own, they will go a long way toward reducing
pressures on societies that lead to instability, unrest, and terrorism.’
Links between overpopulation and terrorism are racist and unfounded

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3503) / cole
The Malthusian fantasy about a ‘ticking population bomb’ has been recycled in a new form – now rising
population is said to give rise to real bombs in the form of Islamist terrorism. Apparently overpopulation creates
a lot of poor, unemployed, discontented men; and many of them turn into troublemakers, which means that they
can become canon fodder for terrorist networks; thus they end up on the wrong side of the ‘war on terror’. In
the Seventies Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, argued that population growth in the South
inexorably led to the triumph of communism. Today he has recycled this simplistic diagnosis to argue that
population growth has led to the rise of international terrorism. Demographic factors are ‘likely contributors’ to
terrorism, he claims. Why? Because the ‘vast majority of terrorists are young males’ and there are ‘huge
numbers of boys under 15’ in Muslim nations. This idea that large numbers of young males equals a potential
terrorist threat is systematically promoted by the supporters of population control. ‘It is impossible to ignore the
link between rapid population growth and terrorism’, says the director of the Population Coalition, a collection
of population-control groups. In truth, it is the logic of the simpleton that sees a link between large numbers of
young men and terrorism: population-control activists believe that because population is growing at the same
time that new forms of terrorism are emerging, then they must be linked! If we took this view to its logical
conclusion, then anything that coincides with current demographic patterns – whether it’s Hurricane Katrina, the
boom in property prices in London or the popularity of iPods – could be linked to population growth.
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OVERPOP ≠ CONFLICT
(__) SECURITY THREATS FROM OVERPOPULATION CONCERNS IS JUST PARANOIA – THE
WEST JUST NEEDED TO FIND A NEW POST-COLD WAR ENEMY
What happened between 1974 and the 1990s that made the 'population explosion' become so legitimate, to the
extent that it is once again perceived as a major threat to international security?
As a consequence of the end of the Cold War, at least two major issues emerged which helped forge the new
population consensus. First, after the decline of the socialist bloc, there was the need to find a new enemy, so that
the Northern-Western powers would remain united. Secondly, with the end of the bipolar balance of terror, during
which military concerns dominated, environmental and social crises around the world became much more visible
to the public.
Thus, in the 1990s international security is being redefined to include not only military and economic concerns, but
also social, natural resource and environmental issues. This might have been a positive move if the majority of
powerful states and international institutions had the real political will and commitment to address global social
and environmental crises in a profound way. However, because this move developed according to the opposite
reasoning - i.e., to maintain and reinforce Northern-Western nations' power in the international system - the nexus
between population size and growth and global social and environmental crises has been highlighted, while the
political and economic processes that are at the root of these crises are not being addressed.
In the post-Cold War era, the consensus around the need to control population growth among the Southern poor is
being built through the international institutions in charge of elaborating the governance and regulations necessary
in an increasingly interdependent world (with the collaboration of a significant part of the international women's
movement), and, at the same time, through coercive methods used by multilateral institutions and bilateral donors
such as including population control as a conditionality for a nation to obtain financial loans. Thus, the fact that
population concerns are on the top of the international security agenda is a result of a consensus built according to
the interests of the most powerful nations.
( ) Africa disproves
Myth #9: “Overpopulation causes war and revolution.” The most war-torn continent on earth—Africa—is also one of the least
densely populated.
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OVERPOP ≠ ENERGY SOURCES
( ) Wrong – higher efficiency and abundances check

A favorite sport of pessimists is to worry about energy supplies. The pessimists haven't noticed that the total amount of energy
reaching Earth from the sun is about ten thousand times what humans use, even in our energy-hungry modern age. They haven't
noticed that humans are quite capable of using energy more efficiently, if need be. The story of ultimate collapse due to exhaustion
is, again, utterly without foundation.
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OVERPOP ≠ POVERTY
( ) Poverty is caused by bad economic policies not overpopulation

Myth #8: “Overpopulation is the chief cause of poverty.” Problems are almost always due to bad economic policy. The Ethiopian
famine, for instance, was caused by its government confiscating the food stocks of traders and farmers and exporting them to buy
arms.
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MALTHUS
OVERPOP ≠ MIGRATION
(__) OVERPOP DOES NOT LEAD TO INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION
Carrying capacity arguments consider that so-called overpopulation in the South is the leading cause of the desire
to emigrate. According to this reasoning, there are two ways to stop international migration: closing and
militarizing Northern borders, and dealing with immigration 'at the source,' by, as the National Audubon Society
suggests, lobbying for increased funding for population control in the South so that the leading incentive to
emigrate would be reduced. However, the desire to emigrate has no relationship with population growth. In
countries like Brazil, where population growth and fertility rates are coming down rapidly, the desire to emigrate is
directly linked to the recession, unemployment and lack of economic opportunities resulting from current
neoliberal economic policies. Another clear example is Mexican migration to the U.S., which has no links to
population growth but rather to NAFTA, structural adjustment programs, and long-term economic disparities.
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MALTHUS
PREFER OUR EVIDENCE
( ) Prefer our evidence – theirs is propaganda and distorts facts

Although it seems to be widely supposed that the world faces "overpopulation," even that there is some sort of "crisis," those
claims, as I will detail below, are essentially bogus. Those who proffer them offer all sorts of arcane data that, however correct in
themselves, don't remotely support the conclusions they seem to want to draw from them. The truth of the matter, I shall argue, is
that the world simply does not have, on any reasonable view of the matter, a "population problem." Overpopulation? The alleged
fact of "overpopulation" is no fact at all, but a piece of muddled and, really, anti-human ideological propaganda. To think that it is fact
is to misunderstand the nature of facts. The world can hold any number of people--many times the current number; moreover, these people can all be rich, so far as
world resources are concerned. There is no need for rich "northerners" to beat their breasts and impose Draconian rationing programs on their fellow citizens in
order to "compensate" for the "inequitable distribution" of resources between them and third-world folks.
( ) Prefer our evidence – their predictions are tainted by bias

Intercollegiate Studies 00 (“Review of Paul Ehrlich,” May 17,
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/91, dbm)
In addition, those who make such predictions are not generally impartial observers. Rather, they are likely to have a vested
interest in the scariness of their own prediction. I mean, is it more likely that a population specialist will come to the conclusion that there is a crisis
which requires a massive response and loads of power, time and money or that he will conclude that population problems are pretty much self regulating and no
response is required? We all know the answer to that; the next bureaucrat who says that the problem he's working on is solved, or that it is unresponsive to human
intervention, will be the first. These institutional survival imperatives make it extraordinarily unlikely that the very folks who are
employed to study a "problem" will ever find anything other than bad news.
( ) More evidence – researchers will warp findings to confirm the beliefs of their sponsors
Further prejudicing their findings is the fact that such studies are typically generated by people or entities with a particular political
agenda and, thus, their own vested interest in the outcome. Let's face it, it's not like money magically appears to fund population
studies (or environmental studies or whatever). The mandate and the money for such work probably comes from a political body
or an individual with preexisting concerns about the issue and you don't have to be as cynical as I am to assume that researchers
will tend to find results that confirm the beliefs of their sponsors.
( ) Prefer our evidence – the brink is empirically denied

People have been invoking the specter of "overpopulation" for centuries, and meanwhile the population of the world has increased
dramatically. Had Malthus been told that there would be five billion people on this earth less than two centuries after he wrote, and
moreover that the vast majority would live longer and eat better than the typical person of his own day, he would surely have
rubbed his eyes in utter astonishment; and yet that is what has happened.
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EHRLICH INDICTS
( ) Ehrlich’s predictions are based on flawed methodology rendering his entire work worthless
Predictions like Ehrlich's are based on an especially specious methodology. He has taken a snapshot in time and projected it
forward without trying to place it in context. Yes, world population has risen pretty rapidly in the industrial era, thanks to advances
in medicine, food production, etc. But as countries have reached industrial plateaus, they have tended to experience a flattening or
even a decline in population growth. Broaden your perspective a little and it seems obvious that he is focussed on a startling, but
more than likely temporary rise in population. It's as if he's chosen one moment in a car ride from New York to California and
tried to generalize from it about the whole trip. If he's chosen a moment when the car is at cruising speed and concluded that the
car was generally traveling 55 miles per hour, he's not too far wrong. But if he's chosen a moment when the car was accelerating
to get on the highway and concluded that the car just kept going faster and faster the whole trip, then he's obviously made a
tremendous error. In this instance, Ehrlich seems to have complete tunnel vision; he can't see past this one moment of population
acceleration. This lack of perspective alone is enough to delegitimize all of the conclusions that he draws.
( ) Ehrlich is motivated by hatred of life and should be rejected – ideologically he is in accordance with
mass murderers
Believe it or not though, I'm willing to give the Hilary Clintons of the world the benefit of the doubt. I think she's probably just
prey to hubris when she tells us that she should decide how we live. But Ehrlich, like many of the deep environmentalists to whom
he is a secular icon, seems to me to go beyond mere arrogance and to be motivated by actual hatred of humankind. He gives
away the game when he compares us to cancer: A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is
an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at
first, but eventually he dies -- often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are
treated. We must shift our efforts from treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand
many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with
radical surgery does the patient have a chance of survival This invidious comparison is of a type with the objectification that
serial killers and mass murderers engage in. Here's a handy rule to follow: when someone starts referring to human beings in non-
human terms, like calling them cancer cells, he probably doesn't really have our best interests at heart; he just wants to kill
people.
( ) Ehrlich is not even serious about his own argument

But, of course, none of this matters. The book continues to be read, its ideas taken seriously, because it is essentially a religious tract. Ehrlich's thesis, like
creationism, is impervious to scientific evidence because it is based not on science, but on faith. He and many on the Left simply prefer the environment to man
and want there to be less people; I believe one billion is the number of humans that Ehrlich says he would find acceptable. Here's one interesting final thought for
you: these depopulation activists obviously think that they should be included in that one billion. Ideas have consequences. It does not suffice to mouth
the words unless you are willing to follow their logic. The fact that Paul Ehrlich is still alive and still depleting resources suggests
that he is fundamentally unserious about his own arguments. He is not alone; no intelligent and impartial reader will fail to find
his book idiotic.
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HOMER-DIXON INDICTS
(___) OVERPOPULATION DOES NOT LEAD TO RESOURCE SHORTAGES AND INSECURITY –
HOMER-DIXON STUDIES FLAWED
Just what is the evidence for these assumptions? Thomas Homer-Dixon's Project on Environment, Population and Security, jointly sponsored by the University
of Toronto, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Canadian Center for Global Security, has produced a series of case studies
(e.g. of Rwanda, South Africa, Pakistan, and Chiapas) to investigate the relationship between population growth, renewable resource
scarcities, migration and violent conflict. While the text of the case studies tends to be more nuanced, the models based on them are
simple diagrams of questionable causality.
Homer-Dixon admits that his project did not address the complex root causes of environmental scarcities such as "the
maldistribution or depletion of resources, dysfunctional markets, exploitative gender relations and the international political economy." Instead "the project began its
analysis with the existence of scarcity and examined the social consequences of that scarcity"(Homer-Dixon 1996:45). This
is a fundamental flaw:
analytically, how can one separate the root causes from the consequences? 'Scarcity,' like an artificial wall, stops
and separates dynamic social and ecological processes.
In Figure 1 Homer-Dixon illustrates the main lines of causality between environmental scarcity and conflict. In Figure 2 he depicts the process of 'resource capture', and in
Figure 3 that of 'ecological marginalization.' Note the important role of population growth in all three -- and the notable absence of the "root causes" he neglects.
From Homer-Dixon 1996:45-46.
There are a number of problems with these models. First, by their very nature, they homogenize diverse regions
with distinct histories and cultures. Clearly, the specific colonial and post-colonial histories of countries such as Rwanda and Haiti, for example, have
much to do with the present generation of 'scarcity' in those places.
Also missing from the picture is serious discussion of economic inequalities. Although Homer-Dixon
acknowledges their importance, the place they occupy in his models skews causality, in effect naturalizing the
processes of maldistribution. Combined with population growth, he argues, resource scarcity encourages powerful groups within a society to shift distribution
in their favor -- this is the 'resource capture' presented in Figure 2. Similarly, agricultural shortfalls due to population growth and land degradation are seen to induce large
development schemes, the benefits of which are then captured by the rich (Homer-Dixon 1994:13).
(__) HOMER-DIXON FAILS TO LOOK AT DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS IN HIS ANALYSIS

The narrow conceptualization of population is also surprising given that population field itself is opening up to more gender-sensitive analysis and programming.
Homer-Dixon, and the environment and security literature in general, focus mainly on aggregate population size and density, paying
little attention to other key dynamics such as age distribution, differential mortality rates, and sex ratios (Arizpe, Stone
and Major 1994). Neglecting history once again, the literature displays little understanding of the processes of
demographic transition to lower birth and death rates.
Nor, except for a few obligatory references to the need for women's literacy programs, does it seriously address gender inequalities despite a
significant body of research in this area. Subsumed into the analytic frame of 'population pressure', women implicitly become the breeders of both
environmental destruction and violence. Important questions are not asked, much less answered. What are women's property rights, labor obligations, and roles in the
management of environmental resources? How have structural adjustment policies affected their health, workloads and status relative to male family members? Where are
investments being made: in basic food production, where rural women most often work, or in export agriculture? If men are forced to migrate to earn cash or to join
militaries, how do women cope with the labor requirements needed to sustain food production and maintain infrastructure?
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AT: POOR QUALITY OF LIFE

( ) Wrong – sufficient resources to allow anyone to enjoy western standards
Pessimists now tell us that all these new people won't ever be able to enjoy Western standards of living. Said a United Nations
committee in 1996: "Continued growth in per capita consumption to levels currently enjoyed by the developed countries for a
future global population of 10-12 billion is clearly not sustainable." But they're dead wrong. There is simply no reason why all of
us, including people in the poorest countries, shouldn't be able to drive a Mercedes eventually. In the future, most Chinese will
likely have cars, nicer houses, and all the familiar goodies to go with them. It isn't just that the amount of iron ore in the earth's
crust is vastly greater than what would be needed to make the three billion or so motor cars for equipping the world: it's that
quantities of this or that have very little to do with it. We make cars out of whatever works best, and what that might be in the
farther future is impossible to predict.
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AT: WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF SPACE
(__) There is plenty of land for the people in the world
Doomsters often argue that the amount of available land places a constraint on population growth. They speculate
that a rising population eventually will run out of places to live. After all, the Earth is finite in size, and the more
people inhabiting the planet, the less space there is for everyone.
Running out of habitable space may be a physical possibility, but, for all practical purposes, it is a meaningless
concern. If the entire population of the world were placed in the state of Alaska, each individual would receive
nearly 3,500 square feet of space--about one-half the size of the average American homestead with front and back
yards. Alaska, although the U.S.'s largest state, comprises a mere one percent of the Earth's land mass.
( ) We aren’t running out of space – increasing parks and concentration of growth

Of course, resource limitations and the like are not necessarily the only concern related to population. Some worry about the
preservation of open spaces. Since almost all population growth in growing countries is urban rather than rural, however, it is
doubtful that open space is threatened. And there is the fact, as Julian Simon points out, that the park system in the United States--
the same is true in Canada--has grown so dramatically that despite a population in North America vastly greater than a hundred
years ago, North Americans have far greater access to wilderness than their ancestors.
( ) More people means more creativity which accelerates the timeframe on our tech arguments
Most Malthusian arguments simply don't hold water, in short. Almost all the advanced countries' populations would be declining if not for immigration. (Canada in
particular can plausibly be argued to be one of the most spectacularly underpopulated countries in the world. Yet the government of Ontario does its best to prevent
the conversion of "prime agricultural land" to much more profitable urban uses. It would be hard to think of a more rational move for a country like this.) What we
have to remember is that more people means more minds, more creative energy. Unless the normal tendencies of those people toward
productive work and creative effort are too severely repressed, the net effect will be more of the good things in life, for everybody.
You have to be something less than humanistically inclined to regard that as a "crisis."
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AT: PLANET TOO SMALL

( ) Planet is big enough – no population explosion
Myth #1: “Population growth is adding overwhelming numbers of humans to a small planet.” In fact, even though we cluster
together to exchange goods and services, humans occupy only 1-3% of the earth’s land surface. If you allotted 1250 ft2 to each
person, all the people in the world would fit into the state of Texas. But forecasts of eventual world population size have been
steadily falling. In 1992, the World Bank predicted 10 billion by the year 2050. In 1996, the UN predicted 9 billion. If the observed
trend continues, the next estimate will be much lower.
195

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MIAMI 2007

THE CATCH-ALL CARD:

1NC SHELL LONG

1NC SHELL LONG

AND, A POPULATION INCREASE LEADS TO AN OVERSHOOT OF OUR CARRYING CAPACITY – A

1NC SHELL – LONG

AND, OVERSHOOT LEADS TO COMPLETE GLOBAL EXTINCTION THROUGH NUCLEAR

THE ONE-CARD SHELL

LACK OF A POPULATION CRASH  INEVITABLE POPULATION OVERSHOOT – LEADS TO

2NC UNIQUENESS RUN

mainly from Africa, already the poorest continent.

AND, THE POPULATION IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA CONTINUES TO GROW

UNIQUENESS – POPULATION WILL CONTINUE TO GROW

(__) Population growth is occurring in developing countries

(__) The global population is growing by 80 million per year

(__) WORLD’S POPULATION WILL CONTINUE TO EXPAND – DEVELOPING NATIONS MOST

UNIQUENESS – POPULATION WILL CONTINUE TO GROW

UNIQUENESS – CARRYING CAPACITY AT LIMIT

The global carrying capacity has already been reached

(__) Unsustainable population increase is inevitable

AND, WE ARE EXCEEDING THE EARTH’S CARRYING CAPACITY

UNIQUENESS – CARRYING CAPACITY AT LIMIT

(__) POPULATION SURGES HAS PUT CARRYING CAPACITY AT BRINK

UNIQUENESS – RESOURCE SHORTAGES

Climate change is causing a decrease in water supply in sub-Saharan Africa

(__) AVAILABLE GRAIN IS DECREASING

(__) NO NEW LAND – HAS DECREASED GRAIN PRODUCTION

AND, INCREASING LAND PRODUCTIVITY WILL NOT YIELD MORE GRAIN

UNIQUENESS – WATER SHORTAGES

(__) WATER SUPPLIES SHRINKING

(__) WATER TABLES ON EVERY CONTINENT IS FALLING

(__) AMOUNT OF AVAILABLE WATER WILL CONTINUE TO FALL

UNIQUENESS – AFRICA POPULATION INCREASING

(__) AFRICA CONTINUES TO EXPAND ITS POPULATION

AND, AFRICA POPULATION CONTINUES TO RISE

UNIQUENESS – AFRICA POPULATION INCREASING

(__) AFRICAN POPULATION GROWTH IS DEPLETING AGRICULTURAL CAPACITY

Fertility rates still increasing in sub-Saharan Africa

The highest birth rates are in sub-Saharan Africa

NOW IS KEY TIME

BRINKS – WORLD CAN NOT SUSTAIN

AT: LOWER FERTILITY RATES

(__) FERTILITY RATES ARE NOT DECLINING IN MANY COUNTRIES

AND, ANY DECLINE IN FERTILITY HAS BEEN UNEVEN

AND, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA’S FERTILITY RATES HAVE DECLINED VERY SLOWLY

LINK HELPERS – LINEARITY

(__) EACH PERSON SAVED  MORE DAMAGE TO THE PLANET

(__) MUST SLOW POPULATION GROWTH TO AVOID ALL IMPACTS

AND, EMPIRICALLY, LOWER MORTALITY RATES HAVE A LARGER IMPACT ON POPULATION

(__) LOWER MORTALITY RATES  POPULATION EXPLOSION

(__) DECLINING DEATH RATES  POPULATION EXPANSION

LINKS – REVERSING DEATH CHECKS

(__) Decreasing death checks means a population boom.

LINKS – FOREIGN AID

(__) Large-scale aid encourages population increases

(__) TECHNOLOGY MAGNIFIES THE LINK – IT PROLONGS THE SUFFERING BECAUSE IT

(__) PUBLIC HEALTH ASSISTANCE  DECREASE MORTALITY RATES IN AFRICA – MOST

(__) DISEASE SPREAD IS KEY TO CHECKING POPULATION EXPANSION

2NC AIDS LINK RUN

AND, AIDS DECREASES FERTILITY RATES – REDUCES FERTILITY OF INFECTED WOMEN

(__) AIDS IS OFFSETTING INCREASING BIRTH RATES – STABILIZING AFRICAN POPULATION

(__) AIDS HAS REVERSED THE INCREASING LIFE EXPECTANCY IN AFRICA

(__) The AIDS epidemic has been over-estimated

(__) SOLVING TB REDUCES A DEATH CHECK BY MILLIONS OF LIVES