Timeline of Works

Here is a very brief timeline of some of the big works on overpopulation and the idea of limits to the Earth's carrying capacity:

 

1798 Thomas Malthus, 'An Essay on the Principle of Population'

He predicted that mankind would outgrow the Earth's resources and that a finite amount of land was incapable of supporting the exponentially increasing population

                

         

1874 George Perkins Marsh, 'The Earth as Modified by Human Action'

He was seen as one of the first American conservatives.

 

1968 Paul Ehrlich, 'The Population Bomb'

Some of Ehrlich's predictions were quite extreme and for this he has been criticised. For example he wrote that there would be mass starvation in the 70s and 80s. However he maintains he was even optimistic and that perhaps because his book was so alarming, people took heed and thus the 80s were not as drastic as he predicted.

 

1994 (recent update 2004) Donnella and Dennis Meadows; Jørgen Randlers and William W. Behrens III, 'The Limits to Growth'

This study by the club of Rome used a computer model to simulate alternative scenarios in order to make forecasts. Most scenarios depicted ongoing population and economic growth until a turning point in around 2030. It proposed that only drastic measures for environmental protection proved to be enough to change system behaviour but that the necessary political measures weren't being taken.