Why do some analysts say 20th century thinking about the dangers of population growth was wrong?
Because of ‘Malthusian’ projections that there would not be enough food to go round for a world population of 5 billion or more. Some of these fears proved over-pessimistic in the short term. But many would argue they are coming true now, with world population at 6.3 billion and still growing by nearly 80 million a year. Two of the main topics at the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg in 2002 were a worsening shortage of fresh water supplies and rapidly declining fish stocks worldwide. (Cod stocks have failed in Newfoundland and were in 2002 on the verge of failure in the North Sea, for example.) And according to the World Food Programme, 800 million people on Earth already suffer chronic malnutrition. In some areas of the world the proportion of a population suffering has been reduced. In real numbers, however, more people worldwide are suffering from malnutrition than ever before. The reasons given (for example, poverty, bad distribution networks, or bad governme
