POLS 3370 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Doubling Time, Demographic Transition, Carrying Capacity

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 3370
• Professor: Craig Johnson

Document Summary

Neo-malthusians: humans are part of ecosystems, the ability of ecosystems to produce renewable resources and assimilate waste is finite, human population growth is a problem, humans are inherently competitive and conflictual. Prometheans: natural resources, ecosystems, nature do not exist, humans create resources, matter is transformable, humans are inherently dominant and competitive, like to study how systems develop over time, demographic transition model. Tragedy of the commons: open access, lack of trust, no rules, lack of incentive to conserve. Poverty and population: malthusian perspectives: carrying capacity and the poor. Inability to exercise restraint: for example, poor people cannot say no to sex, natural checks, e. g. famine, social welfare, only delays the inevitable. Doubling time: doubling time is increasing, population growth is growing rapidly. Economic growth: countries of high population growth are also expected to see high rates of economic growth. Increased population growth results in high youth populations accompanied by early life expectancies.