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narios, a massive worldwide famine is just around the cor-
ner.

The number of people would keep increasing while the
amount of available food would stay the same or even de-
cline. The inevitable result, the experts argued, was fam-
ine by the early 1980s at the latest. The only way to lessen
the severity of the impending disaster was to adopt strict
policies to control population. Today, many of those predic-
tions could be right around the corner as world population
has increased many times and severe repercussions are
inevitable if population growth continues at such rates.

Concern that population growth would strain resources is current problems with ecosystem health. He believes that
a worry that goes back literally thousands of years ago. The population growth is highly correlated with greenhouse
most prominent advocate of this view in more recent his- warming, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, and other
tory was of Rev. Thomas Malthus who became famous for environmental disasters. He believes this happens because
his 18th century book, 'Essay on the Principle of Popula- humans interrelates with the world's ecosystem, but as the
tion'. Malthus predicted that the growing European popu- number of humans' increases this interaction begins to tax
lation would quickly outstrip available resources. the ecosystem beyond its capacity.

Many of Malthus' immediate concerns about population Pierre R. Crosson and Kenneth D. Frederick (1977) express
growth and the possibility of the world reaching its carry- their fears about growing populations in their book,'The
ing capacity quickly were rendered obsolete with the World Food Situation'. They attribute the entire world's food
emerging industrial revolution. Agricultural advances that production and distribution problems to two ominous
allowed the speed of food production to continue to stay in trends- the addition of millions of already starving and mal-
front of population growth is beginning to be a major con- nourished people each year and their dependence upon
cern to population experts worldwide. In many areas food imported food to support their inadequate amounts of food
production has fallen behind population growth and has production.
resulted in dire consequences.
The problem is most acute in developing regions where two-
Biologist Paul Ehrlich and his wife are the most authorita- thirds of the developing countries are unable to meet their
tive source on 20th century population trends and their food demands. They believe that this problem is only going
effects on agriculture, environment and health. Ehrlich to worsen because the lower-income countries, not includ-
(1969) picked up where Malthus had left off with his book, ing communist countries, account for 83 percent of the
'The Population Bomb'. Ehrlich combined the ideas of world population growth.This trend is only going to
Malthus and others with sensationalistic imagery about the continue until these countries can produce more for
horrors of a world with too many people. The Population themselves or get more from other countries, ¾ both of
Bomb predicted that millions of people would starve to which they have been unable to do in the past.
death in the 1970s following an inevitable crash of the glo-
bal food supply.

Dwindling natural resources such as oil would soon be used All the sources we were able to locate agreed that popula-
up and the world would run a real risk of returning to a tion growth is a serious problem and if allowed to go un-
pre-industrial dark age. Also of concern to Ehrlich are the checked will only get worse. It seemed that the majority of

“The attention economy is not growing, which means we have to grab the attention that someone else has today.”

PR COMMUNICATION AGE February 2016 19

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