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Examination of some recent trends also reveals that after two hundred years of demographic history, a few of Malthus’ key claims are indeed sustained. To be sure, the exponential nature of human population growth in the past few centuries is quite clear.

That growth is roughly shown in Figure 2.2. Where the world at the time of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago contained only 300 million people, today it holds more than 7 billion, more than a 20-fold increase, most of which occurred in only the last century.

Figure 2.2 World population since 1750. Rapid increases in recent decades reflect exponential growth. Source: Source: Modified from Demeny, P. (1990). Population. In B.L. Turner, W.C. Clark, R. Kates, et al. (eds.) The Earth as Transformed by Human Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

So even while there are numerous profound limits and problems in this formulation (and more as we will see below), the arguments of Malthus and his present-day followers certainly raise questions about the relationship between society and environment and the nature of resource scarcity, its possible inevitability, and our capacity to overcome it.