Chapter 13 Chapter Summary

Chapter Overview

The human population affects our natural environment (the natural processes that affect us as animals—land fertility, soil nutrients, water, and the sun). The world’s population has unfolded in two stages. The first was a long, extended period of slow growth from the time humans first appeared to the mid-1700s. The second was a brief period of explosive growth after the mid-1700s. But the issue of population growth has nearly resolved itself through demographic transition, the shift in demographic patterns from high birth and low death rates to low birth and high death rates. Thomas Malthus was one of the early thinkers on population growth and he developed the idea that a population growing exponentially at a constant rate adds more people every year than the year before. Malthus was concerned about populations outgrowing the food supply, so he reasoned that positive checks (famine, pestilent, and disease) would prevent overpopulation by increasing the death rate. Conversely, preventative checks (abortion, infanticide, delayed marriage, etc.) limit the number of live births. Other thinkers believe that the largest problem facing humanity is population density: the number of people who live within a certain geographical area. As a general rule, growth in population density has increased with economic development: the increase in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy over a period of time.

Other problems with cities include the loss of Gemeinschaft (social relationships based on close ties), which Ferdinand Tönnies saw as the characteristics of a typical rural community. By contrast, Tönnies believed that cities exhibited Gesellschaft, relationships that are impersonal and brief. To further complicate the matter, the rise of suburbanization blurred the line between cities and rural communities. Suburbanization is the process where lower-density housing spreads into once-rural regions surrounding the city core. Similar to Tönnies, Émilie Durkheim labelled the tight-knit, homogenous social order of the rural society mechanical solidarity and the interdependent, rather than intimate relationships of the industrial society, organic solidarity.

Populations necessarily affect the natural environment. The cornucopia view of nature supports the idea that nature exists solely to store resources that are necessary for humans. Alternatively, the growth ethic celebrates the ability of technology to solve all of the world’s problems. So long as we indulge in the invention, production, and consumption of new items, our world will improve. The concept of individualism promotes the individual’s needs and desires over that of the collective community. This leads to the tragedy of the commons, the idea that market-based economies work best when left alone, even if this results in excessive exploitation of natural resources. Beyond individuals, companies also exploit ecologically conscious shoppers by greenwashing, the process of pretending that their products are more ecologically friendly than they actually are.